Spurned into Suicide

"You weren't impressed when I tattooed your name across my forehead
You wouldn't listen when I promised to be true
I couldn't stand it, so I jumped out from the sixteenth story window
Right above you
Now I may be dead but I still love you"

— "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Melanie"

"If I can't have you, I'd rather die!"

Someone (occasionally a Yandere) can't deal with the fact that the person they love wants to leave them, has no interest in them, becomes attracted to someone else, or is already in love with somebody else. Instead of killing their love rival or the object of their affections so they won't ever belong to someone else, they decide/threaten to kill themselves. Might also be used to guilt the object of their affections into choosing/staying with them. Of course, sometimes they even attempt to take the object of their affections with them in death as well.

When played more sympathetically or for tragedy, the rejected's despair and pain alone can be considered the impetus for suicide. Rather than spending the rest of their days with the intense heartache of unrequited love (because Unrequited Love Lasts Forever), removing themselves from the equation seems to be the easier solution. In lighter or very sarcastic works this trope may overlap with Suicide as Comedy, even when people often say Dude, Not Funny! in regards to it.

See also Death by Despair and Not Good with Rejection.

Obviously, this is known to happen in Real Life.

As a Death Trope, there will be marked AND unmarked spoilers ahead. Beware.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Berserk provides a particularly depressing example with Griffith. After enduring a year of torture that left him permanently crippled, seeing all his dreams and ambitions go up in smoke, and finding out that both his love interests have hooked up with each other, he tries to kill himself and fails. Unfortunately for them and everyone else in the Hawks, this is around the time when the Crimson Behelit comes back to him...
• In the anime season II of Black Butler Alois attempts to throw himself off a clock tower. It's implied his decision to do this is because he thinks Claude prefers Ciel over him.
• Book Girl: Miu. Well, the first time. She was so sad and angry with Konoha for not telling her about him writing the book (thus feeling that he was distancing himself away from her and being as Yandere as she is) that she decided to kill herself right in front of him so that he'd regret and suffer his entire life.
• Case Closed:
  • The first case involved the death of Akiyoshi Fujie, highschool boyfriend of Idol Singer Yoko Okino, who had been secretly forced by Okino's manager to break up with her for the sake of her career's success. After a bizarre and lethal misunderstanding, Fujie came to believe that she hated him, leading to him only killing himself... but making it look as if Okino actually murdered him.
  • Subverted in a case where it seemed that a beautiful girl had drowned herself after her Dr. Jerk ex-boyfriend got in an Arranged Marriage, but she actually was murdered by said Dr. Jerk so she wouldn't get between him and such a convenient union. Additionally, the victim's best friend immediately realised what had happened and it was up to Conan and Kogoro to prove it at the other girl's request.
  • Subverted when: a half-Japanese/half-American woman hung herself, apparently because she got heartlessly dumped by her fiancè right before their wedding. The real reason was that the poor girl committed suicide after having learned that the guy had been fatally hit by a car. (She even was one of the persons who identified his corpse.)
• Claudine: The last event that pushes Claude into shooting himself is learning that his greatest love, Sirène, left him for his eldest brother, Andrew.
• One of the popular Idol Singer Harada's girlfriends in Death Parade killed herself after he left her. This caused her distraught sister to send him a bomb, resulting in his death.
• D.Gray-Man: Komui is implied to be in love with his sister Lenalee and goes nuts if there's even a hint of a guy being interested in her. In fact, a way to wake him up is to say "Lenalee's getting married." In the novel, when Bak (who also has feelings for her) gives Komui a tea that makes one tell the truth he has a breakdown when Bak asks Komui "Isn't Lenalee free to love who she wants?" He takes this to mean that Lenalee is in love with someone and immediately pulls out a machine gun saying "Then I'll kill everyone and then die!"
• Took place in Full Moon in the manga's Back Story. Meroko once was a girl named Moe, who was in a Love Triangle with a guy named Seijuurou and her best friend Fuzuki (Mitsuki's grandmother). When she learned that Seijuurou and Fuzuki loved each other, mistakenly believing that they would ditch her (they weren't) and later being almost raped by Fuzuki's angry arranged fiancè Kimiharu, Moe was so heartbroken that she killed herself.
