If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 911. If you need someone to talk to right now, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It is free, confidential, and open 24 hours a day.
You have known for a while that this relationship is over. You have rehearsed the conversation. And then, in the middle of a fight or the moment you finally say it, your partner says the thing that stops everything: if you leave, I will kill myself. Or: I can’t live without you. Or: you’ll be responsible for what happens to me.
And now you are frozen. You cannot stay in a relationship that is hurting you, and you cannot imagine being the reason someone gets hurt. So you stay another week, another month, and the fear does the deciding for you.
We hear this on consultation calls more often than you would think, from people in their twenties, thirties and forties, from every kind of relationship. It is one of the hardest positions a person can be in, and we want to walk through it with you honestly, because there is a way through that keeps both of you as safe as possible.
First: never take it lightly
Whatever else is true about your relationship, a statement about ending one’s life is serious. Always. It does not matter if you think they are bluffing. It does not matter if they have said it before and nothing happened. It does not matter if it came out in the heat of a fight. People who say this are in real pain, and some of them act on it. You are not qualified to tell the difference from the inside of the relationship, and you should not have to be.
So the first rule is simple. When someone tells you they are thinking about hurting themselves, you treat it as real and you get help into the room. If they are in immediate danger, you call 911. If they are not in immediate danger but they are in crisis, you call or text 988 together, or you give them the number and stay on the line while they call. If they engage in self injury, that is a reason to get professional help now, not a reason to wait and see.
This is not an overreaction. It is what taking someone seriously actually looks like.
Second: this is not yours to hold alone
Here is the part people miss. Taking the threat seriously does not mean you personally become the person who keeps them alive. You are their partner, or their soon to be ex-partner. You are not their therapist, their crisis line, or their psychiatrist. You cannot be, and trying to be will hurt you both.
Their safety needs to be held by people whose job it is: a therapist, a crisis counselor, their doctor, their family, their friends. Your role is to connect them to those people, not to replace them. That means telling someone in their life what is happening. It means encouraging them to get their own support, and following through on the calls above if they will not. It means you having your own therapist, because you are carrying something heavy and you need a place to set it down.
One thing most people do not know: if you are worried about someone and you are not in the same place, you can call the local police non-emergency line, or 911, and ask for a wellness check. An officer goes to their home to make sure they are okay. You do not have to drive to their apartment at midnight. You do not have to go looking for them. That is exactly what a wellness check is for, and asking for one is not an overreaction. It is you making sure a trained person lays eyes on them when you cannot, or should not.
And you do not have to be the only person who knows. Their family, their close friends, a roommate, anyone in their life who cares about them can and should be brought in. Say the plain words: I am worried about them, they said this, I need you to check on them. Sharing that is not a betrayal of their trust. It is the opposite of leaving them alone with it.
If you are reading this and you have been managing your partner’s safety by yourself for weeks or months, please hear this gently: you have been doing a job that was never yours, and you are allowed to hand it to people who are trained for it.
Third: notice when it only happens during fights
There is a pattern we want you to be able to see, and we want to be careful how we say this, because the two things are both true at the same time.
If your partner talks about hurting themselves at other moments too, when things are calm, when they are alone, in a way that shows up in their sleep, their eating, their day to day, that is someone who is struggling with their mental health and needs treatment. Their pain is not about you, even if it is showing up around you.
If the threat only ever appears when you are fighting, or only when you try to leave, and never in any other circumstance, that is a different thing. That is a threat being used to control what you do. It is a form of emotional coercion, and it is recognized as such by every domestic violence organization in the country. The National Domestic Violence Hotline lists “threatening to hurt themselves if you leave” as a warning sign of an abusive relationship, and they are right to.
Both things can be true of the same person. Someone can be in real pain and also be using that pain to keep you. Which is why the answer is the same either way: take it seriously, get professional help involved, and do not let it decide whether you stay.
You cannot stay because you are afraid
This is the sentence we most want you to take from this article. A relationship that continues because one person is afraid to leave is not a relationship anymore. It is a hostage situation with better lighting.
Staying out of fear does not keep your partner safe in any lasting way. It keeps the crisis on a slow simmer, teaches both of you that the threat works, and leaves you resentful and them dependent. The kindest thing you can do for a person who has told you they cannot live without you is to make sure they have people in their life who can help them learn that they can.
And if you have already decided, in your own heart, that this is over, then you have decided. Delaying it because you are afraid of how they will react is not compassion. It is fear wearing compassion’s clothes.
What about couples therapy?
People ask us this a lot in this exact situation, and we want to be honest with you. Couples therapy is for two people who both want to work on the relationship. If you have already made your decision and you are proposing couples therapy because you are afraid your partner will fall apart if you say the truth, that is not couples therapy. That is using a therapist’s office as a softer room to deliver news you have already decided on.
If you are unsure, if part of you still wants this to work, couples therapy can help you find out. If you know, individual therapy is the right door: for you, to help you leave safely and well, and for your partner, to help them through what comes next. Those are separate rooms for a reason.
How to leave as safely as possible
If you have decided to end it, do not do it alone at 11pm in a fight. Plan it.
Tell someone you trust what you are about to do and when, so that another person knows. If your partner has a therapist, a close friend or a family member they lean on, consider making sure that person is available or aware that day. Have the 988 number in front of you and say it out loud in the conversation: I care about you, I am not going to be your person for this anymore, and here is who is. If they say they will hurt themselves, you do what we said at the top: take it seriously, call, and get help into the room. Then you leave.
After the breakup, hold the line. You will be tempted to answer every late night message because you are afraid of what happens if you do not. If a message says they are in danger, you call 911 or 988 on their behalf, or you request a wellness check, every time, without exception. You do not go over. You loop in their family or friends instead. You do not become the crisis line. Handing it to professionals is not abandonment. It is the thing that actually protects them.
And look after your own safety. If any part of you feels physically unsafe, whether because of how they have reacted before or because of how they are reacting now, that is its own emergency. The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 can help you plan a safe exit, and so can we.
You do not have to figure this out by yourself
This is exactly the kind of situation a therapist is for. Not to tell you what to do, but to help you see clearly through the fear, plan the hard conversation, and stay steady afterward. Our therapists in Chicago work with people leaving relationships that have stopped being healthy every week, and with the anxiety that comes with it. A free consultation is a fifteen minute call. You say what is going on, we tell you honestly who on our team fits. In person minutes from West Loop, Wicker Park and Bucktown, or online anywhere in Illinois. In network with BCBS, Cigna, Aetna and United.
It is one of the hardest things a person can go through. You should not go through it alone, and neither should they.
If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, or you are worried about someone who is, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In an emergency, call 911. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233 or by texting START to 88788.
