Pathological Obsession: When Love Turns Dangerous

Pathological Obsessive Lovers come up with some remarkable justifications for their homicidal acts; here are a few of them:

• Deep Emotional Pain Intertwined with "Love" ("because I loved her, and felt so much pain, I killed her; I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t love her")
  
• Real or Perceived Betrayal ("She was trying to leave me, It’s like she stabbed me in the heart with a machete, I did everything for her")
  
• Entitlement, objectification, loss of control ("she’s mine, no one else can have her… she didn't listen to me, and I warned her something bad could happen to me or her, I had to be in control and I had a right to do what I had to do")

In an interview, a pathological obsessive killer describes his rationale for the homicidal actions of his wife (from the book In the Name of Love: Romantic Ideology and Its Victims; Oxford, 2008; Aaron Ben-Ze'ev and Ruhama Goussinsky). 

"She was everything to me. She was my soul.

You don't always kill a woman, feel jealousy about a woman, or shout at a woman because you hate her.

No. Because you love her, that's love.

My wife was the kind of woman you'd never murder in your life unless it was for love because of madness; at that moment, when a person loses everything, he doesn't think; it's a moment of madness. ...The only thing that I can say is that she was more honest than a Torah Scroll.”

So why murder someone like that? (The interviewer asks)...

“At that moment, you don't remember. You don't remember anything. You don't know what you're doing. Love makes a person stupid. Or maybe, maybe, it's not worthwhile loving a woman so much. Maybe you have to love less, less madly, that is the madness of love... It's written this way in the Bible, that woman- maybe they mean a woman stranger, but it's my wife, but I'll tell you: 'A good man before God will flee from her, the sinner will be trapped by her.' Did you understand that verse? Maybe I was not good before God. Maybe I was a sinner. She trapped me. What is that trap? It's love."

Research has come to a primary conclusion on obsessive homicide— that many individuals who commit these obsessive acts of murder become incited by their lover or partner ending or threatening to end a romantic relationship.

This becomes an acute threat to them, triggering a profound mood of deep despair, generating in their mind extreme rage and a desire to seek revenge or destroy the other person, even at the cost of self-destruction.

The irony is Pathological Obsessive Lovers who commit lethal acts of violence are highly Narcissistic and/or display high Love Avoidance patterns within their relationship.

It isn’t until their romantic partner decides to break up or threatens to break up that their dangerous pathological obsession kicks into high gear.

Instead of seeking help, the Pathological Lover, while in deep despair, justifies crossing the most dangerous red line, believing there is only one answer... and one path for relief. Relief for them comes about by cruel and violent acts of murder of a lover/partner who they feel abandoned, rejected, and ‘betrayed’ them.

Perhaps if they feel inclined, and many do, their rage will fuel them to do in, or kill, even their biological children, or their partner’s children, or both, and/or any others they blame for their despondent rage.

If only, amid their erroneous cognitions and grave agony, they could find the courage to reach out for help to save the lives of loved ones and conceivably save their own lives.

Obsessive love is unhealthy and can be destructive. In some cases, it is seriously pathological and dangerous. It doesn’t have to be this way if only those who suffer reach out for help.