Why Does She Leave? The Leaving Process(es) of Battered Women

This article was downloaded by:[Göteborg University Library] On: 14 May 2008 Access Details: [subscription number 781071017] Publisher: Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Health Care for Women International Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713723020 Why Does She Leave? The Leaving Process(es) of Battered Women Viveka Enander a; Carin Holmberg b a b University of Gothenburg, G teborg, Sweden Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Online Publication Date: 01 March 2008 To cite this Article: Enander, Viveka and Holmberg, Carin (2008) 'Why Does She Leave? The Leaving Process(es) of Battered Women', Health Care for Women International, 29:3, 200 — 226 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/07399330801913802 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07399330801913802 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Health Care for Women International, 29:200–226, 2008 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0739-9332 print / 1096-4665 online DOI: 10.1080/07399330801913802 Why Does She Leave? The Leaving Process(es) of Battered Women VIVEKA ENANDER University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden CARIN HOLMBERG Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden In this article, the authors present the main findings from a qualitative study of processes undergone by women who have left abusive male partners. Three overlapping leaving processes are described: Breaking Up, Becoming Free, and Understanding. Breaking Up covers action (i.e., the physical breakup), and the turning point by which it is preceded or with which it coincides is analyzed. Becoming Free covers emotion and involves release from the strong emotional bond to the batterer, a process that entails four stages. Understanding covers cognition, and is a process in which the woman perceives and interprets what she has been subjected to as violence and herself as a battered woman. Violence against women is a pervasive social problem, and the magnitude and devastating consequences of male-to-female violence in intimate relationships are being increasingly revealed. Living with violence is painful and leaving a violent relationship is difficult. Why leaving is so difficult, and which processes are involved, are explored in this interview study of processes undergone by women who have left abusive relationships. By understanding the complexities involved in leaving, various lay and professional “helpers” may increase their empathy with abusive women who try, successfully or unsuccessfully, to leave. Furthermore, recognising the processes at hand and discerning their earlier and later stages, may improve the ability of “helpers” to provide proper support. Received 28 December 2006; accepted 23 October 2007. Address correspondence to Viveka Enander, Department of Social Work, P.O. Box 720, SE 405 30, Göteborg, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] 200 Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 201 LITERATURE REVIEW Within the field of domestic violence, considerable research has been conducted on the dynamics of the violent relationship and much effort has been devoted to explorations and explanations of the abused woman’s failing to immediately leave her abuser (e.g. Anderson et. al., 2003; Barnett, 2000, 2001; Bochorowitz & Eisikovits, 2002; Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Dutton & Painter, 1981; Ferraro, 1983; Graham, Rawling & Rigsby, 1994; Griffin et. al., 2002; Herman, 1992; Hydén, 1994, 1995a; La Violette & Barnett, 2000; Liu & Chan, 1999; Lundgren, 1991; Rhodes & McKenzie, 1998; Romero, 1985; Walker, 1979, 1984; Zink, Regan, Jacobson & Pabst, 2003). Less, but some, work has been done on studying what finally motivates a battered woman to leave the relationship. In their overview, Anderson and Saunders (2003) present two different branches of this body of research: quantitative research predicting women’s stay/leave decisions, and qualitative research conceptualising leaving as a process. Because our study clearly qualifies as an example of the latter, we will highlight some earlier findings within this branch. Early researchers suggested that leaving an abusive partner is not a single event but a process that extends over time, involving temporary breakups and preparatory stages or strategies (Kirkwood, 1993; Landenburger, 1989; Ulrich, 1991). Because women’s staying in abusive relationships has been described in terms of entrapment and entanglement, this process has been conceptualised as a process of disentanglement (Kirkwood, 1993; Landenburger, 1989; Rosen & Stith, 1997). Kirkwood (1993), who used the metaphor of a web of emotional abuse, connected leaving to an outward movement in a spiral of power and control that upholds this web. Several researchers have described leaving as a process occurring in different stages or phases. However, the beginning and endpoint of this process and the number of defined stages vary considerably. Two studies (Merrit-Gray & Wuest, 1995; Wuest and Merrit-Gray, 1999) described leaving as a process of reclaiming the self in four stages: counteracting abuse, breaking free, not going back, and moving on. Their description of the first part of “leaving”–counteracting abuse–is, however, partly concordant with descriptions of what makes battered women stay. Landenburger (1989) likewise identified four stages in the process of entrapment in and recovery from an abusive relationship: binding, enduring, disengaging, and recovering, while Moss, Pitula, Campbell, and Halstead (1997) observed a three-phase process: being in, getting out, and going on. Burke, Gielen, McDonnel, OCampo, and Maman (2001) proposed five stages concordant with the transtheoretical model of behavior change. The main described predecessors of, or factors leading to, the final breakup are: Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 202 V. Enander and C. Holmberg 1. A deterioration in the relationship and/or an increase in level of violence (Ferraro & Johnson, 1983; Goetting, 1999; Haj-Yahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Kurz, 1996; Patzel, 2001). 2. Fear for the safety of children, others or self (Davis, 2002; Goetting, 1999; Kurz, 1996; Haj-Yahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Moss et. al., 1997; NiCarthy, 1987; Patzel, 2001; Ulrich, 1991). 3. Increased personal strength and agency in the victimized woman (Goetting, 1999; Haj-Yahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Merrit-Gray & Wuest, 1995; Patzel, 2001; Ulrich, 1991). 