Jennifer Garner talks 's*** going down' in the middle of her life... on 11-year anniversary of Ben Affleck marriage ending

Jennifer Garner has made headlines ever since she separated from Ben Affleck exactly 11 years ago in June 2015.

Thousands of stories were written about how she had to become a single mother to their three children - Violet, 20, Seraphina (now Finn), 17, and Samuel, 13 - while Affleck did his own thing.

So her fans could relate when she told Emmy magazine, 'By the time you’re in the middle of your life, some s*** has gone down.'

The 54-year-old actress was promoting her new series The Five Star Weekend which also stars Chloe Sevigny, Regina Hall, D’Arcy Carden and Gemma Chan.

Garner added that midlife struggles are a big part of the new show as the characters have plenty to deal with.

'So, they all show up with hurt and grief. And in the privacy and the messiness of just sitting in each other’s stew of sisterhood, there’s room for all of it to come out and be explored,' she added.

Garner plays Hollis Shaw who is devastated by the sudden death of her husband. 

To distract herself from the grief, she asks a select group of friends to come to her summer home for a little R&R. 

Garner said she loved the role: 'When I read the pilot script, I felt like, "Oh, I would be so heartbroken to see anyone else play this role."'

And the Alias veteran loved working with the cast: 'We were all so relaxed with each other and open.'

Sevigny plays Tatum who was handed a potentially scary medical diagnosis.

Hall is the no-filter sports agent Dru-Ann, Cohen plays Brooke who has marital issues, and Chan is a British pilot Gigi.

Garner's best friend Judy Greer has a smaller role as a social climber named Electra.

Also in the cast is Garner's Catch And Release costar Timothy Olyphant as well as David Denman, Josh Hamilton, Harlow Jane and West Duchovny, who is the daughter of David Duchovny.

The Five Star Weekend is an eight-episode television miniseries premiering on July 9, 2026.

This comes after Garner's rare comments about the situation she found herself in when she split from her husband, Affleck, in 2015.

The star told InStyle magazine that the breakup was a 'family upheaval' that forced her to hunker down at home.

The actress had to do more pickups and drop-offs at school and meal preparation for their three children.

Meanwhile, Affleck starred in hit films like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Accountant around the time the family broke up.

Garner and Affleck finalized their divorce in 2018. 

Now that the kids are older, she is able to really 'indulge' in acting, which she says she gets great joy from.

'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,' shared the West Virginia native.

But now she has time to do more projects, which she says she is very happy about: 'I'm also really grateful to have this part of my life back.

'[It's a gift] to have this year and a half where I just indulged [in acting], because this job is very selfish,' she noted.

'It's all about your schedule. It's not about what the kids have going on at school. It's not about pickups and drop-offs and making it home for dinner.'

And she wants to work now because she is not getting any younger. She said, 'I'm 54, I'm not going to be able to do it forever.

'When I work, I don't apologize to my kids for it,' said the Los Angeles resident who starred in two seasons of The Last Thing He Told Me.

'I so thank them for being so sweet about it. But that's part of life. Working hard is part of life, and messing up is part of life. Tripping and falling - there's room for all of it,' she said.