• Played straight and subverted in Gunslinger Girl:
  • First we have Elsa, who shot her handler Lauro and then put a bullet through her eye (the cyborg girls' only weak point) because Lauro did not return her feelings and was incredibly neglectful of her anyway.
  • Henrietta is ignored by Jose, she frags him during a rampage against Dante's men brought about by Ski Mask Guy. Jose has her finish the job, but Henrietta puts one more through Jose... and Jose subverts the trope when he uses his last shot to shoot her through the eye, killing her instantly.]]
• Played with in Haou Airen, since Reilan sets a cruel Thanatos Gambit in which she ends up being shot dead by the Fetishized Abuser that abandoned her to hook up with the female lead — specifically to both spit on the boyfriend's face and traumatise her love rival into hating the dude forever.
• In chapter 11 Rune of Karakuridouji Ultimo is perfectly willing to kill his best friend because he doesn't love him back and then commit suicide.
• In Natsu e no Tobira, Claude commits suicide after Marion rejects his Anguished Declaration of Love while he tries to rape Marion while being drugged. The next day, his body is found floating on the river, with his wrists slit. Marion heavily blames himself for this, as he believes that Claude didn't know what to do with his feelings like Marion himself in regards to his love for Sara.
• It's implied that this may have part of the motive behind Asuka's mother Kyoko's suicide in Neon Genesis Evangelion since her husband was already seeing Kyoko's own doctor behind her back and everyone around them knew about it -- Asuka herself included.; and with Kyouko already being very mentally unstable after having half her soul sucked out into Unit 02, it's not implausible. It's also implied Asuka's distance with her father may at least be a result of her firmly believing that his actions played a role in her mother's death.
• Played (for lulz) by Ai Ebihara in Persona 4: The Animation. After she overhears that Kou doesn't care for her romantically and likes Chie better, Ai is so distraught that she runs off crying to the roof of the school and prepares to climb over the fence and jump over the edge. Luckily, The Protagonist Narukami gives chase and manages to talk her out of it.
• Princess Jellyfish: Inari puts drugs in Shu's drink, makes it look like she and Shu spent the night together, and threatens to expose the pictures if he refuses her. Subverted, when she pretended to be upset by Shu's rejection and decided to "end it". It turns out to be a very cruel joke and she just shrugs it off. Shu doesn't respond well to this.
• In Princess Princess Sayaka threatens to jump off a cliff when Tooru tells her outright that he only ever thought of her as a sister, saying that "If Tooru-kun doesn't choose me, I'd rather die!" He gets her to come to her senses by slapping her and saying "Don't say you want to die so easily! If you kill yourself we won't be able to see each other anymore!"
• Sakura Gari:
  • Yoshino, who after being thrown out of the Saiki household tries to stab his ex-lover Souma in the streets, and then commits suicide.
  • Souma tries to kill himself after Masataka got fed up with his Romanticized Abuse and told him "I Wished You Were Dead", and then all the terrible crap that he had done to Masataka sinks in...
• Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Miyokichi still pursues Kiku even after he broke up with her. She, during the inn confrontation, wanted to kill herself and take Kiku with her because he would not love her.
• Played for Laughs in Slam Dunk. When the Hot-Blooded protagonist Sakuragi Hanamichi is yelled at by the girl he likes (she thought he'd beaten up the guy she liked), he tried to jump off the roof of the building while crying Berserker Tears. Of course, his friends kept him from jumping and it was never mentioned again.
• Tokyo Ghoul: Mutsuki Tooru who has sexual and romantic feelings for Sasaki/Kaneki. They are willing to do whatever it takes to have Sasaki for themselves and when it becomes dreadfully apparent that their feelings will never be returned due to Kaneki’s love for Touka they try to goad their former teammates into killing them and when that doesn’t work they hold a knife to their own throat preparing to end their own life then and there. Luckily, Urie and Saiko stop them.
• Tokyo Mew Mew: When Ichigo refused to go with Quiche over her love interest Quiche says he has no choice but to kill her and die with her together before attempting to murder her love interest.
• Welcome to the NHK: Misaki somehow knows an awful lot about Satou, and she is very obsessed about making sure that he always attends her counseling every night. After he rejects her romantic advances, she attempts suicide.

