Mandy Moore Says She Endured Toxic Relationship Because She Had This One Major Marriage Misconception

In a candid conversation on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s podcast Dinner’s on Me, Mandy Moore opened up about her tumultuous marriage to musician Ryan Adams, shedding light on the misconceptions she held about relationships back then. Looking back on her marriage to Adams, Moore felt a sense of detachment, stating, “I think back to that chapter and it almost feels like it was someone else entirely that it happened to.” Moore, famous for her role in This Is Us, delved into the complexities of her relationship with Adams, which began in 2009 and ended in 2015, with their divorce finalized in 2016.

Moore attributes her decision to marry Adams at the young age of 24 partly to her parents’ divorce after a 30-year marriage, suggesting that her naive nature regarding relationships led her to believe that marriage was challenging. She revealed, “When I got married, it was not something I took lightly. I went into it fully aware and was like, ‘This is my forever person, this is our forever life.’ And I worked really hard to make it work. And I remember when things would get really tough, I was like, ‘Wow, this is a lot. This feels like more than I bargained for. But this is what marriage is!’ Like you ride out these harrowing times in order to find the joy on the other side and like, it’s just the rollercoaster of life. … And ultimately I got to a point where I was like, ‘It’s not supposed to be this hard. It’s not supposed to feel this bad. A person is not supposed to treat you like this.’” She further added regarding her relationship with Adams, “The feeling of belittling yourself or making yourself as small as possible to make others around you feel as comfortable as possible was something that started obviously at a young age for me and continued through that very unhealthy relationship that I was in.”

As per HuffPost, Julia Goodall, a psychotherapist, challenged the notion that marriage should be arduous, emphasizing, “I think that the idea that marriage is hard is the same if you say gardening is hard. It’s not hard. It’s just that you have to show up every day in tiny ways and keep an eye on it. So it’s hard work in terms of the constant commitment of it, but it’s not difficult.”

In 2019, Moore was among seven women who blamed Adams for manipulative and controlling behavior. She described her ex-husband as psychologically abusive, which was declined by his lawyer. Despite the trauma, she expressed gratitude asserting, “I’m grateful for all it taught me and where it brought me and ultimately it led me to finding this incredible partner (Taylor Goldsmith).” She praised her current husband, “He was not bothered by it all, he just let everything sort of roll off his back. And I was like, ’oh, if he could weather this, like, I think we’re probably going to be OK. We’re probably going to make it. And this is probably the person I should’ve been with all along.”