I really don't know how to thank you all for taking the time to help a complete stranger, even if my posts are off topic in this forum. Your kindness is truly overwhelming and I can't say how much I appreciate it!

Tucson and Innerzone - thank you so much for sharing your experiences and insight. I do think I ended up putting up with rather abusive behavior because I was only focusing on the 'good times', a mistake I have done in the past, hence clearly something I need to work on for the future. I assumed it would pass but, judging from what I know about this person, it seems clear it would keep regularly cropping up following his mood swings.

And as you wisely say, it seems highly unlikely that he will take action to try and break the cycle and seek help. That's a shame, but it's his life and his choice, and therefore the only choice I have left is to walk away and work on making peace with what happened.

Even if he miraculously recovered from his current episode tomorrow and came back promising the moon, the truth is that I could never trust travelling again with him, not knowing that he might suddenly flip out from one day to the next and run off leaving me alone in a foreign country. I'm lucky that I resisted his suggestions of signing a one year contract for an apartment or investing money in a year-long working permit while we were in Laos, since I am cautious when it comes to these sort of things, or I would already have been left with issues to sort out while he ran off. A modicum of reliability is absolutely necessary.

One thing I'm finding grimly amusing at the moment is that, after 8 years, he still resents the fact that an old long term girlfriend refused to go travelling with him and broke up with him saying he was 'too unstable'. He is still outraged about it. Well, I would say that she knew him well enough and was pretty darn smart and spot-on