Crimes of passion spread in Serbia: Psychologist reveals two main reasons for increase in violence

Photo illustration: Telegraf, Pixabay, Profimedia

The whole of Serbia was shocked today by the news that Radovan R. (57) had killed his partner J.L.(46) in the settlement of Baric near Obrenovac, after which he tried to take his own life.

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This is just another in a series of cases whre men are determined to take the life of their ex or current partner, and then try to take their own lives.

We can't help but ask why so many women have been suffering lately and why relationships between people who were at some point positive and loving end in this way.

Psychologist Radmila Vulic Bojovic explained for Telegraf.rs whether the coronavirus epidemic can be a trigger for violence, as well as what happens inside the head of a man capable of committing such a crime.

"The whole story related to the pandemic has led to an increase in domestic violence on a global level because people, on the one hand, spend more at home, faced with one another. On the other hand, some activities that balanced those dysfunctional partner relations have stopped. Many people work from home, they no longer have hobbies that used to fill their time and create that kind of functional distance between people. That got lost and relationships are more easily brought to the point of breaking. Overall, we are recording a general increase in violence, and therefore that is happening in our country as well," psychologist Vulic Bojovic points out.

Photo: A. Nalbantjan, Pixabay

It's very important to understand that murder is usually preceded by long-term problems in a romantic relationship, and the "trigger" can be the moment when the victim dares to leave.

"Probably a long-term dysfunctional partner problem that leads to that, or something acute happened where a man destroys that woman (it is an extreme act of violence), and then destroys himself so as not to bear the consequences. It just seems to me like it’s some kind of total annulment and destruction, and it often happens when women want to get out of a marriage, when they want to leave, then they get murdered because (the killer) can’t imagine them living without him, or with someone else, even worse. So it is a very complex complicated psychological mechanism that is activated in these situations and that comes from the domain of the pathological," stressed the psychologist.

Photo: Pixabay

People can be delusional for years, ignoring bad moments in a relationship, until they reach the breaking point...

"Sometimes people live in a delusion, so when they are faced with the fact that something is not as they thought it had been, they break down, but that still doesn't mean that a life spent in a delusion is a functional and good life. So those relationships certainly had their bad moments, whether people dealt with it or not is another matter. That extreme type of violence, such as femicide, murder and afterwards suicide, is certainly a product of a long-term pathological process," Radmila Vulic Bojovic concluded in her statement for the Telegraf portal.

(Telegraf.rs)