Ben Affleck Knew ‘Within 10 Minutes’ That Jennifer Lopez Would Be a Good Mother

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez brought their children together when they married in 2022. He said he always knew she’d be a good mom

In 2003, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were planning to get married and start a family. While Affleck avoided sharing their wedding date in interviews, he spoke openly about his desire to have children with Lopez. Affleck said that she was the first person to make him realize he wanted to have children. He spoke about why he knew she would be a good mother.

When Affleck and Lopez met on the set of Gigli, she was still married to her second husband, Cris Judd. Affleck said that as a result, he had no intention of pursuing her romantically. When he did develop feelings for her, he said he knew very quickly that he wanted to have children with her. She was the first person to make him feel this way.

This is something I would do if Jen was a teacher and I was working construction in Boston,” he told Vanity Fair. “Jen and I want to get married for the reason everyone else does: we fell in love. I’m in love; I want to have a family; and she’s the only person I’ve ever met who made me entertain the thought of doing that. You know within 10 minutes of meeting Jen that she’ll be a good mother.”

Affleck said that in some ways, Lopez reminded him of his own mother.

“Though the heavens fall, she’ll be a good mother,” he said. “My father said the same thing about my mother, who was a world-class-Olympian mother.”

While Affleck and Lopez called off their 2003 wedding and never had children together, they both went on to start families with other people. Lopez had two children with Marc Anthony and Affleck had three children with Jennifer Garner. When Lopez and Affleck got back together and married in 2022, they brought their children together.

“The transition is a process that needs to be handled with so much care,” she told Vogue. “They have so many feelings. They’re teens. But it’s going really well so far.”

Lopez said that she hoped to be an ally to Affleck’s children.

What I hope to cultivate with our family is that his kids have a new ally in me and my kids have a new ally in him, someone who really loves and cares about them but can have a different perspective and help me see things that I can’t see with my kids because I’m so emotionally tied up.”

I’ll stress to them, like, I want you to do well in school and then my son always finishes the sentence,” she said. “He goes, ‘But you care more that we’re good people.’ I say, ‘That’s right. I do.’ The beauty of being a parent is that you think you’re going to teach them all these things, and you do. You pass on all the things that you know, all the knowledge you have.”