Thank you, kizzykat, great article. More:
"Familicide is the act of murdering multiple close family members in quick succession. Often these men are deeply depressed and feel ashamed of themselves. They try to spare their family from imminent financial ruin or status loss and embarrassment. Other disappointed familicide killers want to punish the family for not living up to their grandiose ideas of family life. Half of these family annihilators attempt suicide after the crime. This is where Chris Watts is a bit of an anomaly.
[...]
Like most sociopaths/psychopaths, Chris' romantic relationships and the feelings of being “in love” was not experienced the way a healthy, well-adapted person falls in love.
Sociopaths enter romantic relationships based on an agenda. They always consider what they can get from others first. Men like Chris are not able to be intimate or express empathy or deep emotions. Given these emotional limitations, Watts was drawn to his wife Shanann, because he believed she could make him loved, healthy, normal and whole. He was not able to get these feelings on his own. He very likely thought Shanann could help him feel this way because she had this amazing ability to create an image of satisfaction and success. She also was madly in love with him.
We can assume that Shanann Watts had the capacity to make Chris' world look and feel magical; this worked for him for a period of time, until it no longer did. After some financial difficulties and other frustrations associated with family life, Chris' must have believed he had made a drastic mistake in marrying and having a family with Shanann. It became clear to him that she could not make him feel healthy, happy or whole.
As Chris found himself feeling increasingly more depressed, angry and trapped, he knew he needed to escape this life he had created for himself. This was what partially prompted his work affair/romance.
[...]
Chris is a pathological narcissist and psychopath. All that matters to him are his own needs, his own sense of happiness and his own well-being. He has no sense of connection or feelings toward others, even his own blood. Anyone in the way of his goal was an obstacle that should not continue to exist.
Chris is also a blamer. He blames others for his failures and frustrations. He suppressed these emotions until the violence erupted. This time the target was his pregnant wife and two young daughters. In his tangled thinking, his family, all of them, was guilty, and since Chris blamed his wife and children for his own failings, they had to go."
