James Weir: How to get the upper hand in a split without really trying, as taught by Jen Garner

When Ben left Jen, he lost everything and she came out on top. James Weir reflects on how to get the upper hand in a split without trying.

Jennifer Garner has won in her split with Ben Affleck and become a world class example of how to rise above your ex and serve classy payback.

It’s almost four years since Ben allegedly eyeballed the nanny and their marriage ended. And as he sinks to dark depths of despair, she has continued to rise. No, soar! In full flight this week, she was crowned People magazine’s Most Beautiful Person of the Year.

It’s the ultimate “screw you” to an ex. Indeed, that’s a bitter way of looking at the honour, but this column is your premium source of bitterness. We’d usually scoff at the Most Beautiful People list because it’s so old fashioned and lame, but this year we refuse to roll our eyes because Jen Garner is lovely and amazing and we will always support inventive yet classy ways of getting back at an ex.

Of course, Jennifer Garner is too classy to have vindictively orchestrated this payback. She’s so classy she has probably never even said the term “screw you”. At best, she’d spell it out, whispering the letters S-C-R-E-W.

It’s the kind of “in your face!” moment all us regular people wish we could taunt an ex with. Instead, the best we can do is post throwback selfies to Instagram showing us looking fabulous and carefree on boats and at bars when really we’re looking disastrous and hateful in bed and at food courts.

I’m in that “looking disastrous in a food court” phase at all times of my life, regardless of whether I’m in the throes of a breakup. Someone who never looks disastrous is Jennifer Garner. And this is how perfect she is: she doesn’t even try to look beautiful. She just is.

“I walk around with wet hair. But I just feel like, ‘I’ve showered! Don’t I get a gold star? What more do you want from me?’” she said in the accompanying People interview.

Has a quote ever resonated with you more? Honestly, I read that and I felt seen. Kmart should turn that quote into a decorative statement poster.

Killin’ it.

She also had some inspirational words about food and exercise. The statement is so profound it could be confused as a passage from the Bible.

“I like food so if I need to knock a few pounds off I guess I could. I know how to do it, I just don’t want to!” she declared.

I’ve screamed the exact same thing at tween sales associates at General Pants after getting stuck in a pair of skinny jeans and falling backwards through the dividing wall of the change room.

But back to Jennifer’s unstoppable rise. Breakups are tough and it’s just childish to think that one person is the winner and the other is the loser but, again, this column is your premium source of childishness and we hereby declare Jennifer Garner the winner.

Of course, she didn’t need this magazine cover to secure the blue ribbon. She was in the lead long ago. This accolade is just an exquisite coincidence — one of many which have propelled Jen far ahead of her ex.

When Ben lost Jen, he lost everything. His split cost him not one, but two wives. Of course, there was his actual wife Jennifer Garner. But then there’s his second wife, Matt Damon. It was a bromance for the ages. But when Ben began to spiral and his life went to tatters, he was no longer the man Matt Damon fell in love with.

Matt was there when Ben went through his weird JLo period — and he tolerated all the terrible film choices that accompanied that relationship. When Ben moved on with Jennifer Garner, Matt thought things were finally on track. But then Ben walked away from Jen. And Matt walked away from Ben, trading him in for a hot new young thing: Chris Hemsworth. Karma’s a cruel dame.

Ben Affleck with Jennifer Garner (other wife Matt Damon out of shot).

I don’t know what happened to Ben and that nanny but she wasn’t in the scene for long and Ben was left all alone — unshaven and bloated — while Jennifer Garner and her dimples got on with life, dressed in stylish yet practical boot cut jeans and shawl-neck cardigans.

She has even been dating her hot new boyfriend John Miller for a year. As well as being hot, he’s the CEO of CaliBurger, which is some kind of fast-food company where robots make burgers. A sexy person with unlimited access to burgers is literally everything anyone could want in a partner.

When Ben Affleck found out about this, no doubt he was spewin’. He only eats burgers — he didn’t invent them, like John.

Obviously this is the perfect segue into Ben’s darkest day, post-split. The day he relapsed and Jen had to stage an intervention and drive him to rehab, via a burger drive-thru.

If any of us had to do that for an ex, the smugness would just radiate from our entire body.

We all want to be the Jennifer Garner in our own breakups. Most of the time, we think we are. But really, we’re all usually the Ben — bitter, regretful and just days away from being carted off to a facility via a burger drive-thru.

Ugh she’s even kind to random kids, the woman’s a saint.

THE SHOW WE’RE NOT ALLOWED TO JOKE ABOUT

This is just a crazy thought, but I reckon Lego Masters — the wholesome Hamish Blake-hosted show taking up the space left behind by Married At First Sight on Nine — will pull in a very different crowd to what the salacious blind dating show attracted.

It’s basically MasterChef but with Lego. And even though it’s from the same production team behind MAFS, I get the feeling no one’s getting glassed or choked while wearing a hydrating face mask. Several affairs may happen, but that’s just early speculation.

It premieres tonight and, skimming through the first episode, there’s actually so much about this show that’s funny, but because everyone’s so sweet and earnest we’d all just look like jerkwads for joking about it.

Like the very lovely grandma-grandson team. In tonight’s episode, Nan reveals her teenage grandson was toilet trained using Lego and then she holds up a laminated toilet training chart that she kept and then the pressure of the Lego challenge becomes too much for her and she suffers an anxiety attack.

It’s absolutely not funny and you’re a terrible person if you laugh at that. Yes. You’re the terrible person. Not me. I certainly don’t think it’s funny.

Twitter and Facebook: @hellojamesweir

The George Calombaris of Lego.

Originally published as James Weir: How to get the upper hand in a split without really trying, as taught by Jen Garner