Andrea McLean’s husband Nick Feeney was ‘horrified’ he didn’t realise his wife was having a mental breakdown.
The presenter, 52, has been open about her mental health struggles after sensationally quitting Loose Women after 13 years.
Andrea announced in November 2020 that she had decided to leave the panel, explaining she had had a ‘really rough year’.
Now, opening up on the difficult time and the mental breakdown she suffered before the pandemic, she admits her husband was ‘horrified’ he hadn’t seen the signs.
The star spoke on Metro’s Mentally Yours Podcast where she told host Ellen Scott: ‘I told him everything that I’ve been feeling, and I was very fortunate in that I am with a love with the human being who is who was as aware of our need for communication and growth as anyone could wish for.
‘And his first reaction was, “as your husband, I’m horrified that I didn’t see this, how can I love you as much as I love you and not even know that this was happening?”‘
She explained Nick advised her that she needed help and should go to counselling and ‘speak to someone about all these feelings.’
He then suggested they have counselling together, ‘so that I never miss this again.’
Andrea describes the husband attended counselling together as ‘a game-changer,’ as because they had ‘a great relationship’ they were going into it ‘from a position of strength.’
She explained that the counselling gave them the ‘tools’ to recognise when there are ‘bumps in the road, you know what to do with it, rather than it feeling like the end of the world or unravelling or becoming something much bigger than the sum of its parts.’
‘That was a huge turning point for me,’ she added.
The star recently spoke to Metro for Sixty Seconds where she admitted she ‘felt scared’ when she announced she was leaving the ITV panel show, which she had appeared on since 2007.
She had previously explained that the pandemic ‘made me realise we’re constantly waiting for the right moment to do things and you only get one shot at life.’
Explaining why she cried on-air when announcing her departure on the live show, she said: ‘It wasn’t leaving the job so much, because I’d got my head around that.
‘It was the thought of not seeing friendly faces anymore.
‘I’d always loved going in and saying hi to them all, and now I was leaving at a time when I couldn’t even meet them for a drink after work.’
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