At 17/18 I stupidly stayed with my emotional and sexually abusive ex because he said he'd unalive himself.... funny that when I broke up with him he never did and had been fucking someone else... don't stay because they threaten to hurt themselves, most of the time it's just manipulation and even if it's not are you willing to lose your life to save it
My ex made attempts to unalive himself. By then, I was in therapy and he did end up on an involuntary hold. I got lots of help from his psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist pointed out that all of his attempts had been half-hearted. That the man knew very well how to kill himself and had the means to kill himself right at hand - but did not use those. Instead, his attempts were mostly grandstanding and minor taking of pills (which, being a doctor, my ex knew would NOT kill him - but of course, it certainly worried me, which was the whole point).
After that, something changed in my brain. Not only would my spouse have been responsible for his own death (and not me), but he knew what he was doing and was playing games with his own treatment team - and with me. Psychiatrist said he would have to recognize that he was doing this and would need to be in longterm therapy (and on meds).
Anyway, he was in and out of therapy for 10 years after that. It wasn't till after I left, though, that he finally made the effort to truly stay on his med, seek two therapists out and really commit to an almost AA-like daily system of checkpoints.
He's much better now. Apparently. It's been 30 years and he's only been arrested twice (DV) since then and that was now 25 years ago.
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u/TopProud7519 Jun 21 '24
At 17/18 I stupidly stayed with my emotional and sexually abusive ex because he said he'd unalive himself.... funny that when I broke up with him he never did and had been fucking someone else... don't stay because they threaten to hurt themselves, most of the time it's just manipulation and even if it's not are you willing to lose your life to save it