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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder why a woman (and let’s be honest it is usually women) would choose to remain and support a serial killer? Or someone who committed an otherwise despicable crime?

13 replies

SummerGems · 25/01/2019 15:07

Been watching the Ted Bundy tapes on Netflix and then just read the Wikipedia entry about him.

The truly despicable acts the man carried out are beyond anything I would even want to imagine, however one other thing which totally baffles me is the fact that his then partner (later wife) actively chose to stay with him through the trial, conviction, sentencing, and only cut contact with him not because of what he’d done, but because it emerged that he’d also had relationships with other women.

Just why?

I know it’s easy to say that these women are often controlled, scared etc etc but it seems clear that she wasn’t, and as an adult was presumably also capable of making her own decisions, including to continue to support him even after he’d been convicted of numerous murders.

And she’s not the only one, I’ve certainly read of other women who support their murderer and pedophile husbands during their prison stays and after their release etc.

I can’t help thinking that it’s possible, likely even, that some of these women somehow share the thrill of what their partners have done.

OP posts:
Apple103 · 25/01/2019 15:11

Shes also probably messed up in another way.

araiwa · 25/01/2019 15:12

For some its a fetish

In some cases they dont to admit theyve been deceived and just dont believe it

Some believe in the death til you part stuff

Other reasons probably too

PlainSpeakingStraightTalking · 25/01/2019 15:13

"For richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, 'till death do us part" that just about covers it

ChodeofChodeHall · 25/01/2019 15:13

I read about this recently: I think it's called hybristophilia - a sexual thrill obtained from knowledge of a partner's violent crimes.

easyandy101 · 25/01/2019 15:16

A suspension of belief or a break from reality

I always felt slightly sorry for Maxine Carr, in that if I went to my partner and said "they're trying to fuck me over" then I reckon she'd believe me, because on some level she'd trust that, which is presumably why/because she loves me.

How far you go with that mentality/suspension of belief is another thing

aethelgifu · 25/01/2019 15:16

Because they're fucked in the head.

Omgineedanamechange · 25/01/2019 15:21

Denial. They refuse to believe it was as bad as it was. It’s amazing what you can convince yourself of if you really want to.

bridgetreilly · 25/01/2019 15:46

Scared to leave them.

HeresMe · 25/01/2019 16:32

The same reason I guess people get into relationships with people in prison, I don't know if it's thrill of danger or what.

Ladyoftheloch · 25/01/2019 16:47

The reason it’s ‘mostly women’ who support serial killers is that heterosexual people hugely outnumber homosexual people and most (almost all) serial killers are men.

I think that your fascination with serial killers is at one end of a very long scale which has women who stay in romantic relationships with them at the other. Fascination with humans who behave like monsters is a very common thing. But like all things, some people take it to extremes.

Shallishanti123 · 25/01/2019 16:51

I’m not sure, but I see it a lot at work (Police) and it baffles me. I feel sorry for some of them because it seems they feel trapped. I often wonder why they stay.

alltoomuchrightnow · 25/01/2019 17:45

I remember years ago reading a book about Jeffery Dahmer and wondering how his dad and step mum stood by him and supported him

alltoomuchrightnow · 25/01/2019 17:46

look at Manson and the power he had over young women

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