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Any sympathy I could have for Betty vanishes when I think of what she did to her children. What happened to her is awful. However, to not analyze the consequences of what would occur to her children after committing an act like this is unforgivable. A responsible parent always, always, always puts his/her children first. It can be damn hard to do it at times. I have clients in huge psychological pain because of the way an ex-spouse has treated them. Yet, none of them have committed such an act.
It was wrong for the system to allow itself to be manipulated by this man. However, at the end of the day there is one person who obtained a firearm. There is one person who made a plan and went to her ex-husband's home. There is one person who pulled the trigger of that gun at least twice.
I'll leave it up to the parole board how much time she ought to serve.
I guess you have to have endured complete psychological, emotional, devestation that Betty received at the hands of her spouse to understand. He was a sociopath,"winner take all" mentality. It was not enough to just divorce her, he had to alienate her from her kids (easy enough for a wealthy Father to do), use her, discard her like a an old worn out shoe, traded in for a new model. Betty had nothing left. Her entire identity was being Dan Broderick's wife, when he took that, she had nothing to lose by killing him.
I do blame Betty, for letting her life be completely dominated by another, so when he left she felt like she had nothing, and was nothing. She should have developed her own life, separate from his. But a man like that would not have let her do that...the whole dynamic was skewed.
One thing about Betty, was she had no resilency, it seems to me her life had always gone according to plan, perfect, and when it did not, she had no clue how to continue. No inner strength to help her deal with her husband leaving her. She tried to fight back, but he was powerful, wealthy, with a professional identity, stating she was crazy. She was fighting a losing battle, and struck back the only way she felt she could, violently.
The husband knew Betty was on the edge and he seemed to have wanted to push her off. That type of salt in the wound behavior is really disgusting. She shouldn't have taken the bait though, but I really don't feel she was psychologically hardy enough to push away from it. You wonder if anyone from the outside could see how dangerous it was getting to help de-escalate it??
The stuff that happened to Betty(before she killed Dan) was routine in their circle of people.
She got the house and spousal support.
She should of got some counseling and just moved on with her life!
I guess you have to have endured complete psychological, emotional, devestation that Betty received at the hands of her spouse to understand. He was a sociopath,"winner take all" mentality. It was not enough to just divorce her, he had to alienate her from her kids (easy enough for a wealthy Father to do), use her, discard her like a an old worn out shoe, traded in for a new model. Betty had nothing left. Her entire identity was being Dan Broderick's wife, when he took that, she had nothing to lose by killing him.
I do blame Betty, for letting her life be completely dominated by another, so when he left she felt like she had nothing, and was nothing. She should have developed her own life, separate from his. But a man like that would not have let her do that...the whole dynamic was skewed.
One thing about Betty, was she had no resilency, it seems to me her life had always gone according to plan, perfect, and when it did not, she had no clue how to continue. No inner strength to help her deal with her husband leaving her. She tried to fight back, but he was powerful, wealthy, with a professional identity, stating she was crazy. She was fighting a losing battle, and struck back the only way she felt she could, violently.
This is exactly how she was raised in her generation. That is how life was then. My sisters are 15 and 19 years older than me. I grew up in the '60's, at the beginning of women's lib. I was the first generation in my family of women to have a job, work while being married and raising a child, etc. My mother and sisters never finished high school, but got married young and had kids. When their marriages fell apart, they were in a world of hurt! Betty worked, a job NOT a career, to put Dan through school. Her life, and job, was raising her children and "raising up" her husband. Dan was an arrogant old fart going through middle age crisis, IMO. I can understand how she lost her mind.
I guess you have to have endured complete psychological, emotional, devestation that Betty received at the hands of her spouse to understand.
Actually, I HAVE endured that. My former husband refused to accept that our marriage was over. Instead of divorcing amicably, his stance was that if we were to divorce, I would be destroyed. He destroyed me financially. I'll never recover.
However, I didn't choose to take his life.
I don't give a rip what Betty B. contributed to her marriage; if one spouse wants OUT, that's all there is to it. It's a free country (for now, at least.) She chose to do what she did, she was an adult. Dan Broderick didn't "owe" her a thing.
She was getting 16K per month in alimony and had a huge house to live in. Give me a break.
Yes, there are people who try to alienate children from the other parent. That is very wrong, but that doesn't give anyone the right to take their life.
I don't care what kind of b**tard Dan B. was, she had no right to kill him or his new wife.
Quote:
she had nothing to lose by killing him.
Are you serious? She killed her children's father! She also condemned herself to the rest of her life in prison.
She was a nut case and needed to get on with her life. Her late husband give her the house, money each month etc..what did she think he "earned" beyond that? I'm glad she is locked up and should stay there for life.
Lots of folks still believe she was getting all that all along? Wow. Snap judgements are worth that... SNAP!
I completely empathize with what she did. I'm glad that the people she murdered were the two who worked to make her lose her mind. I feel sorry for her kids (but not much), and not for Dan or Linda.
That said, I believe you should live with the consequences of your actions and if I'd have been in her shoes, maybe life in prison would be worth it?
Her kids were entitled, vicious and greedy. They were quick to accept 'new mom' and sell out the woman who gave birth to them for new cars, clothes, vacactions and other 'things'. What mom wouldn't have been hurt by that as well? She struck out at them verbally, but she didn't murder them... and she had even more opportunity to do that.
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