The marriage may be over, but you never stop picking up the pieces
As Jennifer Garner stages an intervention for ex-husband Ben Affleck, Flic Everett looks at whether she has ‘saviour complex’
Wedding vows are supposedly redundant when a couple splits up – all that “in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer” business surely becomes less valid when he’s cheated on you with the nanny. But for actress Jennifer Garner, a three-year separation from faithless husband Ben Affleck is no reason to leave him in the lurch when he needs her. This week, she staged an intervention and drove him to rehab, after he’d spent a week “partying” with a Playboy model. “He asked her to take him and she wanted to be there for him,” said a source as she was pictured driving a dishevelled Affleck away.
Garner is either a soft touch, or a loving ex-wife who believes she can save her troubled ex. And she is not the first woman who still feels in some way responsible for her former husband – regardless of how badly they behaved at the end of their marriage. As we reach our forties and fifties, divorce becomes commonplace in many social circles, and plenty of us have shaken our heads as a sensible, confident woman drops everything to rush to the aid of her ex – or even interrupts a dinner party to talk him painstakingly through how his new washing machine works (yes, this happened). Perhaps we’ve even done it ourselves.
“I don’t speak to my ex much,” says my friend Shona*, 46. “It was a really difficult break-up, and we don’t have children, so we agreed it was better we both move on. But last winter, he texted me about something in the news he thought I’d be interested in. I replied, then he mentioned he had flu and was in quite a bad way.” Some (including me) might have thought this was not Shona’s problem, but the ties that bind after 17 years of marriage are not easy to break. “He was on his own and I felt sad for him. I ended up going around with soup and paracetamol and persuading him to get dressed so I could take him to the GP,” she says.
Of course, she was in no way obliged to do this – “but when you’ve loved someone a long time, it’s like a muscle memory; it’s very hard to suddenly switch off that sense of caring and responsibility”. Since then, she adds, they have texted and occasionally speak on the phone. “We’ll never be best friends, but I prefer knowing how he’s doing,” she says. “The idea of something major happening in his life and me not knowing is too weird.”
“Exes will have a bond based on many shared experiences and memories, particularly if children or grandchildren are involved,” says psychologist Dr Victoria Galbraith. “They fell in love for a reason and those qualities will remain – so it’s normal to still care about one another.”
Having children together, as Affleck and Garner do, is another compelling reason to join the First Wives Club for Concerned Exes. Mutual love for the offspring cements the well-documented friendships between Demi Moore and ex Bruce Willis, and, of course, conscious uncouplers Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. But there is a difference, admits my friend Tara, 44, between staying pals on an equal footing, and suddenly becoming your ex-husband’s surrogate carer, forever rushing to his aid.
“I was shell shocked when Paul left me four years ago,” she says. “He had an affair and, though I was deeply hurt, we’d been together since we were at university, and I thought it was a midlife crisis thing. We were having therapy, and I believed it was a bump in a long road.” Instead, he told Tara he couldn’t go on and left her and their children, Milo, 11, and Cara, nine, sobbing on the doorstep. “It was all hugely traumatic,” she says. “My friends kept telling me he was a terrible person and I was better off without him – but that was not how I felt.”
When Paul and his lover broke up three months later, she says, “He rang me to say how devastated he felt by everything that had happened, and I admit, it felt wonderful to be needed again after being so horribly rejected.”
“Friends” once again, she helped him move into his new flat – “I said I wanted to check it was OK for the kids
‘It felt wonderful to be needed again after being so horribly rejected’
to stay there, but truthfully, I also felt I could help him to make it nicer. I even did his first Ocado shop for him, bought some nice flowers and a vase to put them in. He didn’t have a clue.”
She denies, however, that she is still in love with him. “I’m seeing someone else now, but Paul and I grew up together, and he’s the father of my children. I want him to be happy.”
Does it go both ways? “I haven’t really asked Paul for anything,” she admits. “But he’s a good dad and I’m OK with that.”
The question is, however, why so many intelligent, otherwise strong feminist women are willing to drop everything for their ex-husbands. Remaining civilised like Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew, is perfectly reasonable, particularly when children are involved – but taking responsibility for your ex’s problems, thinks my friend Ruth, 52, is an entirely different matter.
“One of the reasons behind [the break-up] was his drinking,” says Ruth. “Simon is a stressed-out exec and he went from ‘relaxing’ with a bottle of red every evening to drinking at lunchtime, drinking all weekend… so when we broke up, I was glad it was no longer my problem.”
It became so, however, when Ruth’s daughter, Maya, 19, returned from visiting her father one weekend. “She was crying – she said Simon was drinking non-stop and had been signed off work with depression. He isn’t a man who has close friends, and there’s no family nearby. I felt I had to intervene.”
Though she stopped short of driving him to rehab, Ruth went around. “The house was a mess, and he could barely get out of bed. He knew he needed help, and I persuaded him to see his doctor. He’s now quit drinking and goes to AA.” She is wary, however, of becoming his emotional crutch. “It’s difficult when you know somebody inside out. We are apart now, and I remind myself that Simon is not my project – he’s a grown man.” There is, as many of these first wives quickly realise, a thin line between helping and enabling.
Another rude awakening for first wives is the realisation that looking after your ex is all very well – until it becomes someone else’s job, and you’re redundant again. Dr Galbraith agrees: “There are many separated and divorced couples who manage to maintain a healthy and fulfilling friendship – but being there in times of need is different to feeling so attached that it’s hard to let go.”
“Matt lived around the corner after our divorce,” says Sarah, 54, a charity worker. “He would often come for supper – we were still friendly and I had kept the house, so it seemed fair that I hosted him. I got used to advising him on work, and his love life, and we’d laugh about his awful dates.” Then he had a date that wasn’t awful.
“He fell in love,” says Sarah. “I pretended I was OK with it all, but it hurt. I realised I couldn’t talk to him about Jenny, his new partner. It was inappropriate. Since they got together, we have drifted apart and now, I assume, he confides in her.”
Which is, perhaps, exactly as it should be.
*Names have been changed