Oliva Munn reflects on terrible advice therapist told her during 'toxic' relationship

Olivia Munn has recounted how a therapist urged her to remain in a "toxic" relationship.

The 44-year-old American actress is happily married to John Mulaney, 42 ?- with whom she shares son Malcolm, three, and daughter Méi, five months.

But a past relationship was not so comfortable, and Munn now realises she received terrible advice from someone she thought she could trust instead of listening to her instinct to run.

Recounting her experience on the Reclaiming podcast, the X-Men star revealed her therapist, "Encouraged me to stay," in a bad romance.

She said, "In that particular situation, I had a therapist who I really loved and I know that she cared about me - or at least I thought she did.

"I would constantly, from the very beginning, say, 'I don't know about this, I don't think this is the right (relationship,) I want to get out,' and then it got worse and worse and I'd be calling her crying like, 'I gotta get out.'"

Her therapist, however, did not back her up.

Munn recounted, "She thought that my 'picker' was off, and she would look at it as like, 'This person on paper looked great,' and when there was couples therapy, they knew how to present the right way. Then the stories I would tell seemed unbelievable."

She continued, "From that experience, learning that I gotta go with my gut and I gotta be decisive with some things if it's coming from a place where I want to survive and I realize that I'm not happy and that days and weeks and months go by of unhappiness and fear."

Finding a positive edge to her experience, she added, "It taught me how to stand up and fight for myself, so that was great."