Free 'Till Death Do Us Part: Love, Marriage, and the Mind of the Killer Spouse by Robi Ludwig, Matt Birkbeck Page A

dissatisfaction were focused and projected onto her new husband, Robert, who had his own set of pathologies, it was a toxic mix.
    There’s no doubt that Gail admired her husband’s intellect and goal-directedness. He embodied what she wanted to be. A part of her knew that if she chose Robert, she could be more like him professionally and strengthen her previously underdeveloped intellectual aspect. But even with this intellectual growth spurt, Gail couldn’t help but stick it to her husband. She seemed to enjoy letting him know how much he was failing her.
    People with borderline personality disorder exhibit plenty of rage and often can’t stop themselves from discharging this rage onto the person who disappoints them. They have difficulty feeling soothed and okay with the world, and because of this they blame the person they are with since it seems to them that that person is the cause of their discomfort.
    Robert became the unfortunate target of Gail’s chronic and persistent upset and inability to feel good about herself. But he was the wrong guy to target these feelings onto; Gail’s behavior enraged him, made him feel murderous and out of control. He had always been able to conquer the challenges that came his way. He could fly a plane, go to medical school, become a surgical resident, even cook and play the guitar. In his mind, there was very little he couldn’t do, except win his wife’s love and admiration. This, in turn, made him angry and resentful, and his anger toward Gail was becoming lethal.
    Here is a case where you have two major character pathologies somehow finding each other—Gail was a suicidal and self-destructive borderline personality, Robert was an angry and violent perfectionist who wanted complete control, and he thought with increased intensity about killing Gail, leading to an incident when he tried to strangle her. Despite the violence, and the warning from a psychiatrist that Gail was in danger, she remained in the relationship. On some level the dangerous aspect of Robert’s personality provided a macabre fascination for Gail. As uncomfortable as it was for her, it also made her feel excited and alive. Her anger toward her husband also gave her permission to have affairs with other men, argue with him, and do whatever else she wanted to do while married. What Gail didn’t realize was that Robert’s anger, and the subsequent violence, were his way of making himself whole.
    Abusive husbands have an enormous need to feel good about themselves. When a man goes home to his wife he wants something to take place between the two of them that will help him to feel emotionally taken care of. The origins for this need lie in the mother/infant or young child relationship, with the mother serving as the central figure for this attachment style. The child has an enormous need to look into the eyes of his mother and see reflected back the messages “You make me happy” and “You are wonderful.” All children, especially during their earliest development, require acknowledgment from their parents. This helps a child to feel pride and take pleasure in his or her accomplishments. When children are deprived of these essential responses, and instead are subjected to criticism for their efforts, they become emotionally stunted and may lose their innate ability to feel competent and confident.
    Consequently, when they become adults these deprived children are always looking to someone in the outside world to validate and recognize them. The problem is, no mother—or any other person, for that matter—can be the perfect mirror. In some cases, there is a temperamental mismatch between parent and child, so that the child feels misunderstood, unappreciated, and out of sync with his primary caregiver. When this happens a child can develop a gap in his sense of self-worth and doubt his own self-competence. He then turns desperately to the outside world for validation and even more than most people, becomes