Dear Avery:

You write so very well. This is my understanding of your situation:

Your boyfriend is unwell and he is manipulative. He repeats a certain behavior because it produces for him a desired result. His behavior is “…blame himself and beat himself up for it” as well as suggesting he will commit suicide, and the desired result he is aiming at is “until I apologize and make him feel better.”

He does his thing, you feel guilty, attend to him, comfort him, try to help him…. go back to him after leaving, and finally staying with him. His manipulation has worked for him so far, desired results achieved.

Seems like he is expanding his manipulative enterprise from triggering you to feel empathy and guilt to triggering you to feel fear as well, by telling you he wants to hurt you sometimes. So promoting your guilt is Play A and promoting your fear is Plan B.

Now you are ridden with guilt and fear, Plan A and PLan B have been a success.

There are men who commit murder-suicide when left by their women. He suggested suicide and is on his way, perhaps, of suggesting murder. What are the chances he will do either suicide or murder or both?

Men who do either or both usually have histories of violent acts before the big and final act. Does he have such history? Was he ever arrested for inflicting violence on another? How about violence on himself, such as severe drug abuse? Risky behavior? Did he ever attempt suicide (symbolic gestures don’t count)? Also examine these things: does he ever talk about not eating fats in his diet because he is careful not to have high cholesterol? Does he avoid caffeine because it is bad for his health? Anything like that indicates he cares to live.

The statistical chances that he will commit any of these acts or both without prior violent history toward others and/ or himself are very small. You probably are in more real danger, statistically, when driving every day than you are from him. And the danger he will commit suicide is way, way smaller than his chance of dying from an illness.

Without alarming history on his part, you and him are quite safe. Your fear may very well be all about a danger that is way, way smaller than the danger of you being hit by a car when crossing the street.

And living in fear and guilt, you are more likely to not pay attention when crossing the street, so your physical danger is more likely to happen if you stay in this relationship.

Is this helpful at all to you? Let me know, I have more thoughts.

anita

I should not have said “alive and well” in my post. They are alive but for obvious reasons I would not call them well….certainly not emotionally.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Karen.

Hi Avery,

I’m sorry that you are in the current situation you are in.

I believe the reason you feel guilty if you breakup is because you feel like this not something someone else might do. You are essentially judging yourself, as if you are accountable in some way. You may be thinking that you could do more, that you could of prevented or changed him to be better. But no one can change someone that doesn’t see change them self. Up until this point, its like you have been with him for such a period of time, you are struggling to see yourself beyond the present. Without the connection of being girlfriend and having a boyfriend. In one quick motion you become the ex. That life and connection with him is no longer the same. We fear situations like these because generally, there is no way back. It feels like uncharted waters, every step you take is new, unfamiliar. Who you are is linked with him, and it’s painful to see him do what he is doing to you and to himself. The guilt is so deep rooted in you because you have been conditioned (like Anita said above), these feelings of guilt and regret may not be originally your own. you are being reactive to everything he does. If he cannot see anything more in life but you, then he is blind to the beauty that surrounds him. The sunrise, the first morning breeze, the beauty of music, the way trees grow to reach the sky. It’s his own eyes that cannot see what he has, you should not feel guilty, you know what you had. You have been manipulated and influenced by the person you love. By the person you love…The person who is meant to bring a smile to your face, the once who is there to support you, the one that makes you a better person. The longer you stay, the harder is will be to leave. You will judge yourself harsher. You need to understand, that after everything is said and done, you are still a unique, beautiful and interesting soul. This won’t change. You will still have hobbies, your fav take out shop will still be there. The world will keep spinning. Just embrace it.

I know your boyfriend might do something rash, i don’t know what you should do. But do what your gut says. Tell the police, his family if you believe that will help. If something comes out that you are ashamed of, don’t be. You are an adult, you make decisions because you want to. Don’t be ashamed of choices you made (whether you think they are good or bad) they happened. You cannot change the past, but the present….that’s up for grabs 🙂 The choice is yours.

I hope this helps, and i wish you the best of luck.
Matty

Hey Avery,

I made an account just to reply to this. It’s so shocking to hear of a situation so similar to mine. I’ve had my long distance boyfriend for a little over a year now. We moved extremely fast, I ignored the red flags and I thought the exact thing you did. “I’m just lucky,” I’d tell myself. “Other relationships just aren’t anywhere near as good as ours is”. I cut everyone off for him, he got upset whenever I’d spend time with other people and made me feel like I was the one that didn’t do enough for him, like I was the one being a shitty partner. I dropped most of the things going on in my life for him. I had ruined the relationship I had with my mother. We moved in together after about 6 months after officially being together. We’d been talking and friends for about 14 months before we did.
Living with him was fun, we spent all of our money going on fun trips and being irresponsible. It wasn’t enough for me, I still felt like I was missing something. I was missing my old friends, my family and school. I lost sight of my priorities. I decided to move back home and just go back to being long distance. I was lucky to have my family support me and take me in again. They had never liked him very much.

Once I got back home, he told me he was always open to me moving back in with him because I was the one that truly made him happy and our relationship was in it for the long run. I felt like I had made the mistake by coming back home. I started hanging out with my old friends again and he became very possessive, we agreed on rules we’d follow when hanging out with friends (texting each other back within 20 minutes, mentioning if we’d met new people while we were out. We had a “three strike” rule that if the partner didn’t approve of a new person, we’d have to cut off contact with said new person) He made me feel like he had done so much for me and I threw it all away. I had to go back. My heart was telling me I needed to be with him again but my brain was telling me that I needed to take advantage of my youth, get school done, spend time with my family, etc. I sided with my heart but I was still very conflicted. I told him I’d move back, he purchased his flight a few weeks out and we would take my car and together drive back to California, where he lived. A week went by and I realized I might have made the wrong decision, I began to side with my brain a little bit more.

Two days ago I told him I’d like to have more time to think about my decision, I said this in the most reasonable way I could. I wanted to be 100% sure I was making the right choice to go back. He has never ever been verbally rude or insulting to me but what he replied to that left me in shock. He called me an ungrateful selfish brat that wasn’t worth the bullshit I put him through. WTF. He spent all of yesterday telling me how awful I am, telling me that not one of his friends approved of me and that he ignored them, telling me that he’s put so much time and effort into our relationship to not have it reciprocated. It was absolutely brutal. I told him I wanted to break up with him because no way I’m letting my own boyfriend say things that rude to me. Once I said that, he did a complete flip. He told me he didn’t mean any of what he said, that he said it all to get a reaction out of me, that he loves me so much and that he knows we’d both be happier if I moved to him with California. The way he says things makes me reconsider everything. He’s manipulative and it works so well with me.

I am fed up though, I told him we have to take a break. We started our break this morning but I don’t think this relationship will lead to much at this point. I’ve never seen that side to him. Sometimes we need to let things go, even if we’ve invested so much time into it. Everything that starts has an end. We just need to accept that and use it to our advantage. I don’t know you but I can see the similarities in our relationships. They hold us back, they make us feel like we’re in the wrong, it’s a cycle and it won’t stop unless we do something about it. Don’t fall for the guilt trip. I know I got carried away with ranting, sorry. I would love to talk to you further about this, maybe email or something.

Dear Avery:

You are welcome and please do post again on the situation, if it is helpful to you,

anita