Yeah it's because a separation can leave you in a really vulnerable emotional and mental place.

And assholes like Peterson or Jones or so are adept at latching onto that and subverting your perspective from the inside out. You'd think "Hey, that could never happen to me!" but it's difficult to know how vulnerable you'll be after a truly harrowing emotional experience - which a breakup can be in some particular cases even though between adults it really should not have to be - and once you're exploited, it's virtually impossible to realize how skewed your view has become.

Of course, this is separate from the often much more common case where someone was a nutjob from the getgo (like the guy in this article) and it just took their partner a while to realize that all the fame and money isn't worth living with someone so utterly deranged.