Calculating Or Space Cadet?

The Lisa Nowak case fascinates me.
If you  recall, she's the astronaut who went over the edge in the name of love,.
Her case shows, vividly, how hormones, illusions and delusions can make a  person so crazy they will destroy their life in the name of love. And I think when it comes to craziness in love, women can be far crazier than men.

Here's a link to that story and Lisa's sentence, which was surprisingly light.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573623,00.html

The challenge for a P.I. is to determine whether the person who is hiring you is giving you the truth or their version of it.

I had a close friend once who I believed was just about the most kind-hearted soul you could meet.  Her husband was the same way. they were good people with two wonderful little kids. They had an affluent lifestyle and appeared, no shortage of money or energy.

So when she showed up at my door sobbing and said her husband pushed her out their moving car, I was taken aback and perplexed as I listened and asked questions. She was bruised and hysterical.  As I took pictures of the huge  bruises on her side and lower back. I noted they were consistent with a fall from a car.

She said she and her husband had a fight, he pushed her out the car. I asked why she didn't call the police. She said something like, I don't want trouble.

And it was then I was fairly sure  there was more to the story because her husband wasn't the push-you-outa'-the-car-type. He was more the kind of  lead-me-around-on-a-leash guy. he is, how you say, "whipped."
It always appeared to me, she had him on loose leash, but a leash nonetheless.

While she went to her doctor, I called him up, told him we need to talk.
We met at Starbucks. I told him what she said. I showed him the pictures. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Well I might as well let you know now. She's nuts."

I asked him to define nuts and the stories began to flow from his mouth. A cascade of woes about how she controls him.  How  before she jumped from the car and she was going to have him arrested. I will spare you the details. Suffice to say, over time, I discovered, he was right when he brought me some indisputable evidence.

He came to my home with a recording of one of her tirades directed at him. I could hear their two children in the background  asking mommy to to stop yelling at daddy. Stop hitting Daddy.

And what she called him, her husband, blew me away. It was vulgar, foul and does not merit publication here. She cut every aspect of him down, from his looks, to his intelligence, to his manhood, in front of the kids.... who by this point were sobbing. The tape ended when he picked up the kids said, "No more, it's gonna' be okay kids," and I heard the door slam as he took the kids to the grandparents.

I has him to play that tape for her parents, his parents and their marraige therapist. She was exposed. I  was no longer her friend. An ultimately, they divorced.

I  know today her husband and children, now young men, are okay. However, she is on Meth,

She went from earning 10k a month, with a wonderful husband and two kids. and a house with a pool and view in Seattl... to a Meth addict in a trailer in  the woods of Oregon.
What a waste of so much.