To feel that his suicide is inevitable and I can’t prevent it.

[fearfullotsofthetime]

I love someone who struggles with his mental health, he’s honest about experiencing suicidal ideation periodically. He’s fully prepared to take his own life previously, bought the relevant items etc. When he’s well, he’s magnificent but he can deteriorate quickly and I feel like, should he decide to take his own life, I wouldn’t be able to prevent this.

How do I live with this? If he doesn’t answer my call or my text isn’t read for a while, I worry that he might have taken his life.

It’s destroying me. Any advice would be appreciated.

Just wanted to add that I think the cancer analogy is a good one. The particular underlying mental illness he has, will have a mortality rate. Just as different cancers have different mortality rates.

So, it is reasonable to expect that 10% or 20% or whatever it is, of people with a particular illness, will die from that illness, sooner or later.

That isn't to say that any individual death is inevitable, that everyone shouldn't be working to reduce those percentages, or that he shouldn't seek and accept all the treatment he can. It is to say that sometimes, all the treatment, love and support in the world will not be enough and death, from a serious disease, with a known high mortality rate, will occur.

I think for your own sake, that viewing him as someone with a serious, potentially mortal illness may be helpful. It helps to remove the day-to-day sense of personal responsibility for the jeopardy he finds himself in. You can help, by offering continuing steady support and encouraging him to seek and accept professional help consistently. You cannot intervene in such as way as to prevent death, when his health has declined to an extent that he is in crisis and death is the likely outcome, any more than you could with cancer, or with the failure of another organ. You cannot save him.

To be in a position to offer steady support, you need to look after yourself. Tell him clearly that you don't want to hear about how he would do it, or anything similarly upsetting and destabilising. It sounds as though either, you are setting yourself up as a pseudo-psychotherapist and asking probing questions, the answers to which you cannot deal with. Or, his behaviour towards you is somewhat vengeful - of the 'if I'm going down I'm taking you with me' variety - which will be because you are the person who is there, who represents 'normal life' and its unattainability, to him. Nothing personal.

So, look after yourself. Seek help for yourself. Focus on other things too. Make it clear to him that this is the only way you can help him. encourage him to accept all the professional help available.

When I do something that he’s unhappy with, he absolutely does tell me that I need to think more deeply about my behaviour as he’s fragile due to mental health. Which heightens the anxiety I experience.

He doesn't own you. Set yourself some boundaries to protect yourself and your own mental health. Tell him this. Enforce them. Be consistent.

Being his mental punchbag won't help either of you. If he cares for you at all, it will give him cycles of guilt, along with the anger, which will contribute to dragging him back down. [Totally not a professional here but that's obvious, isn't it.]

@Berimbolo that sounds bloody tough!

Thank you @AhoyDelBoy. It was awful and has left us with a lot of issues.
We didn't have any support back then so I really hope the OP can get some help

Yes, I can imagine it has I really can’t understand parents who would do that to their children (disappearing for days at a time just as one example). I hope you can get some help OP, it must be horrendously stressful

Mind, sane helplines may be worth a look, or local carers group
This person sounds fairly high risk and needs professional help, in emergency maybe a mental health assessment. Start with gp, or local crisis team. You can't carry this alone, do you have your own friends and support.
If they wont accept help, and I agree medication is not always the answer, then you need a strategy to survive or walk away. Suicide can be prevented by hospitalisation in last resort but someone who is determined will find a way eventually. That's not an excuse to stand by and let it happen, but a person has to cooperate with help.
Talk to dp and explain you cannot be on suicide watch 24/7. Come up with some boundaries and conditions, it's also not possble for them to promise to be constantly available to respond to your anxiety. In emergency call the police, but this sounds more like a long term situation which will be very diffficult long term unless there are changes.

@fearfullotsofthetime you haven't mentioned if he's receiving any professional mental health support

This is an important question. Has he sought professional help?

Thank you all for these posts. Part of my knows that you’re right. His long term partner took her own life, he attributes his mental health deteriorating due to the trauma of the experience and that probably is true, but at times, I’ve wondered if his mental health needs/ behaviour contributed to her decision to end her life. I would never be able to explore that with him so I just hold it in. This will seem unbelievably, but in real life I’m such a happy, outgoing person but this situation is literally destroying me

And sorry, just reading reaponses. He’s medicated and attends appointments. He doesn’t talk to me about treatment plans at all and hasn’t wanted me to support attendance. Also, I’ve asked him about his diagnosis, he talks about depression but I’ve noticed that this fluctuates between extremely low and extremely high moods, so I wonder about bipolar disorder, but again, I haven’t asked him directly and he certainly hasn’t confirmed that to me.

I'm sorry, but even with him receiving professional support, this sounds utterly miserable for you and I think you'd be much better off out of this one-way relationship.

