"Sure, there were other options - but he couldn't see them"

"which is because he was mentally ill, not because his wife was mean."

How do you know for sure?

"People in good marriages commit suicide too, it's not about the wife, it's about the person who chooses to kill himself."

So the person's environment is NEVER a factor?

"You can never blame that deliberate act on another person than the person who chose to kill himself."

Never is a very long time.

Can you guarantee that the "mean wife" was not a factor in any way?

"If he blamed his wife, that was part of the blaming addicts and mentally ill people use to deny their sickness."

But the dead guy isn't blaming her. The son is.

---

This hardworking young fellow gets married at 20 in 1955. It's what everybody was doing back then, and he really fell for the girl hard. He has a good job that with chances for advancement, a high school diploma and some skills, so he figures he's set.

For the first few months it's wonderful. They do all kinds of fun things together, in and out of the sack.

Baby #1 pops out 10 months after the wedding, and there are some more bills, but that's OK, he'll just work harder to pay them.

He suggests birth control to the wife, and she looks at him as if he'd suggested spouse-swapping. Holy Mother The Church says it's a sin, and she won't be part of it. The only approved method is rhythm, aka Vatican Roulette.

So they try it, and in 18 months Baby #2 pops out.

They buy a house for the growing family, the young guy is working harder than ever to pay all the bills. The wife's must-have and honey-do lists keep growing, but it's all for the family, so the young guy just plugs away.

The wife starts complaining about various things. At first it's occasional little things that are easily dealt with. But over time, the complaints and nagging get more frequent and the demands get greater. The complaints aren't all about material things, either; they're about stuff like how tired she is taking care of the house and the kids, her aches and pains, etc. She's really good at putting on the guilt trip.

Then the put-downs start. How he missed an opportunity, how he's not pushing himself enough, how he should be smarter, more of a go-getter, how he should 'make things happen'. For his family, that is.

The young guy tries to stand up to her, but she's simply got more energy, verbal skills and arguing horsepower than he does. He keeps thinking that if he just does a few more things, she'll be happy and things will be the way they were at the beginning.

But that never happens. There's always more things on the complaint list, and less resources. More put-downs and less praise. The young guy isn't young anymore, and he's moved up in the world, but nothing he does is ever quite good enough for the wife. She's always on about how she's given him the best years of her life, how this neighbor or that has something they don't, problems with the kids, house, hwo she could have married X or Y or Z instead of the young guy (and look where X, Y and Z are now!) etc., etc.

Over time his friends drift away, because he has no time to spend with them, and they don't like the wife. Whatever hobbies or interests he has are just memories, for lack of time and resources. He can't even get time to himself; she's always got a list of things for him to do and a put-down of some kind.

Divorce is out of the question; he's got responsibilities out the wazoo and he's been raised to think it would be immoral to walk out on them. Counseling, therapy, etc. are out of the question too; there's no money for them and if anyone ever found out, he'd be ostracized forever. He tries talking to the parish priest, and what the good father tells him is that we all have crosses to bear and burdens to carry, and he should just offer it up the way Our Lord did on Calvary, and pray for the strength to carry on. Plus he should think about how hard his wife's life is, caring for the house and kids....

This goes on for DECADES and gets a little worse each year. No matter what he does, it's never good enough for her. He's getting older and more tired, but the demands just keep growing. He dreams about retirement someday, but it seems so far away that he wonders if he'll ever get there. Plus if he ever does retire, she'll be on him 24/7.

The kids grow up and leave, but the complaining and put-downs continue.

Do you blame him if, one day, he finally can't take it anymore, and in a moment of despair ends it all?

Can you REALLY say that the wife wasn't a factor in any way?