What Jennifer Garner learned about relationships through her divorce is something we *all* should keep in mind

We’re used to seeing Garner smiling at us from movie sets and Instagram, but as positive as she is, constant divorce talk took its toll on her.

“Everyone says, ‘Oh, you’ve had to go through this in public.’ The public isn’t what’s hard; what’s hard is going through it,” she explains.

Of course, Garner and Affleck’s divorce was scrutinized more than most due to their professions, but many mothers can relate to the stress of a separation. And whether you or your partner’s private actions are being scrutinized by a small group of friends and family or by millions of followers, it hurts and can come as a bit of a shock.

“Divorce is a surprisingly public event,” author Beth Joselow wrote in her book, Life Lessons: 50 Things I Learned From My Divorce.

According to Divorce Magazine, Joselow was divorced in the early 1990s, but her advice seems even more apt in the age of Instagram and Facebook. “You may find that people who wouldn’t ordinarily comment on the private matters in your life suddenly feel duty-bound to tell you what they think of your decision, when, of course, you hadn’t asked,” she wrote.

Garner says that the overwhelming number of unsolicited opinions on her divorce taught her a lesson.

“What I think I’ve learned is that the scrutiny in your private life puts a pressure to make something happen,” Garner says. “You feel a pressure to hurry up and get married, ’cause you think that’ll end the ‘Are they engaged? Are they not?'”

Garner felt pressured to get married because the press was constantly asking if she was planning to, but much less famous folks may feel this same kind of pressure from their families, friends or social circles.

“Marrying because you ‘should’ almost always comes back to haunt you in the end,” Susan Pease Gadoua, L.C.S.W., co-author The New I Do, Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels writes for Psychology Toda y .

“I spoke with a woman recently who described the terrible ambivalence she had before tying the knot…Her gut told her not to go through with it but all pressure from her own head, her friends and family (and society) won out. She’s now, nine years and two kids later, entering divorce proceedings.”

We have to listen ourselves when it comes to starting a marriage or ending one. Garner’s gut told her when it was time to not be married to Affleck anymore, and she’s still able to have a successful co-parenting relationship with her children’s father, as she proved with her public note to him on Father’s Day.