Another lovely man has killed his wife.

[WorldWideWomble]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/husband-88-killed-wife-and-himself-over-dementia-fears-wcxbpd7wg

He strangled his wife to death. Because he now has dementia too. It was fine when she had it, and went to a home but not now that he has it. They have children who lost their mother to strangling.

I don't want to make a list of ways you can murder someone, but off the topic of my head I can think of 3 non painful, non violent ways to die where the wife isn't spending her last moments in pain and fear.

If she wanted to die because of dementia why didn't she choose it herself before going to the home?

Comments from the story. .

This was a tragedy, yes, the worst part being that they were not realistically offered under the law a dignified way to die .This problem is going to get much, much worse in the years to come.Sad that this couple was not able to arrange a dignified, gentle, painless exit.

Sounds more like severe depression than dementia

This was wrong in law, but done for a loving reason.

this seems quite rational life decisions to me. exit life as quality of life turning negative. well done.

It's behind the pay wall so can't read. But the first bit... so horrible.

If he wanted to kill himself, that's his choice. But he murdered his wife.

What is it that makes these family annihilators so arrogant that they need to take people with them? To the point of planning.

funny how it's only 'lovely' husbands that kill their wives

Poor lady, she will have been scared and in pain. Agreed if he wanted to spare her a worsening quality of life there are other less violent ways to have killed her

Edited by MNHQ to remove copyrighted material.

That's a really sad story.

My mum has aphasia and will develop dementia-she wants to go to dignitas but I can’t take her as I would lose my career (and possibly go to jail). She has asked us to help her die. Assisted suicide wouldn’t lead to more deaths, it would allow more people to die with dignity and avoid (in some cases, not necessarily this one) this type of situation.

That's only true in the mans case. He wanted to die, he left a note, he killed himself.

All we know about the woman is that she was strangled. She didn't leave a note. Or kill herself. She was murdered.

I think there are many comments that could be made about this man's behaviour but putting him in the category of family annihilator is wrong Mrs T and awful.

It clearly isn't a family annihilation as he only killed one person but let's not let facts get in the way of an feminist rant eh Mrs T? The fact that you want it to be something it is very clearly not shows your prejudice.

Dementia is a fucking cruel disease.

It turned my lovely gentle aunt into a violent woman who attacked nursing home staff.

And yes, I think we will see more cases like this.

Not because men are a problem, but because dementia is a fucking cruel disease and thus is one of the things it can do to you.

Yes, he's a family annihilator. He killed a member of his family before killing himself. Of all the cases of family annihilation, they're almost always perpetrated by men, only very, very rarely by women. TeeJay is the one stretching the "facts" to breaking point and beyond (so pissed off with the endless stream of posters who want to brush male-pattern violence under the carpet by some excuse or other "women do it too", "only one victim doesn't count as annihilation", "NAMALT" - FUCK THAT, IT'S STILL MALE-PATTERN VIOLENCE.)

It is family annihilation @TeeJay1970 as their family will be destroyed by this 'lovely' man's actions. It's classic patriarchy.

Not because men are a problem, but because dementia is a fucking cruel disease and thus is one of the things it can do to you.
This.
And a nursing home is upwards of £30000/yr.
I wonder if the latter point was why he killed her and not just himself. The kids might have something to inherit as a direct result of their mother's unlawful death. It's a scary thought.

I'm so sorry TeeJay. You're so right. He only killed his wife. He only strangled one family member. He only murdered one woman.

The most common form of murder in families is that of a wife or ex-wife but why on earth would that require a 'feminist rant'? So silly of me.

Though Rancid is also right, dementia is a fucking awful disease. I've had relatives where it's turned the nicest person imaginable into a complete monster. Like zombification of the personality.

Reading the article, it's like he thought she belonged to him, and he could do as he pleased/thought best without regard for her

he thought she belonged to him, and he could do as he pleased/thought best without regard for her
That's probably half right. He might have had regard for her. Men his age might have felt their wives belonged to them but also that they remained responsible for them. Polar opposite now is a FWB scenario - he know she doesn't belong to him but he doesn't owe her his time, money or love. I'm not insinuating it's a romantic thing, maybe more a duty thing.
I think he committed murder but I also think it's a possibility he felt compelled to end her suffering. It's equally a possibility that despite appearances he was a horrible husband and chose to kill her for another reason. We will never know. A verdict of unlawful killing was returned so the fact he killed her deliberately isn't in question, and his actions were morally wrong, no matter what his intent was.

superram - my dad says the same thing about euthanasia, should he ever need it. I have made it clear that unfortunately for him, I will not be in a position to help out.

But a post on here really turned my views on doctor assisted suicide upside down. I'd always thought of it in terms of people with motor neurone disease or similar, and those case studies where people point out that it's actually enabled them to live for longer, because they haven't had to take matters into their own hands prematurely simply because the time during which their own hands would remain functional was more limited than their capacity to enjoy life...

But someone on here pointed out that Belgium now has pretty much the most liberal euthanasia laws in the world, and permits euthanasia for people whom psychiatrists judge to have severe and untreatable depression. Then, when you look at the stats, it turns out that far more women than men are availing themselves of this option. When you factor in the possibility (discussed on many threads on here about women and mental health as a feminist issue) that often what manifests itself as the appearance of mental illness in women is in fact a reaction to being a woman in a patriarchal society, particularly a woman who's suffered abuse and has PTSD as a result... the idea that women are "more likely" to have "untreatable" depression and thus "opt" for doctor assisted suicide in greater numbers than men begins to look very worrying indeed.

I now don't know where I stand. I want people with incurable degenerative diseases like MND to know they can escape from their suffering at a time of their choosing - but I really am not comfortable with that being extended to people with mental illnesses.

I now don't know where I stand.
bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2296-7-39
It's too open to coercion for me to be able to support it.

If this man had killed them both in a painless way, where she didn't even know it was happening. Then, maybe you could claim it was love or duty. But he strangled her to death. Her last minutes were being painfully, physically assaulted by her husband. Their children lost two parents in one day, one to an assault.

Strangled to death doesn't feel better because your husband does it.

Carbon monoxide, poison, there are other ways, he chose an incredibly violent way of death.

God that’s awful.

I have a lot of experience with dementia (was carer). It is a horrendous disease. But very often with moderate and severe dementia it’s worse for the family and loved ones than it is for the patient themself, who no longer has the cognitive capacity to understand what’s happening to them or how they were different before it did.

I can’t read the paywalled Times article but there’s more detail on the inquest elsewhere. Eg this from the Metro metro.co.uk/2018/09/25/man-killed-wife-then-himself-fearing-he-would-get-dementia-like-her-7978395/

On the day they died, a relative found him in tears outside their home before going to visit her. Victory care home in Chatham. Meanwhile Mrs Lyons was happy and had been dancing at a party put on by the care home to celebrate the Queen’s birthday, Detective Sergeant Adam Marshall, of the Kent Police major crime team, told the inquest.

She didn’t have the life she had before and it would have been very very hard for her loved ones, but that didn’t give him a right to decide that her being strangled to death was preferable.

Poor woman I hope my loving husband doesn’t decide he loves me so much that I need strangling to death for my own good.