Has anyone here ever thought about why those dads (usually dads

[EFerrari]

but not always) go home and murder suicide their families?

I had a weird thought yesterday after dinner about a family member, "he feels like one of those guys that snap and come home with a gun". Now, I was *very* stressed out yesterday so, there's that. But, what a strange reaction. I usually don't have thoughts like that about other people no matter how stressed out I am. Usually under a ton of stress, I instead have racing worries about money or something a lot more mundane and less dramatic.

So before I dismiss this "insight" out of hand, I'm trying to sort it out rationally and realized, I don't know anything about those people who do things like that. My inner empath is mostly silent in this area. Andrea Yates I get. But that's as close as I come.

[mopinko]

1. you know, i had a dear friend

who was the nicest guy you ever want to meet. the kind of guy who would help you move. a great tipper (i knew him from a bar i worked at).
but he ended up divorced, mostly on the grounds that he was middle aged but not ready to give up having fun. he tried just having fun on his own. innocent fun, going out to hear live music and dancing. but his wife was jealous, and things fell apart.
so, he just was determined to move along, and met up with a younger woman, and got serious about her. she dumped him, and he went off the deep end. you could see it. he wasn't sleeping. he wasn't eating. he was drinking more. he looked awful.
one night he put on his duck hunting overalls, took his rifle, and laid in a ditch waiting for her for several hours. he killed her, then himself.
in spite of having watched the slide, no one who knew him could figure out how he got from here to there.

that said, tho, i am a strong believer that we are animals, with a complex set of built in behaviors. other male animals have an instinct to kill the offspring of other males, and other such violent things. i think that our reason and our sense of civilization temper our instincts, but they sure don't erase them. when we are pushed to the edge, reason falls away. when we have nothing left to lose, savage instinct surfaces.
we are complicated critters.

[WV_Biker]

2. Great post mopinko. n/t

[EFerrari]

3. I agree with that and yet, shame seems to be a powerful trigger

in these "familicides".

[mopinko]

4. oh, i agree. the transitions to males that stay around and help raise their

offspring was a big one for us naked apes. evolutionarily, it is risky. biology dictates that we never can be certain of who the daddy is. the whole theme of cuckoldry is a deep one in literature and history. it runs deep in the male psyche for very good reasons. a male who stays, but fails, well, it sets off a whole cascade, i think.
i also think that the move to a tribe that will take care of your offspring if you are a valauble person, ie killed in battle, but likely to be pretty cruel to them if you just bail is another part of it.
moving these little packets of dna to the next generation is a complicated damn business.

[Maraya1969]

5. This does not have to do with killing but I had an experience that helped me understand

why people from very poor areas many times do not take care of their property and why the things that they have control of look disgusting too, like garbage and litter all around.

After one of the hurricanes when we had no electricity going on for 5 days I was feeling like they were taking care of the wealthy homes and leaving us middle class neighborhoods for after. I remember I went down to the 7/11 that was running on a generator and the garbage can with filled up to the top. I had some paper wrappers to throw away and just then I had an impulse to throw them on the ground and leave them there.

I am the kind of person who picks up other people's garbage. When I walk my dogs I almost always come home with an aluminum can or two.

So the only thing I can think of is that I felt that people didn't care, I felt at the mercy of the electric company and I felt like I was a second class citizen because I did not live in a wealthy neighborhood. So I had the impulse to act like I didn't care either. It is sort of like if you go to a friend's house that is immaculate you are sure to put your coffee cup into the sink when you are done but if you are at a house that is messy and dirty you tend to leave it along with the other stuff.

Just my 2 cents.