'For 6 years I had the perfect marriage. When I fell pregnant for the sixth time, it imploded.'

Content warning: This story includes descriptions of domestic violence that may be distressing to some readers. 

I spent most of yesterday sitting in a women's Domestic and Family Violence support group, run by the amazing ladies at our local women's shelter.

I have spent the last year and a half talking with these women, getting their support and learning more about myself and my situation.

But a group setting was somehow different. These women were like me. Maybe not EXACTLY like me; the heavily tattooed farmer lady and the really young single mum were living different circumstances to my own, but all of us had walked a path where fear and helplessness were the roadsigns on our journey.

Watch: We lose one woman every week in Australia to domestic violence, but that's just the tip of a very grim iceberg. Story continues after video.

I was pretty quiet which isn't like me. I am normally pretty friendly and an advocate for domestic violence causes; I have done the White Ribbon walk a few times, have donated to many domestic violence charities and have been vocal about my own experiences with domestic violence from my relationship in my early 20s.

So how did I wind up in this situation?

You hear so many stories about domestic and family violence. Every story has the same elements, the abuse creeping up slowly, the fear and the feeling of desperation that if you could just fix things, they would go back to the way they were. But every story is so different and personal to the person telling it.

My story starts with a good marriage. We had been married for six years and together for eight when it went bad. I maintain to this day that you couldn't have asked for a better husband than the one that I had. He was the man that would make sure I was happy, no matter what it was, he would surprise me with weekends away, really thoughtful gifts, and dinners cooked for me when I was too tired from looking after the kids. 

The kids were his world; he was an amazing dad to them and nothing was ever too much trouble for us all. He even looked after all five kids (the youngest being seven months old) so I could take a girls' trip to China with my mum and sister. There were moments there that weren't amazing, financial issues popping up here and there, but we were genuinely happy and in love.

Then two years ago things went bad. It wasn't so much a slow burn as an implosion. The whole life we had built for ourselves fell in on itself like a house of cards.

It started with a pregnancy. We didn't particularly want any more kids and had only just found out. He was working away at this point and we had just started talking about what to do, when I started bleeding. I lost the baby only days after I found out. He was about six hours away at the time and it broke his heart that it had happened and that he couldn't be there to support me.

He felt like he needed to support me, so instead of dealing with his own thoughts and emotions, he kept it all down. I was too busy feeling my pain to notice that he was in pain too, so when he started working away even more, I felt like he had abandoned me.

Then came the anger. We had always been really good at communicating, but suddenly, when things weren't going right, he would have what I can only describe as temper tantrums, he would throw things, scream, howl, punch things and, while he never hit me, he would physically restrain me and push me around a bit.

I must confess that there were issues that were mine as well. At a certain point, I lived in a constant state of anxiety and I did things I wasn't proud of. I would get snappy, I would say things I knew would hurt. It was coming from a place of fear, but it came nonetheless.

It became pure hell, there were multiple stays in psychiatric facilities, he lost his license, had police come and go, he pushed away his family; he lost his job and his reputation and stopped paying our rent.

I only found this out after we got a termination notice. He packed his bag and went to the local backpackers. We were in the middle of a massive housing crisis and here was I, trying to find a house for myself, five kids and two dogs when there was absolutely nothing around.

The straw that broke the camel's back happened around this time. We were having a conversation about something and he got angry. When I say angry, I don't mean he got frustrated. He was head-butting the concrete out the front of our house and howling. He was on the phone to his mental health worker at the time, who called the police. I was trying to leave the house with the kids (who hadn’t really seen much of this behaviour before) and staying as calm as possible, but he wouldn't let us out the door. I called the women's refuge, who heard the noise in the background and also called the police.

They arrived soon after and escorted the kids and I out of the house and to the car, when I realised he had taken my keys. He refused to give them to the police at first but ended up handing them over after they threatened to arrest him. I went to my parents' house with the kids and then found a hotel to stay in for the time it took me to find a house. I was very lucky. I had a friend with an investment property who was happy to give us a chance, so the kids and I could start again. The police put an AVO on him on my behalf and put him back in the hospital where he was given a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and things settled down a bit.

Since then, things have been getting better. The kids and I are happy, he works again and trying to rebuild his reputation, has his license back and is trying to repair things with his family, and myself and is getting the mental health support he needs. The kids adore him again and he is heading back to the husband I had for all those years before.

But I am scared. He isn't on any medication and I don't know what the change was to bring him back to himself so I am worried that because there was no 'fix' that things could go back to the way they were without even realising.

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I asked the facilitator of the course what the difference between mental health and domestic violence were and she said that domestic violence is aimed at you, where mental health affects every area of your life. It damaged every area of his life in that year, our marriage damaged the most.

I was feeling really sad after the group so I called him and spoke to him about it and he apologised again for what the kids and I have been through. There was no deflection, no defensiveness, just sadness.

So here is where I stand. I AM a victim of domestic violence. I was scared, hurt and didn't feel safe in my home.

But what does that make him? His whole life went down the drain, he was a broken man and couldn't cope with his circumstances. Yes, he was an abuser, but not in the way you see abusers, who hurt people because it's part of who they are. It was part of who he was at that time, but can people really change? He changed from a wonderful and loving husband and father into a tyrant, but does that mean that he can change back?

I guess the thing we learnt yesterday was that domestic and family violence isn't black and white, it's a million shades of grey. While one woman's story may sound worse than another, both women's stories are equally horrifying because they were powerless. The women in the group came from all walks of life. Maybe not people that you would normally see hanging out together, but women held together by a common thread of being a victim in a place that should have only held love.

The author of this story is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

If you find yourself needing to talk to someone after reading this story, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14. 

Feature Image: Getty.