Jennifer Garner: A wife, but not ‘the wife of,’ she says

You know Jennifer Garner, the wife of Ben Affleck? Well, don’t call her that to her face, because she’s working hard to establish an identity of her own as an actress.

So she tells Allure magazine, for whom she’s the September cover girl.

If she’s seen alone on red carpets rather than standing there with her man, count that as a professional decision, not a personal one.

“Sometimes it’s a pain,” Garner tells the mag, which has more from the cover shoot on its website, “because my heels are so high and it would be really nice to have his arm. And he’s such a great date! But it can be too much.

“I think especially for women, they can really lose their identity and just become ‘wife of.’”

One place she would be out there with Affleck, and supporting him, is if he left the red carpet for the campaign trail. Not that that’s happening any time soon, from her point of view.

“Right now [Ben] feels like he can do more good for people politically from outside the system,” the “Alias” alum says.

“Would I be surprised if one day he did go into politics? No. But not now.”

Still, she says, “I’m along for the ride.”

So, “wife of” is out, but Garner sure doesn’t mind being the “mother of” — kids Violet, Samuel and Seraphina. Seems motherhood was in her blood from the get-go.

“I had a baby doll tucked under my arm everywhere I went,” she says. As a young teen — and the mag has the pictures — “my friend and I ran a babysitting service, C&J Babysitting. I think we made $2 an hour.

“If you’d said to me, ‘You could be a mom or you could be anything else in the world,’ I would have been a mom.”

See Garner next on the big screen in December’s “Dallas Buyers Club.” The September issue of Allure is on sale Aug. 20

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