Mothers as victims of intimate partner violence: The decision to leave or stay and resilience-oriented intervention

Abstract

This paper presents a qualitative study to understand the reasons for leaving or staying in an abusive relationship and how this informs planning for psychosocial interventions with victims. We present a study of 15 Portuguese women with children who were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). The sample consisted of women, helped by a Victim Support Office, who volunteered to participate in a semi-structured interview and whose narrative responses were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The results, organized into two broad categories, reveal that the reasons for staying in the abusive relationship are essentially related to extrinsic factors (e.g., children, the aggressor, society), which reinforces myths (e.g., marriage is for life) and makes it difficult to break the cycle of violence. However, the decision to leave the abusive relationship is also based on the same factors which, when reconceptualized and empowered, contribute to the intrinsic recognition of the problem and the decision-making process. We find that the resilience portfolio model, which focuses on three major factors (self-regulation, interpersonal forces, and construction of meaning), favors the identification of protective factors that can guide interventions for individuals facing situations of adversity such as IPV.