They’ve been best friends for years, so we imagine Ben Affleck has a lot of respect for Matt Damon and his opinions. So spare a thought for Ben as an insider tells Closer Matt has raised concerns over Ben’s relationship with Jennifer Lopez. On the face of it, he’s got everything he’s ever wanted: he’s finally settled with the one that – for a long while – got away, he’s got a great relationship with the mother of his three kids, his career’s riding high, and he’s got friends that go back to where it all began.

But behind the façade, sources say he’s struggling to assert himself when it comes to his relationship with wife Jennifer Lopez, 54 – and it’s not only causing tension with her (something which we’ve seen traces of on and off the red carpet), but, what’s more, it’s landing him in hot water with his very best friend, Matt Damon. According to insiders, Matt can’t bear to see Ben under the apparent thumb of his superstar wife and is urging him to put his foot down in their marriage. But Ben is far from pleased to receive Matt’s very much unsolicited advice, and it’s creating a massive wedge between the once inseparable besties.

“Seeing Ben out posing on one red carpet after another, totally playing up his role as J-Lo’s arm candy makes Matt nauseous,” says an insider close the long-term besties, who first made friends as schoolkids in Cambridge, Massachusetts more than 40 years ago. “He can’t bite his tongue, and isn’t afraid to speak his truth to Ben, and the latter usually takes it well, but this time – when Matt started giving Ben some advice about his marriage and suggesting Jen was emasculating him – Ben totally blew up. He’s now started to pull back. This is not a good time in their friendship.”

Having met at the tender ages of eight and 10 respectively, Ben, 51, and Matt, 53, have always been a constant and incredibly significant presence in each other’s lives. They both discovered a love for acting around the same time, and even started travelling to auditions in New York City together in their teens. Then, of course, both their lives changed forever after they co-wrote and co-starred in the 1997 hit film Good Will Hunting, subsequently winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Since then, they’ve been with each other every step of the way – supporting one another both personally and professionally as they’ve seen their careers reach stratospheric heights, have become fathers, and have also dealt with personal struggles along the way (most notably, Ben’s battles with alcoholism). As Ben told his bestie in a 2022 Entertainment Weekly conversation, “This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to my life…I don’t think I would’ve been able to be successful without it.”

And so, it apparently stings all the more that – all these years later – the BFFs are locking horns when it comes to Ben’s love life. After all, having been on the scene when Ben first met Jen over 20 years ago, Matt knows just how much she means to him. The couple better known as Bennifer first got engaged in 2002, before splitting in 2004 and going on to have children with their now ex-spouses (Ben shares Seraphina, 18, Violet, 14, and Samuel, 11, with his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, while J-Lo has twins Max and Emme, 15 with ex-husband Marc Antony). Having apparently long held a candle for one another, the former flames made all our showbiz romance dreams come true when they reunited in 2021 and finally got married in Las Vegas in 2022.

However, since then, their rekindled romance has been plagued with rumours that – despite their happy veneers – they’re often butting heads. Over the past year, they’ve been repeatedly pictured snapping at each other in public – starting when they famously shared a heated exchange at the Grammy Awards in February, when Jen was seen telling Ben, “Look more friendly, look motivated”. Since then, they’ve been seen on more than one occasion having apparently heated exchanges in their car, and even on the red carpet. They’ve both laughed off rumours of tension and have upped their PDA displays in response – most recently, at ELLE’s Women in Hollywood celebration, where Ben was in supporting Jen, who was being honoured on the night. But sources have still said that – given they both have strong and dominant personalities – they’re often at loggerheads, with one source recently telling heat, “The honeymoon phase is completely over. They still love each other and want to make it work, but all their issues are coming up and they’re both very stubborn people, so they’re clashing all the time.”

But what’s worrying Matt, we’re told, is that it always seems to be Ben who’s compromising, and – rather than focusing on his own goals and needs – he’s increasingly stepping out in support of Jen. This is apparently worrying his longtime friend, who himself has been happily married to wife Luciana Barroso for almost 20 years, and it’s causing unprecedented tension between the two couples. Matt, who lives in New York with Luciana and their four daughters, can’t hide his resentment of J-Lo whenever he comes into town – and his concerns are driving Ben even further away.

“Matt says that the Ben he knows is disappearing – he’s never known him to be like this,” says our source. “Just look at all the cheesy photo ops he does with J-Lo – that’s exactly the kind of thing that Ben has always hated. But week after week, there he is posing next to her like some kind of puppet. The problem is, Ben won’t hear a bad word against her. He gets extremely defensive if anyone questions anything about their relationship. It’s not like Matt wants Ben to leave Jen, he’s just asking him to set some boundaries , and he’s the only friend willing to speak up about it. Hopefully they’re both mature enough to not let this end the friendship, but there is no doubt that it’s taking its toll.”