It’s been a month since the reports that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s marriage was on the verge of collapse first broke. At the time, Affleck and Lopez, in fact, had not been seen together for 47 days and it was reported that he had moved out of their marital home. Things haven’t improved for the Hollywood couple a great deal since: that Beverly Hills marital home is now on the market, and although the couple have been seen it has often been without their wedding rings, plus Lopez has cancelled her This Is Me…Live tour, telling fans she wanted to spend more time with her two children Max and Emme, family, and close friends. ‘I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down,’ Lopez said on 11th June. ‘Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary.’

But, despite the continued rumblings about a potential split announcement, and when it may come, there has been silence from Affleck and Lopez on the state of their marriage. Paparazzi photographs of the pair have continued to surface (albeit, they are displaying signs of strain and are far from the happy, PDA-filled images we saw during the heyday of their rekindled love affair, 17 years after they first split in 2004).

And while Lopez and Affleck are still yet to comment on any reported marriage issues (indeed during a press tour for her new Netflix film, Atlas, Lopez was quick to dismiss a reporter who dared broach the matter during a press event in Mexico City last month), is the writing on the wall? Celebrity news site TMZ certainly seems to think so, and this week dropped a documentary on streaming site Hulu all about the divorce which hasn’t even happened yet. In ‘JLo & Ben: Missed Warning Signs’ experts such as TV doctor Dr Drew ponder what went wrong, with Hollywood producer Jon Peters even claiming that Lopez is a ‘love addict’.

So what’s actually going on, and if this divorce is happening, as most news outlets are reporting, why are Lopez, 54, and Affleck, 51, stalling? According to sources close to the couple, the strain between the two really has gone from bad to worse and a previously hopeful Lopez has ‘thrown in the towel’ about any immediate reconciliation. The hold up on any announcement is quite simple, says the source, and that is that disentangling any marriage is a lengthy process – particularly in the glare of the public eye when there is a lot of speculation about what’s next for them. 

‘These two have a lot to figure out and they are in the process of doing that,’ says one Hollywood source. Indeed Affleck and Lopez, or Bennifer as they’re commonly known, have a lot of things tying them together besides their marriage certificate and the years they’ve put into their relationship since they got back together in 2021. They worked hard to blend their families, meaning that Lopez is very close with Affleck’s children with his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner (from whom he split in 2018 after 13 years of marriage), Violet, 18, Fin, 15, and Samuel, 12, while Affleck has built a close bond with Lopez’s 16-year-old twins whom she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony.

Not only that, but Bennifer was already very much becoming ‘Brand Bennifer’, with their professional lives becoming more and more entwined over the last three years. As well as Affleck’s appearance in her documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, about Lopez’s journey as she independently produces her new album, and her film This Is Me…Now, the couple also appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Dunkin’ Donuts last year, and were on track to collaborate on upcoming movie Unstoppable together, with Lopez set to star while Affleck produces. The Amazon MGM Studios film comes out of Affleck’s production company, Artists Equity, which he co-founded with Matt Damon, and there have been no announcements to suggest that any of the casting for the film has changed, with Lopez still apparently very much onboard. ‘I mean, we love working together and being together,’ the singer told Variety earlier this year.

The glare of the very famous couple’s life in the public eye is said to be one of the reason’s their relationship has suffered. In scenes shown in The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which came out in February, Affleck, who has been sober since 2018 after three stints in rehab, revealed that he initially asked his wife to keep their relationship offline when they decided to give things another go. In the film, Affleck admits he had some concerns about being thrust further into the public eye – and had zero interest in becoming a fixture on his wife’s social media accounts. ‘Getting back together, I said, “Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media,”’ the actor says. ‘Then I sort of realized it’s not a fair thing to ask. It’s sort of like, you’re gonna marry a boat captain and you go, “Well, I don’t like the water.”‘ He continued: ‘We’re just two people with different kinds of approaches trying to learn to compromise.’ 

Are they still trying to learn how to compromise, or have things gone past the point of no return for Bennifer 2.0? Maybe there will be word from them soon – or maybe they’ll continue to do things very much on their own terms.