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ORLANDO (CBSMiami/AP) — The ex-wife of the Orlando nightclub gunman says he was “mentally unstable and mentally ill.”

Sitora Yusifiy, speaking to reporters in Boulder, Colorado, says Omar Mateen was bipolar and also had a history with steroids.

She says that in the four months they were together he cut her off from her family and regularly beat her. She says that her family visited her and saw she wasn’t OK and rescued her from the situation.

“He was very short-tempered,” said Yusifiy. “Because I was the only one in his life, most of the violence was toward me most of the time.”

Yusifiy, who stood next to her current fiance during the press conference, said she met Mateen online about eight years ago, eventually deciding to move to Florida and marry him.

The couple was only together 4 months. The marriage was normal at first, she said, before he became abusive.

Her only way out of the abuse was through the sheer force of will from her family.

“My family being there. Coming to visit me, to see if I was okay,” recalled Yusifiy. “And when they saw I wasn’t, they immediately got me out of that situation.”

Yusifiy said they literally pulled her out of his arms. She left all her belongings and from that day on, she had no contact with him in the last seven or eight years.

She says Mateen was religious, but she saw no signs of radicalism. Ironically, she mentioned Mateen, who died in a shoot out with authorities, wanted to be an officer.

“He wanted to be a police officer. So he trained with his friends who were police officers and he had a license for a gun.”

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)