Emotional Abuse - Suicide Threats

Hi, I've recently endured my ex-partner threatening suicide and blaming that I would be the cause if anything were to happen if I didn't go to see him. I called the police when the threat was made and they followed up with it. It turns out that he is okay in that no harm was done to him. I've since fully blocked him on everything.

I'm feeling pretty numb and spent from his repeated manipulations through suicide threats after I broke up with him a couple months ago. Has anyone else been through this and has gotten to the other side? I'm seeing a therapist to talk through everything, yet it would be great to know others that have been through similar things and what has been helpful to them to move past things.

Hi kelan,

For whatever it is worth, I think you handled it in the best way possible. Understood you are still struggling with how to feel about it, and again, I think you've made the best choice, see a therapist.

What kind of helped me was to feel angry about putting me in that position. Not entirely because on rare occasion some guilt bubbles up, but that was the whole point I guess, to lay one of the harshest manipulative guilt trips one person can lay on someone else. So I won't say it entirely erased the damage done, but I do think whatever works to help you move forward, feel better, is what you should embrace.

Thank you xdude for your reply. I think there's a lot of wisdom in what you're saying and I think it would more productive than getting depressed and getting angry with myself. I'm generally a pretty compassionate person who believes the best in people and it's completely beyond me why people would treat someone so horrible. I think that's the reality I'm having to also face... That I missed the abusive signs or knowingly dismissed them and kept going along hoping things would get better. That's my own part of the equation that I'm coming to grips with.

I'm also having to exercise no contact since he has tried to reestablish contact again. I'm also having to let go of the hope for a healthy resolution where no one is demonized because I don't think he's capable of that. It's just shocked at how horrible someone can be...

Hi kelan,

This may come across as jaded, but ...

The thing about manipulative people is they tend to latch on to people who are open to being manipulated. What is messed about this is, as you wrote, it's a positive trait to be compassionate, to seeing the best in others. Unfortunately, that positive trait can be used against those who least deserve it.

I don't mean to suggest he is consciously aware of picking you. Just as likely he is oblivious, only aware of what he wants/needs and you were in his path of least resistance to get what he wanted, but hopefully you can take away something positive from this experience. Maybe re-balancing who you give your 'gift' of empathy to, because if seen as a gift versus an entitlement, that changes everything. Likewise, maybe you'll come away from this with a greater awareness of when that gift is being exploited.

Xdude is right, we all have a type of person we attract, in response to our strengths and weaknesses, it's not always the case but can be.
I am a what I call a helper, I always try to be available and help people I care about, which is great, however there always is a darker side to our personality types. Mine typically is going too far and trying to fix people, which I now addressed and worked on, so I don't attract ever broken people in relationships anymore.
Yours might just be forgetting yourself, or being so forgiving to the other that they abuse you, while you're trying not to judge or blame them.

Really the solution is simple, you just have to look deep inside with honesty and acknowledge compassion is a great quality, but the part that makes you go too far, which I'll call being a martyr here, is separated from the compassion and is not good for you, so you rethink of your past life and see where one ended and the other began, then I can tell you everything will become clearer.
It will allow to have clearer boundaries, refrain this martyrdom part and be confident, which will result in you filtering the people you attract, more naturally and making you aware who to pursue things with.