What do you get out of it other than angst and worry and guilt?

You are allowed a life too.

Turn this person over to the professionals and walk away. This is an extremely unhealthy situation because, to be blunt, you sound needy and messed up too. If all you are doing is fixating on whether or not your texts and calls are answered, then you are not strong enough to look after this person - and what you have said does give a fairly strong impression that the person is, in fact, a manipulative prick who is quite enjoying the effect all the suicidal talk is having on you.

I'm with ReanimatedSGB's tough love approach here, and whichever previous poster said that you should not sacrifice your own mental health because of someone else's. MH difficulties do not absolve someone of being a manipulative prick who uses his suicidal ideation as a method of controlling your behaviour.

I

Do his moods fluctuate suddenly though because bipolar is a few weeks of being down and a few weeks of manic high right? But if u never know what mood you are going to get him in and it changes at the drop if a hat, it us more likely to be borderline personality disorder (which shares many similarities to narcissistic PD and can be co-morbid with it). Worth pointing out that 'sufferers' of BPD comnonly threaten suicide as a means of control.

Either way i don't think it is healthy to be with anyone who tells you that your behaviour could cause their suicide. I'll or not, they know damn fine that this is manipulative. Ex dead partner would be a red flag too, as would the fact that he doesn't let you attend appointments.

Like seriously get away from this guy! Asap.

*by bpd I mean borderline personality disorder.

I saw a study that also put 2/3 of ppl who were bipolar as also having BPD recently too though so could be both.

Anyway, no excuse either way.

Ok. take a break.
A relationship should not destroy you.
Take.some time out a month two months a year whatever....
Engage In therapy for you.

It doesn't matter about his ex...the why...if he has reactive depression to that it is his issue . He needs to seek help himself.

Recognize though that your mental.health is suffering and get out at least temporarily to assess and get support. You can only look after you.

OP I couldn't agree more with all the PPs advising you to leave this relationship. This isn't your responsibility at all and you deserve a peaceful life. I hope you can do this

You are in an emotionally abusive relationship here. It doesn’t matter whether he has mh problems, the fact that he talks to you about how he’s going to kill himself and then leaves you hanging by not answering messages etc is incredibly manipulative.

This. Isn’t a nice man who is just struggling with his mh, this is someone who is using his mh to control you and denying you support by saying you can’t talk to anyone about it.

And I guarantee that if you leave him he will threaten suicide, but none of this is your fault. You need to walk away for your own sake. Tell him it’s over, then block him so he can’t subject you to any of the emotional stuff.

Oh, and if he won’t let you attend appointments I’d be wondering whether there actually are any.

This isn’t a relationship that you should be i my dear, he’s using mh to make you do what he wants you to do.

That’s abusive.

Whatever he does or doesn’t do is his decision and his alone. You MUST distance yourself ASAP

He could take you down with him

agree with others above that he is controlling you with this. Even if he doesn’t mean to, he still is.

My DH struggles with anxiety and depression and had a very very scary episode last year which was the closest he has come to an attempt on his life.

I drew a line. He knows in no uncertain terms that I love him and will support him if he is taking steps to try and get better, but I absolutely will not be controlled by his MH problems. This has caused some arguments but ultimately the tough love approach has helped us both (eg he tells me when something I’m about to do, like driving somewhere, is making him anxious, and we talk it through as an anxiety problem. The solution is never for me to not do the thing. His anxiety and depression is for him to manage with my support not for me to fit my life around).

I also want to echo what others have said that you need to talk to someone about how this is affecting you.

I too was holding it in but in the end I talked to a friend about it who I trusted would not say anything to anyone else. For a long time I didn’t want to say anything as I felt his MH problems were not mine to tell to other people, but I got to a fuck it stage where I was so much in need of a shoulder to cry on myseLf. Some may say I shouldn’t have told anyone about his problems. But it helped me massively. And why should I not seek support for something that is really difficult to deal with? Back to the cancer analogy. Would it really be fair for a cancer sufferer to keep their illness secret, to the detriment of their supportive wife’s health? Absolutely not!!!

If you don’t feel you want to end the relationship, I would take a break, or set really firm boundaries for both of you. Relieve yourself of the responsibility. Hold yourself accountable to not getting het up about missed messages etc. Try and find some things to fill your spare time maybe. Be busy. Spend time with lots of other people. Let him know you are giving him space to work on his MH. And that you absolutely will not be controlled in any way, and you are doing some work on your own MH ask need some space. That’s what I’d do. Also tell him he risks losing you if he won’t take responsibility for how he acts towards you.

Hope you find some real life support for yourself OP, it’s such a tough thing to deal with. All the very best of luck.

