Truth is, it isn't only men who murder their children. Gabrielle Garcia also jumped to her death with her 22 month old son strapped to her. Although it is said that men are more likely to kill their children as an act of revenge (after a partner leaves them), where as women are more likely to kill their children due to mental illness and lack of support.
Though, fundamentally both are born of mental issues and acts of desperation to some degree. Mentally healthy people don't abuse their partners or children, and mentally well people don't murder their children.
However, I have a confession.
Here's the situation. The father of my children is psychologically abusive (otherwise known as verbally abusive). At the time we had our first child together, my partner was losing his temper several times a day over trivial things: toys not being put away, toys not being used, dishes not done, washing not brought in, dinner not cooked good enough. It was extreme! He was standing over me, yelling aggressively, calling me names and generally berating me for not being good enough (i.e. perfect).
He'd had a hard upbringing himself with critical parents and this left him feeling inadequate and needing to strive for some type of impossible perfection in life.
Previous to children, he'd been difficult to reason with and contrary. He'd tell he I should do something that way, then when I did he'd tell me I should be doing it this way. There was a definite feeling of not being able to win, of never being able to please him, of the goal posts constantly being moved. Yet, he was never aggressive until we had children.
After our first child came along he suddenly became really angry ALL of the time. The change in routine threw him, the crying, the noise, the mess, the lack of spare time I had to get anything done. It was too much for him and he took his frustration out on me. He would cuddle the baby, being really sweet and lovely, then yell at me while holding the baby, for perceived failures.
Try as I might to have him see there was nothing wrong with me or the job I was doing, he refused to acknowledge his anger was an issue. It was always someone else's fault (usually mine).
Life became unbearable, I was heavily depressed, and now I had a child with him I felt trapped. I wanted to leave, yet that meant having to share custody because no judge was going to award me 100% custody - since psychological abuse and the damage it causes is impossible to prove. Yet I knew, if I left him and he had visitation, he'd affect the children's lives in a very negative way. As it is he played the children against me in their younger years. He played them against me when we did split up for a while some years later (buying them expensive things/buying their love). He also began to turn on the children when they got old enough to also be annoying. Which meant me having to be there with and for them 100% of the time to ward off his attacks.
I had family and friends, yet none that I could stay with (they didn't have the room or ability to house me), and non that would come over and stay with me to see what my partner was like and call him out on his abusive behavior.
I would talk with his family and friends and they'd say things like: He's not like that. He'd never hurt anyone. He's got a heart of gold. What part are you playing in this?
Many people knew it was happening yet no one intervened. No one helped. No one offered any actionable solutions. People would say they would talk to him yet they never did.
During those dark days of feeling so miserable and unhappy with my life with him, depressed beyond imaging, yet feeling trapped and unable to escape (because leaving didn't mean escape), there was a story on the news about a mother who drove her car into a dam, drowning herself and her two sons. I heard the story and thought "I can relate to how she must have been feeling" and I wondered if her story was the same as mine. Did she have a controlling, abusive partner she was trying to escape? Taking her own life would mean leaving her children in the hands of an abuser. To her, murder/suicide seemed to the only, sad and tragic, way out. (Mind you, she might have done it out of spite and revenge, I don't know?)
Whilst I never got beyond thinking/imaging how death was one way (and at times seemed the only way) to escape and save myself and my child from a life of misery with this man... I never did it. To be honest, one look at my beautiful, innocent babies and there was no way I could ever harm them. What kept me going was wondering what amazing people my children would grow up to be.
In the end we went to counselling which helped. It didn't make things 100% better, yet it helped my partner realise his anger was not normal, it was over the top, the things he was getting angry over were things that didn't matter, and he ran the risk of losing/alienating us if he continued.
As a parent have you had dark days? Dark thoughts? What has kept you going in those truly difficult times?
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