Abstract
This chapter explores the motivations of participants when they were implementing strategies to affect the behaviour of their partners and end the abuse they were experiencing. Recognising that most women in the sample were highly motivated to remain in the relationship with their abuser, this chapter also unpacks to the role of women’s belief in their partner’s redeemability – their ability to change ‘back’ into someone who was non-violent – and their understanding of the causes of their partner’s abusive behaviours in their decision-making. The chapter ends by examining whether participants needed to be conscious of their potential role in their partner’s behavioural change and motivated to bring about desistance in order for it to occur.
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Boxall, H. (2023). Agency and Resistance – The Motivations and Thought Processes of Female Victims/Survivors. In: Reimagining Desistance from Male-Perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32951-7_8
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