Comic Books

• In an unusual instance of Black Comedy for an Archie Comics story, Big Ethel, standing on a bridge with Jughead, threatens to climb onto the ledge and jump off if he won't be hers. "Well," she says, "aren't you going to do anything?" Jughead smiles and gets down on his hands and knees, as though to give her a boost.
• Narrowly averted in De Cape et de Crocs: Having learned that Sélené doesn't love him (having spent the entire series pining for her), Armand is ready to jump off a cliff. Fortunately, the team's pet rock comes up to warn him that his other friends are in danger.
• Harley Quinn: Volume one began its "Bright Lights, Big City" arc with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn obtaining an apartment in Metropolis by taking over one that was owned by a woman who casually walked away to hang herself over the man she loved rejecting her after she encountered the pair, with her nonchalant attitude towards taking her own life treated as a morbid gag, as is Harley and Ivy quipping about the woman not tying the noose properly.
• Judge Dredd: Judge Dredd once had a stalker who becomes obsessed with him after rescuing her from some criminals. She arranges a meeting to make a marriage proposal, but Dredd is only Married to the Job. After getting rejected she immediately tries to throw herself off a bridge.
• Narrowly averted in Runaways, where Karolina talks about killing herself after Nico rejects her advances, but never gets the chance to make good on it because Xavin shows up and demands Karolina's hand in marriage, ultimately leading to Karolina accepting Xavin's proposal and leaving the planet for a while.

Comic Strips

• A now-infamous series of strips in the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic had Mickey attempting to commit suicide after Minnie left him for Mr. Slicker (Mortimer Mouse). After several failed suicides, Mickey decides he was a fool to consider suicide.

Fan Works

• It's mentioned in the Sound Euphonium fic Ambitious Love that the second time Reina left Kumiko, Kumiko became a wreck. She drowned herself in nothing but ice cream and sleeping pills for a week and barely did anything. She attempted suicide, but Natsumi found her before she bled out. As a result, Kumiko's big sister really dislikes Reina for hurting her sister so much in the past.
• In this Fire Emblem: Awakening fanfic, Henry spends almost all his time pining quietly and beautifully for his best friend Ricken and, at the end, throws himself off a cliff when Ricken marries their common friend Nowi and has a kid with her, more or less around the time the Chrom's Shepherds are disbanded.
• Last Call: After breaking up with Lapis several years ago, Jasper tried to kill herself. She survived the attempt and it's since become a Happily Failed Suicide.
• In Son of the Desert Trisha makes Hohenheim hold her at knife-point, having finally snapped from the pressure caused by her many suitors after she nearly kills one of them on accident. She tells him that she won't let go of the knife unless he admits that he loves her. Otherwise he must kill her. Hohenheim tearfully admits his feelings.
• In Under the Big Top, after Dean refuses to run away to marry Castiel and they break up, Castiel kills himself due to his depression.

