AITA for deciding to break someone's heart?

[Mini Magi]

Usually I would try this on Reddit, but since we are all roleplayers here and have our fair share of experience with roleplayers, it feels better to ask here. AITA stands for "Am I the asshole?" and I would like to get an extra perspective on my longest relationship with a roleplayer. So if you feel like judging someone, let's get right to it. Oh and this takes place before I arrived on ED, so no, this is not about anyone here... unless a certain someone moves here. Anyway!

There was this roleplayer we'll call Red. We met in a group RP that unfortunately was ruined for us by one character that could copy the abilities of those around him... in an RP specifically asking for creative powers. Meh. But when Red voiced his thoughts, I couldn't help but agree and shot them a PM, and before we knew it we had an RP about basically bullying a little demon noble. It started a bit slow, but we noticed after the first 10 posts that we are quite compatible. We had some other smaller ideas, some big projects, and then when talking about our favorite fandoms, I practically jumped at the offer to have a Roleplay in the Hyperdimension Neptunia franchise. Our first was then put on ice.

Here's when things turned sour. I unfortunately don't remember the reason anymore, but I do know that I caused the first fight we had. And while I don't remember it, I do still feel bad about it and have no doubt believing it really was my fault. But eventually we talked again after a break, made up, continued talking about this and that and continued the big RP. Out of graciousness I even worked out a second big RP idea that played into Red's kinks, and now we had 2 quite well working roleplays. Then something went wrong, again my fault, but again we made up and rinse and repeat.

After that though? I don't know at which point, but I noticed that something was off, talked to them about it, and now Red blew up on me. Now the situation turned around, and it repeated on and on and on. Some of the reasons for blowing up on me were being really unsatisfied about how our brainstorming went (I literally had to justify that I don't want to describe bodily fluids in detail, such as taste), merely SHOWING a character they didn't like (Izayoi Sakamaki and his headphones have style, deal with it) even when it was never a topic of including them anywhere at all, not agreeing to do a quick chat RP session with 2 of our by then regular characters (look, I don't always want to lewd okay?), and probably some more. I then had to start walking on eggshells, being careful about what I say. Why would I do that? Look, i really loved that Hyperdimension Nepunia RP. It had a custom story, was quite lore rich for a world in that fandom, had multiple characters, ...and okay, I had a harem. That MIGHT have played into me wanting to keep it up.

Then something happened to Red that resulted in them losing a huge amount of money on their job. I never asked the exact details, but essentially it boils down to them being a broker of some sort, and they lost their entire savings. Red seemed close to kill himself over it. And look. I am not a purely good person. I abandon people as soon as they tell me about self harm in any way because I have enough stuff to do already. I did so often in the past. But Red was like family at that point. I kept being around, talked to them, replied, didn't care if our roleplays were on hold (it's beyond understandable considering the circumstances) and by some miracle Red got through that phase and kept moving on in the same job. From what I understood, he didn't recover his losses, but was earning money again at least.

But the point at which I stopped caring:

"I need a break from you, see you in two weeks."

At first I accepted it. Nothing wrong with a break. We all need breaks. I'm fine with those... Except when considering that RED was the one who started the brainstorming session, THEY were the ones who knew they had to get to bed and wrote me anyway, THEY were the ones who were unsatisfied, and now I get shoved aside like a bitch!? I have NEVER felt this level of rage, not even in my school years when I was bullied (whole separate story, focus for now) and rather than accepting it, giving them time like usual, I wrote them back a paragraph about how they can essentially continue the roleplays by themselves, and blocked them.

What followed was them writing me through our roleplay side (yes, my dumb angry butt overlooked that channel) apologizing profusely about hurting my feelings. Since it felt genuine I accepted... and HAD THE SAME THING REPEAT A WEEK AFTER! If I kept counting right, this was our 9th fight by then, and I realized that this relationship was not good for me. It lasted 7 years by that point, it caused me stress and emotional pain, and with at that point 4 big roleplays plotted (only 2 active at a time) also a lot of time wasted. This time when they wrote me though mail, Red threatened to hurt himself, tried to lure me in by continuing our harem plot. Remember me abandoning people like that? After getting hurt this hard twice, I didn't care. So after listing all red flags Red showed in an E-Mail back to them, and not so politely telling them that they were not welcome anymore, abandoning my E-Mail account and opening a different account on our roleplay site, I this time successfully cut contact with them.

 

But was it the right thing to do? Look. I know after half of this read, it seems like Red is not worth the time. But they were fun to talk to, I chuckled often at their jokes and their characters, and the harem RP definitely took more effort on their end than on mine. That can be stressful, and it is because of that that I made characters and plots to kind of reward Red, or show my gratitude (one hand washes the other, right?. Plus, keep in mind that I can only write this from my perspective. And as previously established, I am not a perfect human being. Far from it. I can be lazy, demanding, annoying, and my enthusiastic plotting can be a bit of a wrench in someone's plot. I'm at a strange spot where I feel justified, but also unsure of my actions.
 

So... AITA for burning/nuking the bridge on a 7 year long relationship over them deciding they need a break from me?

PS: I checked their profile just recently. They keep writing as usual, no one's dead.

[Neptune]

It's a tough one, but I am inclined to say NTA.

While this is your perspective, some of the things you said indicate that while things started off good, Red seemed to be later displaying toxic and controlling behaviour (like blowing up on you for just showing a simple character image).

And then the threat at the end that they were going to hurt themselves? Seems like an attempt to manipulate to me. You tried to give them a second chance by accepting their apology, and they seemed to throw it back in your face a week later. 

Thing is, everyone has fights now and again. It's natural in any kind of relationship. But what isn't natural is toxic and controlling behaviour and attempts to manipulate. If a person is like that, then it's always best to cut them off. I've been forced to end a few friendships because of that kind of behaviour.