Jennifer Lopez on Why She Married Marc Anthony
Jennifer Lopez was married to singer Marc Anthony for 10 years. She once explained what convinced her to marry Anthony.
Jennifer Lopez says she medicated her pain with relationships
In her book, True Love, Lopez says she was hurting after her breakup with ex-fiancé Ben Affleck. For her, getting into another relationship was the best way to dull the pain.
“Ben and I split up at the moment when I thought we were committing to each other forever,” wrote Lopez. “It was my first real heartbreak; it felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest. And when the realization that I wasn’t going to have the fairy tale family I wanted really set in, well, that was when I really started to fall apart.”
Why Jennifer Lopez married Marc Anthony
Lopez says she married Anthony because at the time she thought they were meant to be together. She ran into Anthony just three days after she was supposed to marry Affleck, so she took it as a sign. Lopez and Anthony had a history prior to her relationship with Affleck, so she was under the impression this was meant to be.
“We thought that this was where everything was supposed to lead, that we were meant to end up together,” wrote Lopez. “All the heartache and pain of my recent breakup couldn’t have been for nothing, could it? Maybe I had to go through the bad so I could end up with the person I was mean to be with all along.”
Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez were friends before they got married
The friendship Lopez had with Anthony convinced her she was making the right decision. He was familiar to her, and getting romantically involved just felt right to her.
“And that was the moment when Marc reappeared in my life,” wrote Lopez. “Marc and I had been friends for a number of years. We’d worked together on a few songs, and we’d sung a duet for my first record, titled “No Me Ames” (ironically, “Don’t Love Me” in Spanish). Right from the beginning, he never made it a secret that he liked me.”
Lopez says she needed to believe in something after breaking up with Ben Affleck
Lopez seemed to be losing hope in love after she and Affleck called off their engagement. She felt lost and didn’t know how to proceed. She says getting into a relationship with Anthony just felt like the natural next step. She thought the end of her engagement was destiny’s way of bringing her to her true love. However, she later realized her decision had more to do with insecurity than destiny.
“We make our own choices, and I chose to believe that Marc and I were meant to be together—that destiny was stepping in,” wrote Lopez. “In that moment, I needed to believe that; I needed to believe in something. The reality was, I didn’t want to be alone—so when Marc was there, when he met me with his big smile, his heart on his sleeve, and his arms open wide, I was more than happy to let myself fall into them.”
