This is what we're protecting ourselves from.

Today I saw this on reddit and I'm just a bit numb after reading it.

I'm not sure of how to summarise it as it's lengthy but I'll do my best.

Here's the short version - 3 months ago a guy asked on AITA if he was the asshole for making his girlfriend of 5 years leave the country. Her employer was bought out by another company who laid her off so her sponsorship was cancelled and she had to find a new job before her visa expired. He decided to convince her he'd sponsor her "so that she'd stop stressing" about finding a new job but then pulled out at the last minute, leaving her with no sponsorship and being sent back to a country she had no family or friends in. He said he didn't feel like it should be up to him to be responsible for another person.

3 months later she committed suicide.

Here's each of his account's posts which you can read if you'd like the longer version.

He's 28, she's 27 and they'd been dating for 5 years. He "didn't want to see her so stressed out" so he convinced her he'd sponsor her so she'd stop applying for so many jobs but then at the deadline told her he didn't want to go through with it because he realised he shouldn't have to be responsible for her. Since being made to leave the country, he's realised that he "misses her cooking" and "still wants a future with her."

It's universally agreed that he is the asshole.

Even if you only get this far through the story... I'm blown away by how clear it is how his brain operates. He has zero empathy, LIED to her so that their time together would be more productive (for him) and then bailed when he could stall no longer and it all came to a point. He's on reddit seeking outside opinions because his friends have called him an asshole and he disagrees. SO HIS PRIMARY CONCERN IS FOR HIMSELF AND HOW HE'S BEING TREATED, not what he did to her or what her life became because of his actions.

How could he honestly expect to have a "future" with her after demonstrating that he doesn't have her back? and how could he not realise it? It's clear as day to anyone with half a brain that this relationship is over because of his actions. Is this narcissism?! What is going on here?

Chapter Two:

They talked. She's back in her original country now and transferred her car to him as she didn't have time to sell it before she had to leave. He wanted to jump on a plane to go see her but she said no, and he reiterated that he still wants to be with her but he shouldn't be forced to take responsibility for her. She says she doesn't think they should be together.

It's universally agreed by the commenters that he's still the asshole.

What the hell does he think marriage is going to be like if he's bailed at such a simple 3 year sponsorship commitment after being the one to convince her to do it in the first place?! Talk about pulling the rug out from under a girl's feet.

Chapter Three:

The (ex) girlfriend transferred a significant sum of money to him with a message "Hope this helps pay off some student loans" and weeks later a mutual friend finds news of her suicide listed online.

Now his friends are "blaming him for her death", he's "obviously devastated" but "thinks it's unfair" that people are saying "he could have helped her". It's "negatively impacting his relationship with his friends and some of them have stopped talking to him". He's asking how he can convince them it wasn't his fault and how he can get his friends to treat him normally again.

I'm really sad that this is where it ended up. Not for him but for her. She had the rug ripped out from under her feet after being lied to for years about where their future was headed. I'm sad that she didn't see through his lies, and I'm sad for the needless loss of life.

She must have been so confused about what was happening in their relationship, about the future they were building that was clearly a lie and about how she must have misjudged the man she thought she was with.

I wish she'd known how to determine whether this man was really into her or not. How she could assess whether he was likely to pull this crap on her before coming to a situation where she'd need to discover it first-hand. I wish she had that bag of tricks so that she could have foreseen that her life was about to go down a different path than he must have convinced her it was heading.

Don't believe the words that come out of their mouths, they're all lies to keep the game going for a bit longer. Believe their actions, and I am in no doubt that there would have been many actions that would have hinted that he was only in this relationship for what he could get out of it while it lasted, with no concern for the complete fabrication he was constructing for her.

I don't know if this is narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy or what but I am just gobsmacked and feeling very sad.