Married to a Stranger
The Dating Detectives
Dear Media
4.7 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 109 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week the Dating Detectives welcome Dominique, whose “movie-perfect” meet-cute with a quiet coworker spirals into a chilling case study in coercive control. After love-bombing, and a whirlwind Halloween wedding, a dream Smoky Mountains honeymoon gives way to explosive rage, religiously justified domination, isolation from friends, terrifying reckless driving, stalking, and paranoid delusions. Dominique walks us through the pink flags she ignored, the gaslighting that made her second-guess reality, and the careful plan she used to reclaim her home after his arrest. Content warnings: domestic abuse, religious trauma, stalking, mental health crisis. If you’re in an unsafe situation, you’ll find support resources below.
Click here to join our Patreon! For only $5 a month you will get 2 extra episodes a month, monthly virtual live events, and access to our community page. And now for $9 a month you can get all of that, plus ad free episodes!
If you've been dogfished and want to share your story on the show, email investigate@thedatingdetectivespodcast.com or contact us through our website using this link
This episode is sponsored by Wayfair. Refresh your home for less. Shop back-to-routine deals by visiting Wayfair.com.
This episode is sponsored by Miracle Made. Get silver-infused, bacteria-fighting, temperature-regulating sheets and towels at TryMiracle.com/TDD and use code TDD to save over 40% and claim a FREE 3-piece towel set.
This episode is sponsored by Suvie. Get the smart countertop kitchen robot that refrigerates, cooks, and meal-preps dinner while you're away. Go to Suvie.com/DatingDetectives to start your 100-day risk-free trial and get 16 FREE meals with your order.
Take control of your data today. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan by visiting joindeleteme.com/datingdetectives and using the promo code TDD at checkout.
This episode of The Dating Detectives is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/tdd today to get 10% off your first month.
***The following Program contains names, places and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. The following Program is provided for entertainment purposes only and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances.
If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for support.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following program contains names, places, and events that have been anonymized or fictionalized for the purposes of protection and safety. |
| 0:08.7 | The following program is provided for entertainment purposes only, and any commentary from the hosts are strictly conjecture and should not be held as making any definitive statements about the truth or identity of any particular individuals or circumstances. |
| 0:21.3 | If you or a loved one are involved in an abusive relationship, |
| 0:24.2 | please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-723 for support. |
| 0:40.7 | Hi, happy dating detectives Monday. |
| 0:43.4 | Hello, hello. Hi, McKenzie. Welcome back. |
| 0:48.0 | It's a national holiday. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for being patient with me. |
| 0:54.6 | I had so much going on with PrimeCon and then I had a Nashville event and it's been a crazy couple of weeks. |
| 0:56.3 | So thank you for being patient. |
| 0:59.2 | Tell people last week we had an episode. |
| 1:01.3 | Yes, Molly subbed in and it was amazing. |
| 1:07.1 | Some of you recognize that at the very beginning, Molly's microphone was subpar. And she wants us to tell you that she messed up the settings for her microphone only at the |
| 1:12.6 | beginning of the episode, only in the introduction. So the rest of the episode is totally fine. |
| 1:17.6 | Some of you were like, I cannot listen to this. And Molly says she's very sorry. She has a mic, |
| 1:23.6 | and it was great the rest of the time so just you know skip skip five minutes and just |
| 1:29.8 | get into the story it's worth it it was really great to talk I loved yeah well I noticed that and I was |
| 1:36.3 | like oh her settings must be off and so and then it was fine I really appreciate that our listeners |
| 1:41.5 | like recognize that and they're so helpful and like hey I just |
| 1:44.7 | wanted to let you know like your audio so thank you so much for recognizing that but please if you |
| 1:49.3 | didn't listen to the episode because of that go listen it's fine I she was like to people were like |
| 1:54.5 | do we need to buy you a mic we're like no it's we're sorry but yeah we're all a human what do you from us? I love so much that everybody was just so kind about it. So thank you. We have another guest this week. Her name is Dominique. I love that name so much. I know. I keep saying Dominique de Coco, if you know that movie, and you get it. I really think that you guys are going to love her. |
| 2:18.5 | She's a great storyteller, and she has a very interesting story to tell, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dear Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dear Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.