Men behaving badly is the ultimate betrayal of trust and love. It is the murder of a family member, or an intimate partner. Each week a woman becomes another murder statistic at the hands of her husband or partner.
Men Behaving Badly in this way is really a male tantrum. They think, ‘If you don’t do what I want, don’t submit to my control, then I will kill you.’ It’s a tantrum with deadly consequences. Men of quality respect women’s equality. Sadly, the news is not about these men, but the men who do not respect women.
Hannah Clarke and her three young children were set alight and murdered by the most intimate of family members, her husband and their father. Four innocent victims lost their lives in the most horrific of circumstances, burnt alive in the family car. All because Hannah left her husband.
Control is Men Behaving Badly
But she had good reason to. Her parents testified on the ABC Insight program on Coercive Control that he demanded daily sex from Hannah, regardless of how she felt. This was despite the fact that she was a busy working mother with three young children. There were many other signs of control in this toxic relationship.
Hannah lost her voice but her parents are determined to help other young women in similar circumstances so they have a voice and the strength to leave their abusive partners. Small Steps for Hannah is a foundation to help victims of coercive control.
Murder is often First Physical Assault
Alarmingly, murder is often the first physical assault that an abused wife suffers. Coercive control is the lead up to such events and mostly is invisible to others outside the family. By the time the woman acts to protect herself and her children it is too late, as the act of her leaving triggers his deadly tantrum.
This week, Chris Dawson was charged with the murder of his wife, Lynette, forty years after the event. For decades, despite him being the chief suspect, he has eluded the charge. He lied to protect himself. Instead of admitting to his deadly tantrum in 1982, he maintained that Lynette, a loving mother, abandoned her two and four year old and disappeared.
Selfishness and Lies as Men Behave Badly
His lies plunged her family into decades of nightmare. They never knew where she was, dead or alive and why she disappeared, though they suspected Chris all along. He had groomed a 16-year-old student, the family babysitter, as his lover and when he realised he could not have her, he disposed of Lynette.
He could have filed for divorce, but the only way he could have his house and family and lover was to throw the wife away. Lynette was a throwaway wife. Chris did not consider his two young children or Lynette’s family and especially not Lynette herself. He only thought of himself and what he wanted. He threw a deadly male tantrum.
Women Rarely Behave So Badly
Sure, women behave badly too, often abandoning their husbands without strong reasons. Women can run off with lovers and abandon their family. But seldom do women kill their husbands in rage, and even more rarely do they kill their own children, too. Women more often kill to protect their children. They just snap and cry, ‘Enough!’ of men behaving badly.
Please recognise the signs of coercive control and abuse before you or a loved one succumbs to a deadly male tantrum. We have lost too many women to this the most selfish of acts, to men behaving badly.
Read more articles about amazing women and women’s issues at whisperingencouragement.com/
photo source: Samantha Sophia/ Unsplash
Joni Scott is an Australian author with two published novels: Whispers through Time and The Last Hotel. She co-hosts a women’s blog; https://whisperingencouragement.com/ and has her own website; https://joniscottauthor.com.
