Courteney Cox said she was dumped during couples therapy

There was a time when it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies for Courteney Cox and her partner, Johnny McDaid. During an episode of the Minnie Driver podcast, Questions about Minnie, Cox opened up about the Snow Patrol musician’s breakup with her during couples therapy, three years into their relationship. Of course, the couple has since rekindled their romance.

“Three years later we broke up and it was really intense,” she recalls. “We broke up in therapy. I didn’t know it was going to happen, whether I should have or not, it was like we were going to this therapist to talk about our boundaries, what we could and couldn’t accept in each other.

Cox then revealed that McDaid, who she was engaged to at the time, initiated the split “within the first minute” of their session, leaving her “shocked” and “very unwell.”

“We were engaged and I was so shocked. I was in so much pain,” she recalls. “I don’t like surprises either, and he’s an incredible human being, so he wasn’t trying to surprise me. He was in so much pain in the relationship – there were so many things to sort out – that he had to protect himself around his heart,” she recalls.

Instead of getting angry, she used the time alone to think. Cox continued to see the therapist, who helped her heal and work on herself. After changing their lives, the couple finally reunited.

“I had a great therapist. I went to the same one, I was still seeing him, the one we met the day we broke up,” she explained. “It was brutal going to his office after that for a while, but then it was great. And I’m really grateful a) that nothing will ever hurt me this much again, and then b) most importantly, I’ve completely changed.”

“Instead of saying ‘fuck him,’ you know, getting angry, I went in,” she continued. “And I’ve done the most work on myself by far. I learned to reclaim my voice, my limits, what were my motivations in life? Like, what was my role in all of this?”

Cox adds that when they got back together, “it was a different relationship.”

“It really taught me how I operated in the world. What were the things from my childhood that I needed, whether it was to be adored by men, or things that I didn’t know how to let go of for be in a relationship. Don’t take things personally,” she said. “And I’m grateful that Johnny was so bold and courageous, because it changed my life, and I’m sure it did for him.”

The couple first met in 2013 and were engaged for nine months. The aforementioned engagement cancellation happened in 2015, but the two got back together in 2016. During an appearance on the show Ellen DeGeneres Show In 2019, Cox shared that the two weren’t engaged, but things were better than ever. She also said at the 2022 Brit Awards that she wouldn’t be opposed to marrying her long-time love, but that it just wasn’t something they were concerned about.