I worry about other people’s feelings too much as well, although I would say this one thing – do yourself a favour and don’t call yourself ‘a codependent’. You are not a codependent, you are a human being, and calling yourself by a pathological term that is generally seen as a negative attribute will not help you with your guilt, it will just add to it with shame. I don’t believe in codependency, or love addiction, or love avoidants, or whatever personally. I believe in normal people struggling with the individual obstacles and traumas they have come across at this particular time. We all have our own ways of coping, but I believe that almost every single one of us always does our very best.

Feel free to ignore that, just my view, perhaps the labeling feels better to you.

As for what to do about your situation. You are obviously a kind man and able to see that your ex boyfriend is a man in tremendous pain, with poor coping skills. You don’t need to change your opinion of him or think about what hurt he has caused (unless you particularly want to) to get over this. You have the valuable skill of seeing other people in shades of grey and having compassion for their suffering. So go you.

As for looking after yourself, what I try to remember is that there is nothing I would be able to do. There is nothing I could do to take the pain away from them without inadvertently making it worse and the only way I can help them is by not helping. Then I remind myself that human beings are resilient and they are not as vulnerable as I expect them to be.

I think you are right that your ex’s behaviour is emotionally manipulative, whether he knows that is another issue. I know for myself that I once blurted out during a break up that I didn’t think I would ever be happy again, for instance (it seemed this way to me because I had suffered chronic mental health problems for many years and had few memories of feeling good), but I know I didn’t mean that in a manipulative way, it just seemed to me to be a fact at the time. It may be the case that your ex is saying the things that seem to him to be the genuine truth, but we can all get caught up in things and be clouded by our own dreads and fears. We all get out of it too.

Have faith in your ex’s ability to survive. He survived before you and he can get himself through this too. Also have faith there are other people around him to provide support and that your main duty now is to yourself, to help you feel less guilt over this because you haven’t – and I hope you know this – done anything wrong. You have rather done the best thing for both of you.