Jennifer Garner once “panicked” about her financial stability shortly after her marriage to Ben Affleck came to an end.
During an episode of the “Aspire with Emma Grede” podcast, Garner — who shares three children with Affleck — opened up about her past fear that she would no longer be able to financially support herself and her children post-divorce and explained how she pushed through.
“I panicked when I was first out of my marriage and realized I had taken such a step back in my work,” said Garner. “Suddenly I realized I don’t know how long I’ll be able to work. This isn’t a career that’s like, ‘Hey, you’re 60, you’re 55, you’re 43, come on, let’s pay you more than you’ve ever made.’ You know what I mean? That’s not been traditionally the role. I was suddenly like, ‘Wait a minute, I have to take care of myself, I have to take care of these kids. So what is it going to be?'”
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Garner said this was the time in her life where she couldn’t pick up and leave for months at a time for a movie shoot. She had to be in Los Angeles for her children.
“I can’t leave these kids for six months at a time,” she said. “I would love to. I love going on location, but it’s not this time in my career.”
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Affleck and Garner met on the set of 2001’s “Pearl Harbor,” but didn’t spark a romantic relationship until 2004, after starring alongside one another in the 2003 film “Daredevil.” They married in 2005, but eventually called it quits in 2015.
“I was so lucky to be able to luxuriate and working some and being home and being a mom a lot of time,” Garner said. “I was really grateful for that opportunity. I got to kind of have the best of both worlds, so I can’t really look back and complain about any of it … it is what it is.”
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“It’s not like you can just unfamous yourself. Life is expensive, and you still have to figure out how you’re going to live,” she added. “Just because you’re well known by people does not mean that there is some great living being provided for you, and it became very serious to me, very quickly as someone who has never given a lot of thought to money, like, ‘Oh I need to be an earner here.'”
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Two years after her divorce, Garner became a co-founder of the organic children’s food company, Once Upon A Farm.
Earlier this year, the “Alias” actress opened up about the “upheaval” that consumed her and their three children amid her very public split from Affleck.
“When my kids were little, I worked so little, and then we had such an upheaval in our family, that I really hardly worked for a long time,” she told the outlet.
While balancing her work and professional life, Garner said she learned there is beauty in imperfection.
“You have to raise yourself at the same time. And just be so radically kind to yourself about how imperfect it is,” she said of trying to navigate life as a working mom of three. “And that it is just going to be imperfect. There’s no such thing as balance. There’s no such thing as doing it right. And when the big moments happen, you are okay, and that’s on you to know and understand so your child feels your okayness.”
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While expressing that same sentiment, Garner further opened up about the sacrifices made while raising their three children together.
“When your kids grow up in two separate households, I become mom and dad, and he becomes dad and mom,” said Garner. “You kind of can’t help it, right? Because you don’t have the benefit of both sides, the yin and yang being in the same house, so you have to have a bit of both in the way you parent.”
“There’s a little bit of loss in that, but there’s also something gained in that,” she added. “You also just learn, it’s made me let go and not focus so much on the bringing up.”
