Understanding the experiences of women who stay in abusive relationships

Abstract

The choice to stay a relationship affected with intimate partner violence (IPV) is not one that is well understood. IPV is defined as physical, sexual, or psychological abuse against an intimate partner (Mason, Hyman, Berman, Guruge, Kanagaratnam, & Manuel, 2008). IPV goes beyond socioeconomic status and culture, and has a global prevalence of 20%, but the majority of research available does not take into account the reasoning for why women stay with an abusive partner. The purpose of this qualitative study was to obtain an understanding for why women stay with abusive partners and to determine what eventually helped them to leave the relationship. The theory was developed by employing grounded theory methodology. Purposive and snowball sampling were utilized to recruit a sample of four adult female participants who had experienced IPV and had successfully left. The data was acquired through open-ended interviews, which were later transcribed verbatim. Coding the data has been done using open, axial, and selective coding recommended in Creswell (2007). Through the coding process, a model emerged for why women leave abusive relationships, and therefore, The Acknowledgement of Abuse model was formed. The model consists of three steps that can occur in any order for a woman to reach her breaking point, and leave the relationship. These steps include gaining education to acknowledge red flags, awareness of quality of alternatives, and realizing individual unhappiness. The information gained from this research can be used to help women leave abusive relationships.