Men Will Lose J.Lo Twice Instead of Going to Therapy

J.Lo has done inner child work.

I know this because J.Lo made a documentary about doing inner child work.

“The Greatest Love Story Never Told” was marketed as a behind the scenes look into the making of Jennifer Lopez’s ninth studio album “This Is Me... Now” and although the documentary’s title comes from a series of love letters that Ben Affleck wrote to J.Lo, the heart of the story is the loving relationship J.Lo has built with herself.

J.Lo learned to love herself so much that she self-funded a $20 million visual album and accompanying documentary about her therapy journey. In the doc, she talks to camera in between footage of rehearsals and gets vulnerable about looking for love in all the wrong places, trying to fill the void formed by her complicated childhood.

If you’ve spent any time reading this substack, you know I couldn’t relate more to turning a pretty basic therapy journey into a whole creative endeavor, then assuming the world will be interested in it. And if the world’s reception of J.Lo’s ninth studio album is any indication, I need to find a new subject.

J.Lo’s tour is not selling tickets. Her latest movie “Atlas” got a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes and on top of all that, there are rumors of Bennifer’s second demise.

Not to brag, but when Ben and Jen first got together, I was too young to really care. When they got back together, both in their fifties, and started doing cig-fueled Dunkin’ runs and planned the most basic, HomeGoods-chic celebrity wedding of all time, well that was something I could get behind.

They are truly like if the most popular couple from you suburban high school got married and also had hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ben and Jen’s recent couple tats

By the time a friend texted me the first headline that there might be trouble in Bennifer paradise, my heart was fully invested. And now? I fear it’s about to break. I wanted to believe that love could lie dormant for two decades and then return stronger than ever when both participants are middle aged. I wanted to believe that “love never fails” like the sign said at their wedding. Most importantly, I wanted to believe that a straight man could be decent enough not to lose J.Lo TWICE.

Yes, the hints were there. Ben and Jen were photographed fighting in public numerous times. She stopped posting photos of him on her instagram about a year ago, when she’d previously spammed us with constant couples vacation photoshoots and wedding throwbacks, and “The Greatest Love Story Never Told” also revealed some cracks in their facade.

In between scenes of Ben snuggling a makeup-free Jen at home or supporting her on set, he reluctantly sat for interviews and at one point confessed his concerns about J.Lo’s public image - “getting back together, I said, ‘Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media. 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.’” Sounds rational, like he’s compromising… Right?

But now reports are surfacing that he actually CAN’T meet Jen halfway, and having to pose with a bikini-clad J.Lo is too much for him. According to tabloids (very reassuring way to start a sentence), Ben thinks Jen works too hard and posts too much. Well, I’m sure she thinks his tattoos are bad and doesn’t love sharing a bathroom with his Dunkin-Marlboro-shits but she’s done the mental math and decided his good qualities are worth the misgivings!

According to the unbelievably reputable Page Six, “If there was a way to divorce on grounds of temporary insanity, [Ben] would. He feels like the last two years was just a fever dream, and he’s come to his senses now and understands there is just no way this is going to work.”

…………….

I’m aware that I am oversimplifying the issues and complexities that come with two human beings trying to join their lives and commit to loving each other, BUT imagine waking up to the reality that you’re married to J.Lo and thinking anything other than “lucky me”!

J.Lo, for reference.

When I saw “Hustlers” for the first time (which quickly became one of my favorite movies ever and was robbed by “Ford Vs. Ferrari” at all that year’s awards shows), my jaw dropped in pure admiration watching J.Lo strip dance to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”. Her beauty, charisma and pure athletic ability are nothing short of TRANSCENDENT and as I watched, I thought, “imagine being her ex right now?!?” I didn’t have to imagine for long, because I’m pretty sure we all got to witness what happened when her ex Ben watched that scene and immediately came up with some excuse to text her like a screenshot of his Duolingo streak or a Selena song coming up on his Spotify shuffle or something.

I don’t know if Ben Affleck is in therapy and I don't think going to therapy even guarantees that someone will change or grow but I DO know that J.Lo has clearly at least looked inward and gained some perspective as displayed by the scenes in “This Is Me… Now” where she talks to her therapist Fat Joe about her love addiction and apologizes to, embraces and then serenades her traumatized inner child!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If this Page Six thing is true, which it probably is, given the type of publications its Editor in Chief spent decades working for …

… then it seems like Ben has NOT looked inward at all. He is fully acting like my cat Cookie, who consistently creates in-home catastrophes and then stares at the wreckage as if he had nothing to do with it. He will knock over a vase of flowers with his paw, shattering glass all over my apartment and then run, hide behind a chair and watch with dilated pupils as if waiting to see who could be responsible for such a terrifying mess. That’s Ben in this scenario, acting like he didn’t participate in his own HomeGoods-decorated wedding to J.Lo, but rather fell victim to it.

Cookie, for reference.

This behavior reminds me of when an ex broke up with me then texted me less than a month later to ask how I was doing, and when I started saying that I was in pain, he said he wasn’t ready to talk about feelings because he’d “been in a fog” and his “mind has kinda just been muck for the last weeks”. It’s like… I’m doing BAD. If you want to have an easy pleasant conversation with a happy person, maybe strike it up with someone you didn’t recently DUMP?!?

And if you want to have a quiet life outside of the spotlight, maybe date a data analyst instead of pap-walking your dog with Ana de Armas, sending videos of yourself to a self proclaimed “trad wife” influencer, or love bombing J.Lo with letters about the “Greatest Love Story Never Told” and then deciding you didn’t mean any of that and acting like a “Men in Black” alien inhabited your body and walked you down the aisle to wait for one of the most beautiful talented women alive at the altar!!!!

Writing this made me angrier than I thought it would, and I am going to consult my own inner child about where that anger stems from.