Anna Kendrick Seeks Therapy & Al-Anon After 'Living With A Stranger'

Anna Kendrick needed the help of Al-Anon and serious therapy to get past a toxic relationship that lasted six long years.

The big confession from the actress comes as a bit of a shock to many of her fans. Al-Anon is something that is reserved for people dealing with the trauma of a relationship with an alcoholic. the full title is Alcoholics Anonymous.

The actress’s bubbly demeanor and happy disposition would not lead us to believe that she could get wrapped up with an alcoholic or someone with those tendencies.

Kendrick spoke with Dax Shepherd and Monica Padman on the Armchair Expert podcast where she did not say how severe the drinking problem was, but she did say that she had a boyfriend problem one that was bad enough to get professional help from a therapist, or in this case, several therapists.

What led to the therapy is a whole other story. The Pitch Perfect actress discussed her tumultuous relationship with the ex she didn’t name. “I was with someone — this was somebody I lived with, for all intents and purposes my husband. We had embryos together, this was my person,'” that’s how serious the couple was.

The 37-year-old went on to share he was in love with someone else the whole time and once she started. Realizing this and how “toxic” it was for her to stay, she spoke with her brother and admitted something felt off.

“Then about six years in, about somewhere around there, I remember telling my brother, when things had first kind of gone down, ‘I’m living with a stranger. Like, I don’t know what’s happening.'”

The two would fight but Kendrick, in an effort to get past the elephant in the room with her ex, the other woman he was in love with. He would “scream” at her until she was so emotionally broken and “curled in a ball, sobbing” in a corner.

The last straw was on the set of a film, he came to visit her and Kendrick just couldn’t resist asking him what was going on between them. “The worst possible thing was, I was like, ‘please don’t say this girl’s name,’ and he started talking about this girl.”

Instead of seeing the situation for what it was, Kendrick was scared that her weirdo ex would leave her! “if we broke up or, you know, if he left basically, it was a confirmation that it’s because I’m impossible, I’m lucky that he’s even tolerating my bulls**t.”

She even tried to hang on for dear life and save the relationship, he would eventually love her and not the other woman, right? This is where therapy came in, couple’s therapy.

Kendrick realized the benefits of therapy for herself and not just as someone in a relationship. In addition to regular therapy, she joined Al-Anon to deal with the alcohol abuse portion that haunted the relationship.

“All of these things ended up being very wonderful things for me in the long run, but initially went into them thinking, ‘Tell me how to stop being crazy. Tell me how to stop feeling anything,'” she begged.

Oh, and she isn’t therapist-hopping anymore. “I ended up going down to just one therapist eventually and I’m totally obsessed with her…but what she did teach me to do was look at my own experience and decide what I wanted and start drawing boundaries.

“And that was really scary and really hard but that is what ended the relationship.” That’s how you do it, Anna!