Films — Live-Action

• The Big Night: If Al Judge is to be believed, his sister Frances committed suicide after Andy refused to marry her.
• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): In the Show Within a Show, Riggan plays a character that commits suicide because his wife doesn't love him anymore.
• The Joy Division biopic Control posits that Ian Curtis decided to kill himself after an argument with his wife Debbie.
• In Don Juan DeMarco, rejection by the one woman who really mattered is what prompts the title character to attempt suicide, and so set the plot in motion.
• Fatal Attraction:
  • Alex slits her wrists when her married lover prepares to leave after their weekend fling.
  • The originally planned ending had Bunny Boiler commit suicide at the end... before Test Audiences said no.
• Friend Request: Marina kills herself because Laura unfriends her on Facebook. She thinks they are best friends (or more), but in reality, they have only known each other for a few days.
• In Gigi, Gaston and Honoré exposé Leanne's affair with her skating instructor and humiliate her. The next scene is their celebration that Leanne has attempted suicide by poison, with Honoré declaring it his "first suicide". Subverted in that Leanne did not actually die, and it's implied that she never intended to and was just being dramatic.
• He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not: The first half of the movie sets up that a girl named Angélique is the lover of a doctor and nearly commits suicide upon learning that he will not be leaving his wife to marry her.
• In The Hoodlum, Rosa jumps off the roof after she discovers she is pregnant and Vincent refuses to marry her and move away.
• Maida's unnamed lover (who she loves) in In Name Only killed himself because Maida married another man, not for love, but for his money.
• In In This Our Life, Peter kills himself because Stanley admits to hating him after only a few weeks of marriage.
• Susanna from Legends of the Fall kills herself after Tristan rejects her.
• It's revealed in Little Miss Sunshine that Frank attempted to commit suicide because of his ex-boyfriend who had left him for an academic rival.
• A Man with a Maid: After Alice turns down Jack's marriage proposal in order to marry Sir Cecil, Jack attempts to commit suicide and take a photograph of himself in the act: planning to have it delivered to her on her wedding day. It turns into a Bungled Suicide when the beam he ties the noose to gives way.
• Men, part of the backstory is the protagonist, Harper, demanded a divorce from her emotionally abusive husband, James. James, in turn, threatened to kill himself if she went through with it, obviously as an attempt to dissuade her. If James' death by falling from a balcony was him deciding to make good on his threat (he intentionally jumped off), or really was just an accident (he slipped and fell) is ultimately left ambiguous.
• My Sweet Little Village: Teenaged Jarda has been crushing on a local hot teacher who is new in the village and happens to teach Jarda's sister. The teacher keeps hinting to Jarda that she's not interested. She tries to brush him off gently but he keeps pining after her and hitting on her. She then starts an affair with a painter who is staying in the village. When Jarda looks through her window and sees her having sex with the artist, he heads home and swallows some pills. He's found by his grandma so he survives.
• In the thriller No Way Out (1987), Scott Pritchard, Defense Secretary David Brice's aide, helps him cover up his involvement in the death of his mistress. As the situation devolves, Pritchard becomes increasingly psychopathic until, at the end, it is revealed that he's been harboring an Unrequited Love for Brice. He commits suicide upon being rejected.
• The Phantom of Crestwood: When Jenny rejects his proposal of marriage, Allen Herrick throws himself off a cliff.
• Play Misty for Me: Dave (Eastwood) is a womanizing DJ who constantly gets calls from a woman asking him to play the song "Misty". He eventually meets the woman, named Evelyn, and has a one-night-stand with her. Evelyn insists on making herself part of Dave's life and, at first, Dave likes the attention. However, his ex-girlfriend Tobie moves back to town and Dave decides to patch things up. After he attempts to tell Evelyn that he's not interested, she responds by attempting suicide.
• The Power and the Glory: Sally throws herself in front of a trolley car after finding out that Tom is in love with another woman. Tom shoots himself after finding out that Eve is cheating on him.
• This is prominent plot point in The Rules of Attraction. Zig-zagged as Sean Batemen repeatedly and ineffectually tries to kill himself after Lauren Hynde rejects him.
• Downplayed in Sunset Boulevard. When Joe ditches White-Dwarf Starlet Norma to go to a New Year’s Eve party with his friends from the studio, she slits her wrists. He hurries back to her in alarm, and this results in her going full Yandere for him—he is the only person except for her faithful butler Max to have come back for her in any way, shape, or form.
• After being embarrassed by her teacher when she gives him a love letter, one of the students in Up the Down Staircase jumps out of a school window. She survives.
• This happens in the first five or so minutes of Wristcutters: A Love Story.

Jokes

• There's a Polish joke about a man who comes home early to find his wife in bed with her lover. He pulls out a gun and holds it to his own head. His wife starts laughing, and he responds, "What are you laughing about? You're next!"

