The Moment Jennifer Lopez Realized She Had to Divorce Marc Anthony

Jennifer Lopez was married to her ex-husband Marc Anthony for 10 years. Here’s what she revealed about the moment she realized it was time for a divorce.

Jennifer Lopez’s life and marriage looked perfect from the outside

In her book True Love, Lopez said she had what appeared to be a perfect life and marriage. However, this wasn’t the case, according to her. She says she was having trouble in her marriage at a time when it looked like she was winning in every area of her life.

Anybody looking from the outside in would have thought my life was going great: I had a husband and two beautiful children, and my career was flying high. I was on American Idol, the number-one show on the planet, and my new single “On the Floor” had gone to number one all over the world.

To top it off, People magazine had named me their very first Most Beautiful Woman in the World, a few months earlier. How could life get any better? What people didn’t know was that life really wasn’t that good. My relationship was falling apart, and I was terrified.

Jennifer Lopez ignored her feelings about her marriage until she became anxious

Lopez says she ignored her feelings about her marriage to Anthony for so long, she began to develop anxiety. She said she reached a turning point in 2011 during the time she had to do a photoshoot for L’Oreal.

“My heart was beating out of my chest, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” wrote Lopez. “I became consumed with fear and anxiety. What was happening to me? My mom, Guadalupe, who lives in New York and happened to be in town that week, came to the desert with me that day, and my dear manager, Benny Medina, was there too. As I found myself in a panic, I leaped from my chair and said, ‘Benny, something is happening! I feel like I’m going crazy.’”

Lopez said people often stuff their feelings down until they reach a point where they can’t hold them in any longer. She reached that point during her L’Oreal photoshoot.

“We as human beings do this thing where we stuff down our feelings until they find a way to manifest themselves,” Lopez wrote. “We try to avoid them until there’s no more room and they come bubbling up like a pot of boiling-hot water that overflows. And when it does, it burns, and it’s scary. That’s what was happening to me. In a blur of fear and panic, I looked at Benny and my mother and blurted out the words: ‘I don’t think I can be with Marc anymore.’ Then I burst into tears.”

Her body eventually told her it was time to leave

Although Lopez tried to deny her feelings, she says her body wouldn’t let her continue living in denial. She hoped the marriage would work out and had a hard time accepting that things weren’t going the way she wanted.

“Marc was my guy, the one,” wrote Lopez. “The father of my children, the man I was going to grow old with. I believed that with all my heart . . . until I finally realized, in the months leading up to that day in the desert, that it wasn’t meant to be. I wasn’t listening to my own inner voice, and now my body and soul were physically telling me that I could no longer be there. I couldn’t deny the truth anymore. I had to do something about it.”

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