Oof! As the news of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck‘s slow-moving divorce continues to roll out, we’ve all been asking what went wrong?
But what if we’re all asking the wrong question? What if this was never supposed to have a happy ending? What if it was all just… an ending? What if Bennifer 2.0 was just a post-script for Bennifer’s first go??
That seems to be the prevailing opinion among some folks in the couple’s social circle! They say Ben and Jen just couldn’t get one another out of their heads all these years — through marriages, kids, heartbreaks, rock bottoms… But not because they were endgame like so many of us thought. They just had “unfinished business.”
Related: Kim Kardashian & Pete Davidson Might Be Giving Love Another Shot!
One friend told Page Six when they started talking again they jumped headfirst because all the feelings were pent up from wondering “what if” for 20 years:
“They got caught up in the moment. Jennifer had wanted this wedding — the gowns, the friends, all the trappings and trimmings — for decades.”
Obviously the relationship didn’t work — heck, it only lasted a couple years, brief even by Hollywood standards. But while that’s heartbreaking, it’s also… cathartic? They had to go through with it, the wedding, the whole thing that they didn’t get the first time around, in order to know for sure. Now they do. The friend explained:
“They’ve turned the page on all the unfinished business of 20 plus years ago. They’ve seen things through to the end — and they know for sure now that they are not built for the long haul. No further unanswered questions. They’ve seen all they need to see, and it’s over.”
Sounds like that thing when you finally hook up with a high school crush or get back together with an old boyfriend, and it lasts for about a week before you want to kill each other. Sometimes you get a chance like that, and it helps you realize you were never each other’s “one that got away” — you just never had the chance to understand why it couldn’t work. And tbh? We recommend it. You get to stop wondering what if and look to the future.
As the friend put it, with the mansions and Prime Video documentaries and Super Bowl ads and TWO weddings, this is a much, much pricier version of that:
“In the end, it’s gonna be the most elaborate and expensive exercise in closure ever.”
But it worked! They’re looking to the future, says the friend:
“Ben’s found his new home, Jen’s about to select hers. It’s absolutely done and there is zero interest, inclination or reason to turn back.”
Well, if that’s true then why is the divorce taking so long? Hmm.
What do YOU think, Perezcious readers??
[Image via MEGA/WENN/Amazon/YouTube.]