Literature

• Dido in The Aeneid kills herself after Aeneas leaves her. She had sacrificed her honor for him and betrayed her late husband, as widows were not supposed to remarry or take a lover. Add this to the fact that her feelings were goddess-induced and rather obsessive, and that Aeneas was kind of a jerk...
• Les amitiés particulières (Special Friendships). Fourteen-year-old George is forced to return his twelve-year-old boyfriend Alexandre's letters, a classic method of breaking up. Alexandre promptly takes poison.
• The ending of Francoise Sagan's novel Bonjour tristesse (Hello, sadness). The protagonist Cécile interferes way too much in the relationship of her dad Raymond with his girlfriend Anne, an old friend of Cécile's Missing Mom, since she fears that her and her dad's carefree and hedonistic lifestyle won't last if he marries Anne. Hoping that Anne will break off her and Raymond's engagement and leave, Cécile ultimately manipulates her father into visiting his old mistress Elsa, and Anne sees them kissing in a forest; she completely cracks, then drives her car into a cliff. Everyone believes it was just an accident, and Cécile is the only one who knows the truth.
• In Peter Moore's Caught In The Act Ethan tries to tell Lydia (who's Yandere for him) that he is not dating her. Apparently heartbroken by the news, she attempts to take hers and Ethan's lives.
• Deconstructed in Don Quixote, as Grisóstomo commits suicide after the subject of his affections, Marcela, rejects his advances. She actually shows up at his funeral to castigate him and the other shepherds that had followed her out to the wilderness for their Entitled to Have You attitude towards her, stating that she shouldn't be blamed for his reaction.
• The Essex Serpent: Luke Garrett's suicide attempt is a combination of Spurned into Suicide and Driven to Suicide. He decides to hang himself after he suffers a stab into his right hand, which seemingly ends his promising medical career. He's crushed when angered Cora Seaborne unceremoniously and rather cruelly refuses his love. She later pities him because of his hand, which is even worse for Luke and he wants to end it all.
• In the Chilean novel Golondrina de Invierno, a young would-be poet and Expy of Werther commits suicide when the female lead's cousin, whom he fancies, is engaged to marry a rich friend of hers.
• Moonlight Becomes You: Although it's not the only reason, one of the main catalysts for Malcolm's suicide is when his lover Barbara leaves for Colorado without saying goodbye. He senses that he has lost her forever due to everything else in his life falling apart and decides to kill himself shortly after.
• November 9: Upon learning that Donovan O'Neill and Ben's mother were romantically involved and that they'd recently broken up, Ben assumed that Donovan had broken his mother's heart, triggering her suicide. However, after reading his mother's suicide note he learns she took her life in order to spare herself (and by extension her sons) from a slow, painful death by ovarian cancer, not mentioning Donovan at all. Ben also realises in hindsight that Donovan appeared to be more in love with Ben's mother than the other way around, making him wonder if it was she who ended things.
• One Hundred Years of Solitude: Pietro Crespi falls in love with Amaranta, and kills himself after she rejects him.
• Sybil Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray, who takes a fatal dose of poison right after Dorian cruelly dumps her.
• The Pilgrim's Regress: A variant occurs when Gus Halfways interrupts Media and John in the middle of their romantic mooning and calls Media "Brownie". John doesn't reject her, but Media says that their dream is broken and she's lost him forever. She darts off, saying she means to kill herself. Gus is unfazed, as apparently she threatens this all the time.
• In Pygmy, Trevor goes on a suicidal shooting rampage after Pygmy rejects his advances.
• Played With in Skippy Dies. Skippy fatally overdoses after finding out his girlfriend cheated on him and gives her a Dying Declaration of Love. The whole school naturally assumes he killed himself over her. The truth is a bit more complicated, and Lori's rejection of him was the straw that broke the camel's back on top of a whole boatload of other serious problems.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther: A young wangster kills himself because his lover Charlotte is married to his friend.
• Part of Shada D'ukal's plan to sneak up on the Solo residence in the Star Wars novel Specter of the Past involves pretending to be this, in order to distract the house guards. She climbs up to the roof and threatens to jump, leading to a strange moment where one of Leia's characteristically stoic Noghri bodyguards is trying to talk her around before she disables him and rappels down the side of the building. Good thing she's ultimately on their side...
• A Tale of Two Cities and Last of the Mohicans feature similar endings, i.e. the spurned lover sacrifices himself to save the one she chooses; effectively, they are spurned into suicide and take I Want My Beloved to Be Happy to its biggest extremes.
• In The Sorrows of Satan, Lady Sibyl falls madly in love with Prince Lucio Rimânez, the first person she's ever been attracted to, not realizing that he's really Satan. She accepts Geoffrey's proposal partly so she can cheat on him with Lucio. To her shock, Lucio rejects her and condemns her for her sins, as every human who fails to resist temptation puts another barrier between Lucio and Heaven. Sibyl commits suicide by drinking poison.

