Ex struggling with breakup

[Lauryn95]

How do you cope and act when a relationship breaks down through no fault of your own but the other person is threatening to off themselves the more you keep distance?
Like the more I try say its done don't try to contact me the more they spiral but then if I listen and try help the more they try keep me from leaving and get their hopes up,it's such a hard balance ,obviously recommended the obvious such as counselling etc but you can't force a horse ,you know ? It's taking a toll now and it's like a 10 year relationship not a quick little fling or anything so I know it's gonna take a long time to stop being hard. I've told his family to try help and they literally are doing nothing to help. Feel like it's all on me. Has anyone experienced this before

It isn’t your responsibility or your problem to solve. You tell him one final time to stop contacting you and tell him that any further contact about killing himself won’t get any response from you, but you will call an ambulance to his address. He knows that you still care and he’s using that to manipulate you into doing what he wants, which is giving him attention and prolonging the break up.

I have a fairly blunt approach to suicide: if somebody wants to kill themselves then that’s their choice and ultimately up to them if they decide to act on it. We should all have the agency to end our own lives if we feel like it. It’s clearly hard when you’re being manipulated into the idea that it would be your fault if he did and that you’re the only one who can save him - but neither of these things are true. You’ve provided practical advice and support by making his family aware and signposting him to counselling; now you need to step back and let him find his own path.

I'm with @ComtesseDeSpair . Agree wholeheartedly.

Every time he threatens to harm himself you log a call with the police.

You need to rip that band-aid off. The more you go back and 'help'... the longer it will be for him to get over it.

When you've said you are done and they are not to contact you, you then block on everything. That way, you won't know they are spiralling. If there are no DC's involved, you need a clean break, then stay out of his life so you have no idea what's going on with him. Trying to smooth things over makes it worse all round. He will get over it quicker by not being in contact with you, so you'd be doing him a favour, no matter how harsh it seems.

It's not your responsibility and you should ignore him as it's a manipulation tactic, nothing more. When he threatens to off himself call 999. Trust me, he'll soon get a kick up his backside and pack it in once he's had a good talking to for wasting valuable police and an ambulance crews time.

We do have kids though but he's supposed to be arranging through my mum contact with them but I can't block him for when the kids are with him incase there's an emergency, it's a tricky one

Parenting app. Everything is logged properly then and communication is strictly about the children and nothing more.

You just go No Contact. It’s not your problem, not your responsibility anymore .

Apologies, disregard my previous comments. Just realised you have kids together thus unfortunately you have to help him for the shake of your kids.

No idea tbh. Can’t think anything else other than limited contact and counselling for you to help yourself resist feeling empathy for him. It’s very hard.

I would keep your kids away from someone who is suicidal. So do that for the time being.
He shouldn't be around the kids like this. And you MUST tell him that.

I wouldn’t be sending children off with a man who is repeatedly threatening suicide. If he’s that volatile and unstable then he isn’t fit to be parenting on his own, and I’d be taking this to court and social services, insisting that all his contact is supervised until he’s engaged with support services, and that contact about the children is through formal contact centre routes only.

Absolutely agree with this. My ex did something similar and I was clear and concise in what I would reply when he did that.

I get that its a long relationship where you cared about him once. But the more you provide, the more he will expect.

He needs time to adjust, time to come to terms with the end of the relationship. Anything he says or messages that is not about logistics for the kids, my advice would be ignore ignore ignore.

It is no reflection on you with the decisions he makes.

He lives with his parents and it's court ordered that he has the kids ,SS are actually aware of all of this and as he has an "emergency" appointment with the crisis team coming up end of next month so they are satisfied with that and the fact he lives with other adults so it's not unsupervised contact so can't really take that approach

Use the parenting app. That way he can't try to gaslight you about suicide. In these instances it is almost always about control, but if he does mention it to you call the police. Every time. He will soon stop.

I have name changed specifically for this post, and will never use it again.

The last time ex threatened suicide I said something like “Go ahead, I’ll fucking kick the stool out from under you myself.”
He never said it again after that- because it was a way of trying to lever me back into a relationship I had ended.

edit to add.
…. and he is still around living his best life. It was a coercive manipulative lie.

The thing is he actually has tried before already it's not just talk and so I know I need to be stern and tell myself it's his decision etc and not listen but then there's that oart of me that knows deep down of he succeeded I wouldn't feel that way I would feel guilty amd devastated, he has this appointment in over a month and that's already been weeks of waiting and without him physically taking himself into a private place I can't force him to speak to anyone sooner and none of the other people involved care or seem too or understand the toll it's taken on me ,it's so difficult

adding to this, thinking about it more - at the time I also forwarded him the Samaritans number. Might be worthwhile you doing the same.

Please think twice about sending your children to someone threatening to commit suicide. Partly just in case but also if he’s speaking to them like this, it could be emotionally damaging.

Whether or not he really is suicidal, it is not on you to fix that. Even if you were together still, you can't stop him from being suicidal. that comes from him and HE has to do the work to move on from that feeling.

You need to go no contact as much as possible. If you need your phone on while he has the DC, fine, but ignore anything not directly related to them. The rest of the time, block him. Or, as others have said, get an app.

If he calls you telling you he's at home about to take pills or whatever, call his parents and tell them (he lives with them 0 they can deal with it) or call an ambulance to his address. do not rush over there.

I do appreciate how hard this is. I see the way it has torn up my SIL with her exBIL. . But you cannot kill yourself to keep someone else happy