Some people look at the apparent rough patch in Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s marriage and ask, “Why?” Others look at it and ask, “Why not?”

Based on clues planted in Lopez’s documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, and a knowledge of celebrity couples, it’s easy to theorize which marital stressors led to this strife. Here are five theories on what went wrong.

Back in the early ‘90s, newlyweds Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold used to stare into each other’s eyes while repeating, “I love you, I love you,” over and over on the set of her ABC sitcom. Roseanne and Arnold didn’t make it to the traditional wood anniversary. It’s simply impossible to sustain that level of romantic intensity.

This is not a new observation. “The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long,” observed Chinese philosopher Lao Tze around 2500 years ago. Affleck and Lopez have perhaps come to the same conclusion.

In a way they got their Hollywood ending… except the film turned out to be Mike Nichols’ The Graduate. The grand gesture is grand but what happens next? It’s Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross sitting in the back of the bus thinking, "What the fuck did we just do?” as Sad Affleck’s meme song, “The Sounds of Silence” plays.

Speaking of Mike Nichols… In Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher told the story of how Nichols used to say that a good relationship required a........

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