'If you leave me I'll kill myself'....

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Indulge me MN-ers. How many of you had that threatened at some point when you were leaving an abusive bully and how many of the abusive bullies are still with us today?

Any threat to prevent a person from leaving is despicable and should be one more reason to leave.

Good Lord, what a, well, fascinating thread!

Thumbnutstwitchingonanopenfire Sun 05-Jan-14 01:43:14
Nice one tawse - way to make everyone reading this thread and taking help and comfort from it to feel SHIT again.

But... but... WHAT ABOUT THE MENZ?!

Just waiting for "women do it/abuse too!" to complete the bingo...

Norty! :o

My original question was deliberately non-specific. I'm quite sure there's no gender monopoly on this kind of behaviour

Cog, you are quite right apart from the vast majority of abusers being male. But that's a whole other thread.

Thumby Oh shit, did I say the B word?

My STBXH has been threatening to kill himself since around April of last year.
I left in September and the threats of suicide really ramped up in October when he found out I was seeing someone.
The police have it recorded as domestic abuse.

Boots hope your councelling is helping you

It did Adorabell, thank you - I'm some years on from it now and I've found some peace, with the help of a fabulous counsellor.

Very glad To read that Boots

But I tell you what... no-one, and I do mean no-one, ever gets to pull that particular trick on me and stay in my life, ever again.

It happened to a friend of mine, and after arguments her bf did go so far as to take overdoses a couple of times and ended up in hospital. Not bad enough overdoses to kill him, mind. Eventually she had enough and finally broke up with him. He kept pestering her to come back, and matters came to a head the night a friend of his told him he had seen her in a pub with a flatmate and a couple of male friends. He went into overdrive, phoning and texting her all night with threats against her and the friends. Friends were not at all amused and practically frogmarched her round to the police. She did of course stop answering his calls and he then had the gall to start sending her plaintive texts asking why she wouldn't answer! Police had a word with him, she changed her phone number and fortunately had moved house anyway so he didn't know how to find her.

18 months later, he's still alive and kicking. Friend was however left seriously traumatised both by having spent 3 years in a very controlling relationship and by ex's behaviour, and is really only now getting back to normal.

Abusive Ex-H threatened to kill himself every time I tried to leave. It got to the point where I'd say to him: "Go on, if you want to do it so badly just get on with it."

And I tell my two teenage DC's that if a boyfriend/girlfriend threatens to commit suicide they probably won't because the majority of people who do take their own lives don't tell people because they don't want to be stopped.

And ex-h is still alive and kicking 15 years later.

My ex husband threatened that he would commit suicide throughout our marriage. He was extremely abusive and I left to go to a refuge in the end.

On the third day after leaving, I thought I would check my answering machine messages (there were many!) The 30th message was basically "I am about to kill myself" (revving noises from the car). "I am going to crash off the side of such and such bridge". (squealing tyre noises and revving then silence).

It was rather upsetting. Then I listened to message 31, sent an hour or so after the "suicide" message and it was 10 minutes of ranting at me for leaving and saying he had put the house on the market!

About 4 years after we divorced, he moved in with another woman and his behaviour was very odd again and the children did not want to see him for a while. Turns out he was treating her the same way he had treated me and an ambulance was called to him because he had told her he had taken an overdose. He refused to get in the ambulance but amazingly is still alive....

hattiemattie - my ex unfortunately played the "terminal illness" or rather life threatening illness with the children. He told them he had to have open heart surgery and needed to go on a heart lung machine.

He hasn't.

PPaka, are you OK?

Cantabile- bless you
Last night was even more of a nightmare
But he's gone to a hotel so at least I have some space

Good thread. I agree wholeheartedly that threatening suicide is a favoured tool of abusers (seen it in action myself).

However I would like to correct the dangerous assumption that people who talk about suicide don't do it. That's not true.

Reading back through this thread has reminded me of some rather painful and difficult events in my life. I'd like to extend my sympathy and support to anyone who's been affected by suicide and remind people who are dealing with these threats that you are not responsible and to get some support for yourself too.

Suicide stats do show that more men than women kill themselves but it is a hell of a lot more complicated than 'because relationships end' and suggesting otherwise is ridiculous.

There are people above repeating the myth that suicidal people do not tell other people they are going to kill themselves. Copied from www.samaritans.org

Myth: People who talk about suicide aren’t serious and won’t go through with it.

Fact: People who kill themselves have often told someone that they do not feel life is worth living or that they have no future. Some may have actually said they want to die. While it’s possible that someone might talk about suicide as a way of getting the attention they need, it’s vitally important to take anybody who talks about feeling suicidal seriously.

This thread is about people who pretend to want to kill themselves as part of abusive behaviour. It is not the same as people who are genuinely suicidal and who may talk about killing themselves.

Agree Sunshine. Good post.

Sunshine you are right. I think this thread is a good reminder that all suicide threats should be dealt with in the same way ie by calling an ambulance or the police (whichever is most appropriate).

For those who are EA and using the threat to try to maintain a relationship then the presence of the police or an ambulance will help to put their behaviour into perspective; and for those who are serious then the emergency services are best placed to offer support.

I think a common difference is that people who mean it don't tend to use it as a conditional threat - saying "I'm so miserable I don't want to live any more" is light years away from saying "if you do this/don't do that then I'll kill myself".

Of course this is just a generalisation, and as many have said above it doesn't mean you shouldn't immediately calling the emergency services.

The whole thread is a generalisation, of course. However, I hope anyone finding themselves put on the spot by such a threat now has some idea what to do about it rather than - as is usually the intention of the person making the threat - be frightened into staying against their will believing it will be all their fault if the person carries it out.

In short... police, ambulance, pass on the Samaritans number or just walk away.