Australia's first Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner Gwen Cherne's job is to ensure the voices of veterans' families are widely heard.
She is the daughter, widow and mother of veterans and her husband Peter took his own life in 2017.
Ms Cherne shared her experience with the inquiry investigating the issue of veterans' suicide on Thursday.
Her husband suffered "a significant amount" of childhood abuse and had a history of family violence, including an AVO taken out against him by the mother of one of his children.
The pair met in Afghanistan, where he worked as a security contractor and Ms Cherne on reconstruction projects.
On her wedding day, Ms Cherne told a confidante she wasn't afraid of her husband dying in war, but rather that he would take his own life.
"It was a very real possibility he would die by suicide," she said.
When the couple moved back to Australia he began the re-enlistment process almost immediately.
"Nothing gave him identity and duty of purpose in the same way," she said.
He attacked and threatened her for the first of many times a couple of months after they married, threatening to kill her and himself.
She stayed with him because she felt a need to care for him and thought it would be safer for her to stay.
After another violent incident Ms Cherne gave a statement to police, that she says she was later manipulated into retracting because it could negatively affect her husband's career.
Her husband gave a similar reason for not wanting to participate in therapy or counselling.
The only support she received from defence was from her immediate supervisor in her civilian role attending hearings to support her.
The other representatives from defence "were there for Peter".
Three days before he took his life, amid fears he was being pushed out of the ADF following a stroke he suffered serving in Iraq in 2016, Ms Cherne did leave following another violent incident.
She reported the incident to his regimental sergeant major, after making "a number of phone calls" for advice, not wanting to "impact his career".
Prior to the stroke, he told command that "he was not OK" and was told "to either delegate better or suck it up essentially".
Ms Cherne says her children, who are veterans themselves, were at even greater risk of suicide from the trauma of their father's death.
High-ranking defence members such as commanding officers should be connected and engaging with families of soldiers in their unit, with "a constant flow of access and information and trust building".
However, Ms Cherne acknowledged "that isn't their primary job".
"But if you can create that, even with a small group of families who then have access to other families, you're able to have the pulse on the men and women in your unit.
"You're able to understand what's going on in their families and then de-escalate."
The inquiry is taking evidence on urgent issues from those in the ADF community who have had suicidal ideation, and family members of those who have taken their lives.
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