Jennifer Lopez & Ben Affleck Are Making This Smart Move Amid Their Reported Separation

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s reported separation has taken over the headlines, but they aren’t letting their marital struggles distract them from what they need to do. The couple is taking time to assess their individual needs during this difficult moment in their relationship — the hope is that they can work on themselves and find a way to come together again.

That’s why an Entertainment Tonight source is reminding fans that “Jen and Ben’s relationship is not over yet.” They are giving each other space by “staying in separate homes” because “the tension has been high.” By doing this, it allows them to “figure out what each of them is going through and wants” because, sadly, “both of them have been very down.” For Lopez, she’s been experiencing challenges in her career with disappointing ticket sales for her upcoming This Is Me… Now tour and the reception to her passion projects on Amazon Prime, including the documentary that featured Affleck, The Greatest Love Story Never Told.

From the sounds of it, Lopez and Affleck have been spread too thin trying to manage “taking care of their families and their work commitments.” Their blended families are busy — he shares three children with ex-wife Jennifer Garner: Violet, 18, Fin, 15, and Samuel, 12, and she shares 16-year-old twins Max and Emme with ex-husband Marc Anthony. Their careers are also taking them in different directions as Lopez spent most of the winter and early spring in New York with her movie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, while Affleck filmed The Accountant 2 in Los Angeles.

Other insiders believe that Lopez and Affleck approach issues in their marriage so differently that there seems to be no middle ground keeping them together. “When Ben’s having a problem, you can see it all over his face and he does want to talk about it and hash it out, but it can be exhausting,” a source told The Sun. “That’s not the world Jennifer lives in most of the day. She’s all about winning, not pain, and she’s still determined to have this fairy tale ending with Ben, at any cost.”

It remains to be seen whether these A-list stars, who have had two chapters to their love story, will be able to write their happy ending. It took 17 years to get them back together, but it took less than three years to drive them apart. It seems like some of the issues that were crucial to their split the first time around still haunt them two decades later.

Before you go, click here to see a complete timeline of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s relationship.