I was in love with this girl for a bit in highschool. I'm kinda glad i was too fucked up to really land a relationship, there was a fleeting moment when I might've had something with her, but my Gender shit was out of control dysfunctional back then, and any romantic partner I might've landed would've been dealing with that directly, and I was just too immature besides. I wasn't the creep though.

Instead I became a fairly close friend to her, and got to watch her boyfriend at the time gaslight and mentally abuse her. It escalated to it inducing an attempted suicide that landed her in the hospital for several months and almost delayed her graduation. She tried to leave him, and he wouldn't let her. It got around he had a sadist streak in his intimacy as well, which was actively making things worse for my friend.

It escalated to a point where several nobodies in particular who considered her a friend, and boyfriends of said - felt they had no real choice but to have him go nowhere in particular under the guise of hanging out, where he was given a very, very clear message about what he was to do, and how he was to comport himself - away from her, forever - lest really interesting things happen to him.

He wasn't dumb, he listened, and fucked off. As far as I know he grew the fuck up and has a functional family now - quite the turn around i guess, i'm glad he was smart enough to go down a road where that was possible.