What Makes a Man Kill the Mother of His Children?
Once upon a time – deadbeat dads, insecure husbands and selfish boys in men’s bodies would just leave women to raise children alone. Now, many of these same “men” take mothers away from their children in some of the most horrific acts.
It’s quite baffling honestly – even some of the more worthless men take advantage of opportunities for photo ops with their offspring on social media. Some of the very men lodged deepest in the debts of child support still brag about having made children. So why are so many men electing to kill the very figures who have made them fathers? Why are men killing the women who have made it a purpose in life to care for their children regardless of their history of mistreatment by the men in their lives?
You kill their mother and now these children are parentless. You have no chance at parental redemption serving a life sentence. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Make it make sense.
Monday morning, we awoke here in Dallas to news that another young and thriving black woman succumbed to the shots fired upon her by her husband. While details of her unfortunate demise are still emerging, this tragedy is not isolated. Her family and friends are left devastated. Her children are motherless. And the public is left with another mugshot of what appears to be an emotionless monster.
Whether this young woman endured years of unhappiness or only recently began to desire a new lifestyle is irrelevant. No marriage narrative warrants murder. If she was happy and in love on Sunday morning and wanted a divorce by Sunday night – she had every right to want something to change in her life.
So often in murders that are categorized as “domestic violence,” we subconsciously want to navigate social media for a history of mistreatment. When we do this, we follow the same sick and demented mental practices of predators. Husbands who have happy wives for the first decade of marriage tend to not be accepting of an unhappy wife in year 11. It doesn’t matter if he strays from the vows of the marriage, in his mind “you were happy more often than not – how dare you try to end what we have?”
What makes a man kill the mother of his children?
I’ve been asking myself that question all day. Even if a man finds his heart so hardened and battered with resentment for the woman, what makes him want to separate the children from their mother?
Perhaps this is a concept of “manhood” I’ll never understand. After years of extra-marital affairs, lack of affection, outside children, abuse (emotional, mental and/or physical) – perhaps there really are men who cannot accept women wanting to terminate a relationship.
We’ve heard the cliché as many times as women have been murdered by their boyfriends or husbands – “they can’t take what they dish out,” but have we truly gotten to the meat and potatoes of such a trite expression?
For many men: manhood = control, manhood = penis, manhood = power.
It doesn’t matter how many times he cheats; how many times he breaks a household item in a fit of rage; how many times he blacks her eye; how many times he doesn’t come home; or how many children he fathers outside of the relationship – when she is ready to stop receiving any of what he has to offer, the blow of rejection carries an unimaginative weight for some men.
The idea of someone else making her happy is unbearable. The idea of her loving on someone else is unbearable. The idea of her willingly sharing her body with someone else is unbearable.
The protector will turn villain when the domestic routine is threatened.
It’s pure entitlement and it is selfishness.
A bruised ego even trumps the better judgment to protect the well being of one’s own offspring. And we are left with communities full of innocent children who lost mama to daddy’s gun.
