Anna Kendrick got candid about a traumatic past relationship when a longtime partner whom she made embryos with and likened to a husband, became unrecognizable despite her attempts at reconciliation.
The "Alice, Darling" star joined Dax Shepard and Monica Padman on an episode of "Armchair Expert" to discuss her experience in a toxic relationship, the term "gaslighting," and strategies she's used to deal with a traumatic event.
"I was with someone and this was somebody I lived with, and for all intents and purposes my husband, we had embryos together, this was my person. And then about six years in -- 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.'"
At the time, she recalled thinking "'maybe he has a brain tumor?'" to help rationalize a shift in his behavior, which Kendrick said gave her "a moment of relief."
"There was a demand that they not get talked about," she said of her unnamed ex. "I talked about it with some friends, but with him I couldn't talk about it -- [I had to] act like everything's fine or things will become very scary."
Kendrick said the relationship changed after "he caught feelings" for another woman, which she said she attempted to work through with love, understanding and couples therapy.
"He came to visit me on a set and he was acting very strange and distant -- I was very confused," she said. "After over a week I finally asked him 'are you OK, is there anything I need to be worried about, are we good?' And the worst possible thing -- he started talking about this girl," who Kendrick said she hoped he wouldn't mention. "The next year of my life became, 'it was nothing -- I don't even know why we're talking about this."
She continued, "It became increasingly hostile each time I tried to talk about it until it was, I'm curled in a ball, you're screaming at me, I don't know how we got here. It was so alarming. And it was so much easier for me to assume that I was crazy or doing something wrong."
"Because he behaved so badly -- I was sort of living with I don't know how to be around you and I know that I can't bring up that I'm now scared of you," Kendrick said.
"It's taken me two years to kind of get to a place of knowing what was happening inside of him when I would bring up anything other than 'You are the love of my life and you walk on water' ... I was burning him alive -- I think that's why it was so effective on me as a gaslighting tool -- [he thought] I was doing something terrible to him -- and yes that pain is based on a distortion that has nothing to do with me," she said.
After periods of talking and then silence, Kendrick said she would wind up in the same position repeatedly, where her ex thought she was "terrorizing" him for wanting to heal the relationship.
Shepard offered his "theory" after hearing Kendrick's story about her ex's behavior.
"You went the other way which he was totally unprepared for -- her kindness is really demonstrating how bad of a mistake it was. Had you yelled at him, I bet he was prepared for that, but you being loving and understanding he almost caught on fire with shame at that point," Shepard said.
He added,"when he was developing this relationship on the side he came up with a narrative about you that justified it -- and then you're none of the things he's been telling himself."
"I have so much shame about not leaving," Kendrick said with a deep breath and pause. "It wasn't just the, 'Oh, I'm losing a relationship.' It was that I believed that 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 b-----t. There was an inherent thing of me being so rejectable."
"It was hard for me to recognize this as an abusive relationship because it didn't follow the trajectory -- the only thing that felt very similar was when I would hear stories about con artists," she recalled.
Kendrick said she "first admitted" to a journalist that her latest film resonated because of her past relationship and shortly after "I started saying it to anybody that asked."
The actress, 37, said "I truly dismantled my life" when this was going on "as a reaction to the accusation that I was crazy and I was the one causing the problem." In addition to going to Al-Anon at the time, Kendrick told her agency, "'I need to take time off, I have a mental health problem.'"
On Tuesday, the actress joined "The View" to discuss the film that centers around a psychologically abusive relationship and how she handled the material that hit so close to home.
"I was fortunate enough to have a very talented therapist, I started going to Al-Anon, I had amazing, amazing friends around me," she said. "I think those relationships are the most incredible, helpful and stabilizing things."