The two-time Academy Award winner admits in a new interview that his divorce from the '13 Going on 30' actress is the 'biggest regret of my life' and reveals his drinking problem is the cause of his marital issues.

• Feb 19, 2020

AceShowbiz - Ben Affleck has gotten real about what he really feels about the end of his marriage to Jennifer Garner after a long separation. Years after their public breakup, the two-time Academy Award winner honestly admitted in a new interview that he regretted divorcing the "Peppermint" actress.

Speaking to The New York Times, the "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" actor called their divorce "the biggest regret of my life." He elaborated his statement as saying, "Shame is really toxic. There is no positive byproduct of shame. It's just stewing in a toxic, hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing."

Despite his regret, the "Gone Baby Gone" director/writer was determined to focus on the positives. "It's not particularly healthy for me to obsess over the failures - the relapses - and beat myself up," he said. "I have certainly made mistakes. I have certainly done things that I regret. But you've got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward."

On the causes to his marital issues, the 47-year-old Hollywood star owned up to his drinking problems. "I drank relatively normally for a long time," he confessed. "What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems."

"People with compulsive behavior, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they're trying to make go away," he explained further. "You're trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can't break. That's at least what happened to me."

Affleck and Garner, who worked together in 2001's "Pearl Harbor" and 2003's "Daredevil", tied the knot in 2005. They share three children together, 14-year-old Violet, 11-year-old Seraphina and 7-year-old Samuel. They parted ways in 2015, before filing for divorce in 2017 and having it finalized in October 2018.