Live-Action TV

• Cheers episode "A Ditch in Time". Sam Malone gets involved with Amanda Boyer (Carol Kane), who becomes obsessed with and possessive of men she goes out with. When he tries to break up with her she implies that she'll commit suicide if he does.
• In Desperate Housewives George became very obsessed with Bree after she rejected him and ultimately killed himself by overdosing on sleeping pills. However, this is enforced because George doesn't actually have a particular intention of committing suicide, but he wanted to guilt Bree into saving his life.
• In Fleabag, Boo committed suicide after her boyfriend cheated on her with Fleabag. Possibly downplayed in that Fleabag speculates that Boo didn't intend to commit suicide, but wanted to injure herself so her boyfriend would come back to her.
• In a Flashback episode of Mad About You showing how Paul & Jamie first met and started dating:
  Jamie: You do realize if this doesn't work out, I'll have to blow my brains out.
  Paul: Well, just as long as there's no pressure.
• Fran of The Nanny gets her own stalker in the form of Jeffrey Needleman, an old classmate from middle and high school. He threatens to fling himself out a window if Fran doesn't start a relationship with him.
• Nashville: Juliette goes through a serious depression which worsens when Avery breaks up with her and her manager rejects her. She responds by wandering to a building to jump off it but her manager saves her and accidentally falls in her place.
• In Oz after Beecher rejects him for the final time Keller ultimately responds by committing suicide.
• Sophia in Skins. Bonus points because this suicide is how we first become aware of her existence, and the reasons for her death and her importance to other characters' lives are only discovered later.
• On Soap, Billy Tate is in a relationship with his teacher Leslie Walker. When he ultimately breaks it off, Leslie makes numerous Played for Laughs attempts at committing suicide in front of him, which generally fail spectacularly (often due to intentional or incidental interference by other members of the Tate or Campbell families). Billy eventually tries to convince her that it's not worth killing herself over. It works, and she then decides to kill him instead.
• Parodied in the Chilean telenovela Sucupira, where the local pharmacist Don Segundo constantly tries to commit suicide whenever he doubts about his Femme Fatale wife's fidelity. And since that happened very often, well... Among other methods, he tried to: I.e: hang himself, blow his brains out, throw himself in front of a train, etc. This was so Played for Laughs that the poor guy was featured trying to hang himself in the OP sequence of the series. (around 1:07)
• In an episode of Supernatural, Sam and Dean have to protect a girl from a spirit who kills people who have been involved in other's deaths. The girl's past includes a boyfriend who threatened her with this trope when she tried to break up with him. When she left anyway, he did go through with it and she's felt guilty ever since.
• Two and a Half Men: When his wife left him, Walden tried to drown himself in the ocean. Apparently he didn't realize that the water would be really cold.

Music

• The Armor For Sleep song "Car Underwater" is about the protagonist of the album sitting in a car which he drove into the water thinking about the pain of losing his beloved.
  I didn't care that you left and abandoned me
  What hurts more, is I would still die for you
• "I Can Make You Love Me" by British India.
  You're gonna fall in love with my world of lies
  You're gonna hate the way you left me behind
• The traditional folk song "The Butcher's Boy" (also known as "The Railroad Boy") features a woman hanging herself when the titular butcher's boy cheats on her.
• Eminem: From the album The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem gives us the song "Stan" about a stalker's descent into madness when he thinks Slim (the star he's obsessed with) is rejecting him by not sending him letters. He ends up killing himself and his girlfriend who's pregnant with their child. Turns out Slim gets them after Stan kills himself.
• B.B. King: The singer in "I've Got a Mind to Give Up Living" strongly considers suicide after reading a "Dear John" Letter.
• King Crimson: "The Letters" features a woman committing suicide when her husband's lover writes her a letter about their cheating.
• Referred to in Guy Lombardo's "Enjoy Yourself":
  Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
  She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
  Lay down that gun, don't try, my friend, to reach the great beyond
  You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blonde
• "Oleander" by Mother Mother, where the singer claims that this is what would happen if their Living Emotional Crutch were to abandon their All Take and No Give relationship.
  I make a mess and you'll be there to help me undress
  I'll be unclean, I'll be obscene, you'll be the rest
  And if you leave me, rest assured it would kill me
• Brad Paisley (ft. Alison Krauss): "Whiskey Lullaby" features a man Drowning His Sorrows after his heart was broken, before ultimately taking his life. When the woman who broke his heart found out, she felt immense guilt for his death, also Drowning Her Sorrows until taking her own life.
• The song "I Can't Stand Losing You" by The Police is a darkly humorous example. It's implied that he won't go through with it, though.
• Implied to be one of several reasons behind the suicide in "The Ledge" by The Replacements:
  A girl that I knew once years ago
  Is tryin' to be reached on the phone.
  I'm the boy she can't ignore.
  For the first time in my life, I'm sure.
• The third verse of "Shame" by Stabbing Westward has the singer reach his Despair Event Horizon and talk about ending it all because his love doesn't notice him:
  I stare into this mirror, so tired of this life.
  If only you would speak to me or care that I'm alive.
  Once, I swore I would die for you, but I never meant like this.
  I never meant like this. No, I never meant like this.
• The page quote is the final stanza from the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Melanie", in which the singer's attempts to win over the titular girl through creepy stalking (starting with watching her from across the street with a telescope) ultimately fail, culminating in him breaking into the apartment one floor above hers and jumping out the window.
• "Window-Washing Cowboy" by Da Vinci's Notebook ends with the titular character leaping to his doom after finding the woman he has a crush on with another man, played in a humorous light.

Mythology

• Happens to either Echo or Amenias in the story of Narcissus, depending on which version of the myth you read. In Amenias's version, he also sends Amenias a sword and the obvious implication of how to use it. In either case, the lover dies (Echo wastes away into a voice, and Amenias kills himself) and Nemesis punishes Narcissus for playing with their feelings by making him fall in love with his own reflection.

