Also last week, also here in Texas, a man killed a woman with a machete in front of her children.

when other men in his circle of acquaintance would see him as weak. So many male portrayals in movies portray men as getting their ways with women, taking charge of both her sexuality and her life, being able to demand undying love and devotion even as you hurt her with physical and emotional pain. even when this occurs in early stages of marriage
Women change and demand more equality in a marriage or simply reject the husband.
If the woman remains with the man that was in control especially one revered by his male friends and some ladies for that control to hear he no longer has the right implies a falsehood on the part of a wife which he punishes her for and which supports his self image as honest in the relationship. He will also suffer bewilderment at this failure of the same qualities he exhibits faithfully to secure that control. This failure angers him. We say doing the same thing over and over and expecting to achieve a different result is insanity, but he kept doing the same things over and over and got a different result. to him, this is unfair, dishonest, and if the other person is both unfair and dishonest she deserves punishment for any embarrassment he suffers both in and outside the home. After he resigns himself that she is guilty and by her changes destroying his and her happy home, he works more desperately to return that boost to his ego that he means more than everything to her. He then watches her for any signs of rebellion no matter how small and continually raises the bar on her performance to acceptance of both physical and mental pain without complaint to check her level of rebellion and decide on further punishment. Eventually he decides he cannot succeed and he cannot avoid the public blow to his public persona of control. At that point he decides to kill the source of his misery,the dishonest female who took away an important part of his ego and then himself as he knows his failure to control when he has identified control as success will be revealed. His killing his wife is his despair building into anger and a decision to end her unworthy life. His decision to kill himself is to avoid the blow to his ego that he would face from his circle of influence. But my take on domestic violence is that just that of an old married guy that has a number of times felt that agreements between husband and wife were destroyed by changes in the wife, and I am sure changes in myself. If you love each other and have decent egos you work out new arrangements but there is often feelings of betrayal that arise when you feel the rules are being changed unforeseen and unilaterally often due to failure to achieve a good level of communication.