Continued from page 1

The Long Goodbye

Thursday January 29, 2004 11:05 AM EST

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For better or worse, the same could be said for Lopez, 34, and Affleck, 31. "They're different," says a mutual friend. She's a focused performer who rarely drinks, never smokes and likes to get to bed early. And while under her influence he went from T-shirts and baseball hats to designer suits (and back again after the wedding fiasco), at heart he remained a good ol' boy. Though sober after going through rehab for his alcohol addiction in 2001, he still likes to carouse with the guys and gamble all night – if not at an actual casino, says one source, then at home on his computer. "It was hard to merge their two lifestyles," says their friend. In the end, perhaps, it wasn't his fault or hers – or even the fault of the media, on whose obsessive attention Affleck pinned the cancellation of their wedding four days before the Sept. 14 date.

"When you love someone, the media circus does not get in the way," says the source. "You say, 'Okay, we'll figure it out. Let's do it.' Jennifer didn't realize it at that moment, but when he called it off, the relationship was over. He got out of the trap and he wasn't going to get back in. He was looking for a graceful way to let it die."

To be fair, Affleck may not have fully realized it either. As PEOPLE reported at the time, the couple split briefly after the wedding was called off, but on Sept. 22 they were once again side by side at the Liberty County courthouse, 30 miles southwest of Savannah, near his 83-acre, $7.1 million Hampton Island estate. They told reporters they were just getting a hunting license, but a courthouse source now says Lopez and Affleck submitted an application for a marriage license from judge Nancy Aspinwall. They asked Aspinwall to store the application – which she did, in a locked cabinet near her desk – until she got the go-ahead from them to file it. Meanwhile, says another source, Affleck asked local authorities to request that the FAA declare a no-fly zone over his property. Police officer Jason Griffin, 33, was one of several people asked to hold Oct. 4 open to provide security for "something big," he says. "They were going to call me a few days before the 4th to tell me where and when to meet."

PEOPLE.com Photo Gallery: Bennifer: The Way They Were