Another one here who knows how you're feeling. That debilitating feeling of thinking you are solely responsible for if an adult lives or dies. I just want to share my story with you as you need to know that this can not only affect your mental health but your physical health too.

In my case it is my Dad. He was a violent alcoholic when I was a child and life was unbearable. When my mum filed for divorce (I was a teenager and encouraged my mum to do so) he made me witness him taking an overdose. He timed it for when I arrived home from college and I had to deal with the scene alone. It was very traumatic, I was begging him to stop and the scene spilled out of the house. He ended up being forcibly sectioned in our local park.

In the years that followed he threatened suicide regularly and I lived in abject fear (blamed myself for him wanting to die). All through my young adulthood he would phone me up and talk about suicide until I broke down and cried.

He had another relationship with a vulnerable woman and started physically abusing her just like he did to my mum. When she tried to leave him he attempted suicide again, his stomach was pumped and again I had to pick up the pieces.

Fast forward to last year and he started threatening suicide in earshot of my child (to coerce me into doing something I didn't want to do) - I was on the verge of becoming very ill as a result of the mental strain at this point.

He ended up cutting contact with me as he did not see there was anything wrong with threatening suicide in front of my children, and I did not agree. I have maintained NC after seeing my doctor and a very concerned counsellor at work. I was riddled with psoriasis due to the lifetime of trauma, I had so much anxiety I could not drive and severe intrusive thoughts.

Since going NC I have spoken to an estranged family member of my Dad's who told me about my grandfather's death. He was also abusive and feigned suicide often, only one time he took it too far and actually died. I have a copy of his death cert now. My dad had kept this secret from us all and then used the exact same tactics that his father used to control me and cause me to live in fear. I am still trying to process it all and realise the mind control that was done to me from childhood.

Do not underestimate the deep psychological strain you are feeling, and how that can turn into physical symptoms too. Do you know anything about his family history? Did he have a parent who used this technique on him?

He’s medicated and attends appointments. He doesn’t talk to me about treatment plans at all and hasn’t wanted me to support attendance. Also, I’ve asked him about his diagnosis, he talks about depression but I’ve noticed that this fluctuates between extremely low and extremely high moods, so I wonder about bipolar disorder, but again, I haven’t asked him directly and he certainly hasn’t confirmed that to me.

Perhaps he does not want to tell you because it is narcissism or BPD because then you will know that he is in fact trying to use his mental health issues to control you.

If you saw him for what he is, you will leave him. You should.

Name changed for this, as very personal.
My young adult child lost their long term partner to suicide last year.
The partner had been talking about suicide for some time (They were both 19) My child has fragile MH anyway, and took the death very badly and now blames themself and is adamant that they could have prevented the suicide if they had known it was really going to happen.
As a parent I now see history repeating itself. My child is so unstable, has had CBT, lots of talking therapy and medication. Nothing is working, and my child is now suicidal too. It is very stressful and heartbreaking. As a mother I can't leave my child as some people have suggested that you do with your partner op.(I panic too when there is no response to texts) Maybe keep your distance a bit, but keep all lines of communication open. Just do what you can, but be mindful of how you will feel if he does take his own life. I agree about therapy for yourself, you need as much support as possible.
Take care. You can always pm me if you want to talk

I attempted suicide many years ago.i planned it.i told no one .i waited for the right time.obviosly it didn't work ,im still here..however if I were you ,I would be making an appointment with his gp and telling his gp I was leaving him.and ensuring the gp understood he was not your responsibility any more.then I would leave and block him so I had no contact.
I think he is a master manipulator.and he's pulling your strings.im sorry but that's what I think .

Ask about relative or carer support groups. Find out who is his keyworker or speak to gp about your concerns. If you think he is at risk you can contact them. It doesn't sound like a very open relationship. If you are not leaving consider couple counselling, get support for yourself. Best wishes

Your update re what you have to do describes someone controlling and abusive.

Yes he sounds like he has some major mental health issues.

But in my significant experience in this area suicidal people don't tell those they love their plans, let alone in detail.

He is manipulating you.

I'm sorry but you really should walk away.

You are Totally right in saying you can't prevent him attempting suicide.

But you can look after yourself, and the only way I think you can do that is away from him.

OP I know how hard that is. I left my seriously mentally ill, almost successful at suicide attempt OH. His mental health is no worse. And mine can recover. Take care.

When I do something that he’s unhappy with, he absolutely does tell me that I need to think more deeply about my behaviour as he’s fragile due to mental health. Which heightens the anxiety I experience.

This is abuse.

I would in no uncertain terms advise that you love him very much and wish to support and stand by him BUT you will never accept his MH issue as an excuse for abusive controlling behaviour. I would be instant that you go to at least a couple of his appointments so you can gain more understanding on this issue and to be sure he is getting the help he needs and that he IS helping himself to.