# 14 Craigs first wife.

#14

Today I am going to backtrack a bit and tell you about Craig’s first wife, Laura (names have been changed) and how our lives entangled for a while, and how her story is so similar to mine, it’s almost surreal to read. The reason I am putting this in here is because Laura and I are  friends (we call ourselves the Ex wives club), and even though I thought I knew a lot about their marriage and how it ended (since we were all friends and then Craig and I became close after my marriage ended), when I read her email to me last week, I was shocked at how much I didn’t know, and how deceiving Craig was to us both, and basically played us at the same time, but in different ways. Neither of us had any idea until I started writing my blog and we started sharing stories. I have put her entire email into the Level 2 content on Patreon, so if you want to read it you can bump up a level to read it. I have a lot of “extra” stuff going into the higher levels, obviously because they are paying for my time to do it.

*** 07/05/2019 UPDATE *** Since I no longer have the Patreon thing going, I will get this stuff over here for everyone to see. I am working on uploading this to You Tube, including the audio tapes.

Craig and Laura met in the Missionary Training Center in 1987, developed a relationship throughout their mission period and once they were home they dated and married a few months later. They served their missions in different States and one day he called her!. She has no idea how he tracked her down or how he paid for the long distance calls, as in those days people didn’t carry cell phones everywhere. We had pagers. But the missionaries had very specific instructions to have no phone contact with anyone at home, or outside of your mission field, especially if it was someone of the opposite sex. Laura felt guilty about the phone calls and tried to keep the conversations more about their mission work. But as time went on she noticed how flattered she felt and feelings were developing. Then one day while she and her companion were at a health club working out, Craig walked in! She was in Reno, NV and he was supposed to be in Spokane, WA. Another rule for missionaries is to keep within a specific number of miles on your leased vehicle. It was meant to be used for visiting people locally that you were trying to convert and members in your area. But Craig managed to borrow a car from someone (probably a girl who had a crush on him and would do anything for him) and Craig and his companion drove from Washington down to Nevada to visit Laura. They didn’t stay long, I don’t believe, and when they left Laura felt so guilty that she reported it to her Mission President. She was concerned about betraying Craig because she knew it would get him into a lot of trouble, if not sent home from his mission, but at the same time her own conscience wouldn’t allow her to keep it to herself. Turned out that Craig's Mission President was already aware of the “missing missionaries” and that they had obviously gone road tripping. The strange part is he suffered no consequences for this trip, in fact, they stopped by a few dams along the way and did some diving and swimming, because they figured they were obviously going to pay a price regardless, so they might as well enjoy it. But no punishment landed on them and they went back to work once they arrived back into Spokane. That in itself is strange, but shows how manipulative Craig could be when he needed to be. I can’t imagine what he told the Mission President, but it obviously worked.

While I was married to Craig I heard about this road trip, but didn’t know it was to visit Laura. He merely told me that he and his companion took a road trip. That companion became a good friend of Craigs and so I got to know him too and to this day consider him a friend of mine.

In Blog #3 I wrote about how Craig and I rekindled our relationship, so I don’t really need to go over that again, but I want to give you some excerpts from Laura's email so that you can see how similar her experience was

LAURA talking about her marriage to Craig: “ As time went on Craig began to get depressed because I was the one with the real job, he had odd hours and we had a menagerie of critters; hamsters, rabbits, fish, a cat and a dog at one point, so he had fun taking care of them and building them cool cages and such.  Things got less fun as time went on.  He had some dark depressive episodes but I knew nothing of depression in those days so I just thought he was having trouble figuring out what to do for school or a career.”

My note: She then describes how he “trained” a puppy they had, in an inhumane manner, which leaves you with an eery feeling. But that part I’m leaving out of this post.

LAURA “One time we were at the bank and I disagreed with him on something out loud and in public.  When we got out of the bank he freaked out and screamed at me for disobeying him in front of other people.  I couldn’t believe he would act this way and be this upset over I can’t even remember what we disagreed about.”

Then she describes an incident that really hurt her, which actually involved me, and Craig got very angry at her for being upset. He was clearly flirting with me in a way that was not appropriate for a married man, and when it hurt Laura….Craig became very angry at her! Does that sound familiar?

Then Laura discovered she was pregnant and Craig was very angry about that.

She continues….

“Somewhere in this timeframe there was some physical violence.  He got me in a chokehold one time during the pregnancy and I told him he had to move out in order to protect the baby.”

Do you remember how he attacked me physically while I was 8 months pregnant?

“Eve was my friend and I stood by her during her marital troubles and eventual divorce so I could understand her hanging around with Craig since they were friends from before but now this was getting out of hand and he would yell at me when I expressed opposition to them spending time together.  He would set me up in things and then expect me to not complain and tell me that is how I will learn to trust him.”

This blows my mind how similar our lives were…..

She then goes on to tell how Craig used their baby as a way of getting what he wanted. He would threaten her and try to control her, but Laura stayed strong.

LAURA:  “My insert here is to show how the pattern of behavior weaves its way from flattery and wooing to isolating and accusing and intimidating the intended victim.  I’m not sure if people like this go into a relationship with dominance in mind or if they are just so insecure and paranoid that they feel they must control and manipulate everything around them.  I’d like to believe that he had real feelings for me and that it developed into marital love.  I’m not sure anymore since I began reading this blog because I see that he followed much the same pattern with Eve that he did with me.”

Laura and I had breakfast yesterday (Saturday 11/19/2016) and reminisced for 3 hours about our history. It astounds both of us to see how parallel our lives were, and yet we only figured it out now. There was one other friend who joined us yesterday, and she (and her husband) was part of our group 20 + years ago, and her husband and Craig were friends to the day he was arrested. This guy was involved in some of Craigs illegal dealings, and it is CRAZY to sit and talk about the different sides to all these stories. A book is for sure going to come out, as there is SO MUCH that needs to be shared.

It’s late and I have a big day tomorrow.

There is still SO much for me to give you, so hang in there!!

I love you, and keep love in your heart forever!!