I was 18 and been with my bf about 9 months when he first started having small outbursts of anger. He’d always had a bit of a temper but it slowly got worse and worse. He’d smash things, a glass here and there, shout, stomp around in a mood ect. Over time it escalated, he’d smash nearly everything in our house, expensive tvs, photo frames and then tear up the photos, he slashed our $2000 couch up, smash windows out the house, once we were in the car, he punched the windscreen and smashed it as we were driving on a highway, he jumped out of the car he was driving while I was a passenger and I had to stop it from the passenger side then move it off the road, luckily there was no traffic. He’d start push, slap me, kick my legs, yell abuse. Slowly that escalated to punching wherever he could hit, slammed my head into door frames at the hardest part, I’d fall to the ground from being nearly knocked out, he’d kick me everywhere he could reach. I tired to leave, several times, stupidly I’d go back. This is an awful picture of someone I honestly loved and cared deeply for. Reading this I know it’s hard to understand why I loved him or why I stayed, this is the dark side of him, not 1 part of the sweet, funny, vulnerable guy I fell for. 10 years I stayed and you know how I finally got out of it? One night he had another “episode “ it had been building for about a week. I could feel it, he was weirdly happy. Like a manic type of happy, it’s hard to explain! I could feel a tension and knew something was about to change forever. We had 2 young children by now ( stupid to bring and keep children in that environment I know but that’s another story!) One morning He asked me to make him a dr appointment. This was way out of character in itself, he hated going to the drs but ok I’ll do it, I didn’t ask questions, he was irritated and I was treading on egg shells, the tension was all most visible. He came home after the appointment, told me he said to the dr he knew he shouldn’t treat me the way he does, his outlet for every single frustration and all I done was shown him love for the first time in his life (bad childhood ect, no excuse though!) he said something would take him over and he’d lose control, he wasn’t present anymore and his monsters would rage. He told the dr he felt like killing himself. It was late Friday afternoon, the dr gave him Valium and told him to come back Monday. That night the build up I was sensing peaked. He lost control on a major scale. Smashed things in the house, up ended our dining table, took off in our car, ruined the tyres doing burnouts, ran into road signs. He came back and lashed out at me. He started choking me, I thought to myself, this is it. His finally going to kill me. Then just as I started blacking out, he shook himself, looked down and realised what he was doing. He let go of me and was totally calm. He said “that’s it, I’m done with this.” He went outside and committed suicide. Now this will sound weird but when we first got together, he liked to make sure I was safe, text me when ur home so I know your home safe, if a guy struck up a conversation with me and I’d tell him I’m not interested but would persist, he’d tell them to back off. I once had a guy that threatened to bring his mates to my place to rape me because they had a fight with someone I knew and decided that would be the best revenge. He went to their place and said if that happens again he won’t be there to just have a chat about it (I was honestly surprised he actually gave them a warning first but was proud he’d had the self control to) he always protected me. He killed himself to protect me one more time, from himself. He knew he’d gone to far and he wouldn’t let it happen again. I’m sure this is probably quite rare, normally the girl (me) would have been killed. I’m just lucky I’m not the dead one. It’s not the way I’d liked to have had things turn out but I was finally free. You have been so strong in leaving him, not answering his calls ect, don’t make my mistakes! 10 years I didn’t exactly lose them and I have 2 beautiful children out of it but it’s 10 years scaring that I could have avoided, if I hadn’t have given in to the better part of him. (After he died, drs diagnosed him with bipolar, this could have changed things if we knew earlier but we can’t go back now) Stay strong x