“Back to the woman on the street alone, with this man approaching her with a knife: her job is to escape injury and death, not to provide the man with psychotherapy or to prosecute or to defend him in a court of law.”

Yes, this is exactly correct. This is what I want to do in the future. Just distance myself when things get out of control or when I feel the problem is not solvable. After a long long time, I finally understand. And I also want to finally let go of my past relationships, instead of overanalyzing and obsessing. I realize that I made things worse with this. Sadly I did not get it earlier.