PEOPLE has the exclusive first photos of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner since they announced their divorce. They were taken in exclusive Baker’s Bay, where, as I reported last week, they were previously on family holiday together in March. Click here for a refresher. As I noted in that post, even though the claims now are that they’ve been separated for 10 months, they certainly didn’t separate at the time. Every day, PEOPLE has been publishing multiple articles analysing the Affleck-Garner split, always careful to note that there was no cataclysmic event, that the two grew apart, that they want different things, that their priority is their children. And these photos, of the two of them sitting side by side by the beach, would suggest that they are keeping it as amicable as possible, even though, sh-t, do they ever look uncomfortable. Gwyneth and Chris never looked this uncomfortable. But then again, Ben and Jen have been looking uncomfortable for months. Here’s how the “onlooker”, aka the pap who took these shots, describes the scene:
In a moment away from Violet, 9, Seraphina, 6, and Samuel, 3, Affleck – who was still wearing his wedding ring – and Garner sat on stairs to the beach together but had "no physical contact" while having a "serious" and somber conversation that lasted for only a few minutes, an onlooker tells PEOPLE.
Though Affleck, 42, appeared to be "distracted" during the conversation, he and Garner, 43, "seemed to be cordial to each other. They would look at each other and speak and then both look away in silence," the onlooker adds. "A lot of the time, they seemed to just stare off into space."
There are many reasons for a spouse’s absence, beyond work. There are many reasons a person can let down his/her marriage. My sources tell me that for Jennifer Garner, it was a combination of Ben’s “distractions”. Some of those distractions she had endured, and was willing to go on enduring. Other distractions were a lot more dangerous. You might say then that her role now is more like a friend, to help him get his sh-t together. Click here to see the new photos.
