1. Why does the writer use " --" in front of and? Is it necessary? This is being used for emphasis - to stress the change that occurred. I'm not sure this would be considered grammatically correct 2. Why can the two verbs(knew became) be used together in a sentence? Knew is referring back the man/ subject of the sentence. Simplified the second part of sentence reads: The man she knew changed Hope this helps a bit!

The verbs have two different subjects. 'Knew' corresponds to Andrews and 'became' corresponds to her husband. The calm caring husband(that Andrews knew) became someone else.

1. no, it's similar to a comma or full stop. it's good for the article as it breaks the sentence up :) 2. I think the best way to describe this is that in the second part of the statement (after --) the word 'knew' isn't treated as a verb but as a description (Andrew knew). There should probably be a comma between knew and became to break it up. however the whole sentence as it is doesn't make sense.