Dear Peace:

It is a pleasure for me to read your recent post, to read that you are giving your 100% to having a good career, and that you let the guy go before your exams.

“yesterday he was blaming me for everything… saying very emotional stuff like ‘I ruined his life’.. telling me he can’t stop crying, he is very depressed, everyone  can see that, his mom is sad… why is he telling me all this stuff??”-

– because he wants you to feel bad/ guilty, and that as a result of feeling guilty, you will renew the communication with him as a (long-distance) boyfriend. One of his motivations may be that he wants you to help him financially again.

What he’s been doing is called guilt tripping. Merriam Webster, the dictionary, defines the term to guilt trip as: “to cause feelings of guilt in (someone): to try to manipulate the behavior of (someone) by causing feelings of guilt”.

Wikipedia states about the term: “a special kind of intimidation tactic. A manipulator suggests to the conscientious victim that he or she does not care enough, is too selfish or has it easy. This usually results in the victim feeling bad, keeping them in a self-doubting, anxious and submissive position”-

– he is the manipulator, and you are the conscientious victim.

You wrote: “I feel like he is exaggerating things now”- I agree. Exaggerating things is part of his manipulative, intimidation tactic, meant to make you feel really bad, so that you doubt your decision to end the communication with him as a boyfriend, and in so doing, submit to his will.

By having written to you that I would like you “to make choices that will prevent you from suffering”, I mean that you notice and then, do not give in to any man’s efforts to intimidate/ hurt you so that you do what he wants you to do, even though it’s bad for you to do so. This former (I hope!) long-distance boyfriend is an example of such a man: please do not submit to him!

anita