How come Jennifer never got "Meg Ryan'ed"?

Maybe because when Affeck was a fall down drunk who abused and cheated on her, she supported him and didn't divorce him until he got himself straight and sober. She also didn't bad mouth him to their kids.

Let he without sin cast the first stone..

Couple of reasons:

1) Meg Ryan pigeonholed herself into being America's sweetheart. She mostly made romantic comedies and a few serious dramas, the latter of which weren't exceptionally big hits.

2) When the scandals broke it was hard for Ryan, at that age, to go back to doing goofy romantic comedies. And with her real-life image somewhat sullied in the public sphere, she had no goodwill to carry over into the few remaining listless dramas she did.

3) Jennifer Garner may have had a good-girl image to an extent, but she was very physically adept and this is what helped sell Alias, and in a follow-up, her role as Elektra.

4) Jennifer Garner's ability to be more hard-nosed in her roles didn't contrast her personal life so much with her working life the way it did with Meg Ryan, who just fell off the radar when she was no longer making romantic comedies.

5) Even into her 40s, Garner was able to churn out a serious action film in Peppermint, reminiscent of her Alias days. It didn't require promotion based around a good-girl, squeaky clean image the way some of Meg Ryan's films did (could you imagine Ryan trying to promote Addicted to Love or You've Got Mail while the scandals were hot off the presses? Wouldn't work. Same way that post-scandal it was hard to nestle back into innocent character roles without her typecasting seeming tarred, in some way).