My experience in my marriage mirrors yours, including my ‘credentials’ about why I shouldn’t have easily been duped. Great examination of denial.

There is also the nature of the marital relationship, the ritual of marriage which makes us vulnerable to liars. In grief counseling, we would say you have an assumptive world and in marriage there is an additional layer…that both partners share in an assumptive world. But occasionally they don’t. The person ‘in denial’ must enter some grieving and acceptance process.