Theatre

• Cactus Flower begins with Toni's neighbor, Igor Sullivan, smelling the gas in her apartment and breaking in to save her life, much to her annoyance. He thinks Toni was trying to kill herself because she just found out about Julian having a wife and three children, but her actual reason was that Julian canceled a date with her at the last minute on the one-year anniversary of their first meeting when he told her that he was a married man. She also mailed Julian a suicide note, which reaches him before Igor does, causing further confusion.
• Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas ends with Dido committing suicide after Aeneas is tricked into leaving Carthage by a false "Mercury". The story is loosely based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid.
• In the Nicholas Rowe tragic play The Fair Penitent, the main character, Calista, commits suicide after being loved and left by the original Lothario.
• In Follies, when Young Ben walks out on Young Sally, she pleads with him not to leave her, saying she'll kill herself. It's implied that Sally attempted suicide at least once since then.
  Ben: She said she'd kill herself. I didn't think she meant it...
• The title character in Stanisław Moniuszko's Halka is jilted at the beginning of the opera, and kills herself over it at the very end; the plot is basically her spiral into despair.
• In Hamlet, one of the motives for Ophelia's probable suicide (besides her father's murder by the man she loves) is being brutally rejected by Hamlet. This is even more justified if one considers the gravitas of his rejection within the setting; if Ophelia and Hamlet had slept together out of wedlock (which is left ambiguous), or even if people believed they had (several people note Hamlet's interest in her borders on inappropriate), her reputation would be ruined and it's highly unlikely any other man would marry her. After going mad, Ophelia sings about a woman having sex with a man after he promised to marry her, which could hint something similar happened between her and Hamlet.
• In H.M.S. Pinafore when Ralph Rackstraw decides to say Goodbye, Cruel World! after being turned down by Josephine. Subverted. It moves her to declare that she loves him after all.
• Cio Cio San, the protagonist of Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, commits jigai after being abandoned by Pinkerton in favor of an American wife and made to give up the child that she had by him.
• In The Magic Flute, Pamina attempts suicide after being seemingly spurned by Tamino (he was actually sworn to a vow of silence). Fortunately, the Three Boys stop her and clear up the misunderstanding.
• In the Kaufman and Hart play Merrily We Roll Along, Althea Royce tells her favorite playwright and future second husband Richard Niles that she's made her mind up to divorce her husband, a fast-fading former vaudeville headliner who helped launch her acting career. Shortly after, she receives the news that her husband has shot himself. She stands shocked for only a moment before falling passionately into Richard's arms.
• "Tit Willow" from The Mikado is about a bird who commits suicide due to "blighted affection"; the song is Ko-Ko trying to persuade Katisha that he feels similarly infatuated with her. Earlier in the show, Nanki-Poo is threatening to hang himself or commit Seppuku if Ko-Ko marries Yum-Yum, which gives Ko-Ko an idea of fulfilling his duties as the Lord High Executioner by executing someone who has already made his mind up to die.
• Kim in Miss Saigon, a Broadway adaptation of the above opera, does something similar, only she shoots herself rather than slash her throat. Doubles as a Heroic Sacrifice to force Chris and Ellen to take her son Tam to a better life in America because, unlike Pinkerton and his wife, they're reluctant to separate the boy from her.
• In the stage version of Moulin Rouge!, after Satine breaks Christian's heart to save him, Christian attempts suicide during the subsequent Show Within a Show by loading his character's prop gun with real bullets.
• Wonderful Town includes this in the too-sarcastic-by-half society drama "Exit Laughing," one of Ruth Sherwood's unoriginal and overdone exercises in genre fiction:
  Trent: Tracy—I'm leaving—I have found someone who needs me—appreciates me—
  Tracy: You cahn't!
  Trent (Exiting with girl): You are not a woman, Tracy. You are a billboard.
  Tracy (After him): No, no, Trent—I'll be different—I will—Don't go!
  Baker (Reading): "Everyone agreed that Tracy was a hypochondriac. Otherwise, why did she always carry a bottle of iodine?"
  (Tracy, throughout speech, is rummaging through her purse, pulls out red bottle of iodine and downs the contents.)

Video Games

• If you manage to hook up with Natsuki Kuga in the My-HiME Dating Sim, Shizuru Fujino will commit suicide out of spite and despair.

Visual Novels

• In Crescendo (JP), it's implied that the other reason why School Nurse Kaori is reluctant to go the Hot for Teacher way with Ryo is that she once rejected the affections of a student... and he swore by this trope.
• School Days:
  • In one of the bad endings, Kotonoha falls into such a despair after being rejected by Makoto in favor of her love rival Sekai that she throws herself off the top of the building Makoto lives in and dies in front of both of them. We later learn that the trauma drove them to break up a while later, and Makoto felt so guilty that he decided to never ever fall in love again.
  • A scene in the path to the Christmas Eve/With Honesty endings has Kotonoha revealing that she would kill herself in the Hotel if Makoto didn't arrive at their planned date, as that would mean he didn't love her for real. Thankfully, the game never explicitly shows us what happens at the Hotel if the player decides to go meet Sekai in the station.
  • In a blackly comedic scene in Episode 5 inside the red path, Kotonoha reveals to Sekai in a private conversation that she was planning to kill Makoto's new lover (who was actually Sekai) and herself with a knife, but backs off because Otome (the girl Kotonoha believed was the lover) was stronger and taller than her so she would've been easily subdued before she could reach Otome's neck with the knife.

Web Animation

• RWBY has Nora Valkyrie. Though she hasn't actually killed herself, her Image Song "Boop" reveals she would if she confessed to Ren and he didn't love her back.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick has Therkla, although in her case it was more "made a conscious decision not to come back to life" than commit suicide. It also wasn't the only factor in her decision-she had just been betrayed by her long-term mentor, and was likely to face prison time for her assistance in his crimes, Heel–Face Turn notwithstanding. Note that it is possible to deliberately fail saving throws, such as a fortitude save against secondary poison damage.
• In Something*Positive, Davan's old friend Scotty committed suicide after his relationship with Donna went sour. Some of their mutual acquaintances blamed Donna for it, but later strips reveal that Scotty had been suffering from clinical depression and generally felt so worthless that he believed the world was better off without him.

Web Original

• In the second verse of "The Science Love Song" by AsapSCIENCE, Greg declares that he'd "give up H₂O for H₂SO₄"^note "give up water for sulfuric acid" if he and his love interest broke up.
• During the 2014 Scottish independence vote, The Onion parodied this trope with an article of David Cameron threatening suicide if Scotland left.

Western Animation

• Batman Beyond: Terry's nerdy friend Howard once commissioned a synthoid girlfriend for himself. He quickly loses interest in her once other girls start paying attention to him (because he has a hot girlfriend), which makes her unhappy, as her life is programmed to revolve around him. After she goes postal on him, he gives her a Let's Just Be Friends speech, which pisses her off enough to self-destruct then and there.
• Family Guy:
  • In the episode "Barely Legal", Meg threatens to kill herself after her date for the dance rejects her and also threatens to kill herself if Brian refuses to go to the dance with her.
  • It happens in "I Take Thee Quagmire". When Quagmire wants to annul the marriage, his wife suddenly holds a knife to her wrist in response and also threatens to cut him.
  • Peter discovers his boss Angela attempting to commit suicide in her garage by inhaling the exhaust from her car. Quickly resuscitating her, Angela confesses that she has no hope in life, after not having been with another man for more than ten years. Deciding to help her out by getting her a date with another man, Peter disguises himself as a high society Englishman named "Reginald Knickerbocker." The two then have dinner together, before Angela brings her date back to the house and tries to seduce him, while still threatening to kill herself if he refuses.
• The Planet Express Ship from Futurama. She tries to kill herself and the rest of the crew after Bender breaks up with her.
  • Fry in "Overclockwise" after Leela leaves Earth to restart her life on a distant planet. Being Fry, though, his chosen method is going over Niagra Falls in a barrel, which doesn't do the trick.
• In the Looney Tunes short For Scent-imental Reasons, Pepe Le Pew is chasing Penelope Pussycat again and, at one point, she locks herself in a glass cabinet. The scene is done in mime with him trying to lure her out sweetly and then demanding her to come out, and her refusing, followed by her indicating that it's because of his odor. Pepe finally gets the picture, and then sadly aims a gun at his head before walking out of sight. A gunshot is heard and a horrified Penelope rushes outside only to land in Pepe's arms. "I missed, fortunately for you."
• In the Tom and Jerry cartoon "Blue Cat Blues", a very depressed Tom is sitting on a railroad track, waiting to be run over, after his girlfriend leaves him for another. The cartoon itself is a Whole Episode Flashback explaining how this took place. At the end, Jerry joins him after his own girlfriend does the same.

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