4. A cognitive shift in which the woman starts to view the relationship as abusive (Burke et al., 2001; Ferraro & Johnson, 1983; Goetting, 1999; Haj-Yahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Kearney, 2001; Landenburger, 1989; Moss et al., 1997; Patzel, 2001; Rosen & Stith, 1997; Ulrich, 1991). A turning point in the process of leaving has also been repeatedly mentioned (Haj-Yahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Kearney, 2001; Landenburger, 1989; Patzel, 2001; Rosen & Stith, 1997), albeit with different conceptualisations of this turning point: a shift in perceptions, a decision to leave/divorce, or actually leaving. Some researchers have stressed a change in emotions, such as losing hope of change (Ferraro & Johnson, 1983; Hydén, 1994, 1995a; Landenburger, 1989; NiCarthy, 1987), mobilizing anger (Ferraro & Johnson, 1983; Kirkwood, 1993; Landenburger, 1989), and/or resistance (Hydén, 2001), as an impetus for leaving. Although the “leaving as a process” studies mainly focus on intra- and interpersonal aspects, many have stressed the importance of external support and access to resources from the personal network and general community (Davis, 2002; Eldar-Avidan & Haj-Yahia, 2000; Ferraro & Johnson, 1983; HajYahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Merrit-Gray & Wuest, 1995; NiCarthy, 1987; Wuest & Merrit-Gray, 1999). Based on this short review, it should be obvious that descriptions differ and that no consensus exists on the nature of the leaving process. This study aims at creating a detailed outline of the processes, sub-processes, turning points, and (severed) emotional bonds involved in leaving, as well as of their respective interconnections, thereby drawing a new map of the leaving phenomenon. AIM OF THE STUDY The aim of the study was to improve understanding of what compels an abused woman to finally leave her abuser. Our intention was not to uncover an all-encompassing process, but rather, to examine many different factors, mechanisms, and processes involved in the breakup. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 203 In this context, however, it is important to note that one cannot really discuss “an abused woman” as a unequivocal concept. Although there are general mechanisms in abusive relationships and general ways in which abuse affects a woman subjected to it, individual features must also be explored and presented. In other words, one must regard the similar as well as that which differs. Class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, mental health, alcohol/substance abuse, age, etc.–i.e., that which differs–are important, while gender and gender power–i.e., the similar–must, in our opinion, constitute the basis of understanding. The term “an abused/battered woman” will nonetheless be used for the sake of simplicity. In other words, our interest is in the similar. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Our research question touches on two different theoretical fields: men’s violence against women and exit processes. One researcher, Eva Lundgren, is especially prominent in Nordic research on violence against women. Lundgren’s normalization process of violence model (Lundgren, 1991) (henceforth called the normalization process) has been especially widely acknowledged and very influential, but has also been debated. Margareta Hydén, who has presented a somewhat different framework for understanding men’s violence against women in intimate relationships, is a critic of Lundgren. While Lundgren’s analysis is more clearly feminist, connecting dominance and subordination in close relationships to gender relations on the macro level, Hydén focuses on interaction between the partners within the institution of marriage. Adaptation and internalization are key concepts in Lundgren’s description of the normalization process. When subjected to control strategies by the abuser, the victimized woman responds by adapting to the abuser’s demands in an effort to escape violence. This adaptation, however, leads to her gradually changing her conceptions of the situation and internalising “the man’s violence, his motive(s) for the violence and thus his demands on the woman” and “the man’s conceptions of how a woman should be,” following which the woman “starts to regard herself with his eyes” (Lundgren, 1991, p. 20, our translation). The normalization process, according to Lundgren, leads to the battered woman eventually regarding violence as a normal part of her life. Hydén (1995b), however, strongly rejects such conceptualisations: “In Lundgren’s world,” she writes “women show no resistance, no force directed outwards. Women adapt. Women do not create any projects of their own, women do not change anything, they never revolt. They unresistingly let themselves be killed mentally or physically” (p. 70, our translation). In contrast to Lundgren, Hydén believes that battered women put up active resistance. Moreover, she stipulates that this resistance is what enables and Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 204 V. Enander and C. Holmberg leads to the woman leaving. Leaving, in itself, is conceptualised as an act of resistance by Hydén (2001). The discussion between these two theorists has been lively and it forms part of the framework for our study. In the theoretical field of exit processes, Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh (1988) has introduced the concept of role exit to cover the process a person goes through when breaking up from one important life role to find a new one. Based on interviews with, among others, mothers without custody, divorced individuals, ex-nuns, ex-convicts, ex-doctors, ex-women, and exmen, Fuchs Ebaugh has pictured the role exit process as consisting of four phases: First Doubts, Seeking Alternatives, The Turning Point, and Creating the Ex-Role. As mentioned above, previous studies on abused women’s leaving processes have referred to a turning point. Fuchs Ebaugh describes five kinds of turning points: 1. Specific events, i.e., catalysts of some kind; 2. “The straw that broke the camel’s back,” referring to minor events that nonetheless tip the scale in a process that has escalated over time; 3. Time-related factors, such as realising that the remaining time for changing career/partner/gender is becoming more and more limited; 4. Excuses, through which the person can place the responsibility of role exit on someone else, for example, a doctor or other authority figure who insist that a role exit is necessary; and 5. Either/or alternatives, in which the person perceives that a choice between two alternatives is imminent, and that the non-chosen will be lost. Our analysis of the turning point, by which we mean the factual leaving, is influenced by Fuchs Ebaugh’s conceptualisations but moves in directions of its own. METHOD The method was individual in-depth interviews with 10 women who had left violent heterosexual relationships and two group interviews with volunteers and staff at women’s shelters. All informants were granted anonymity and confidential treatment of data. Data collection and analysis were conducted in two stages, interview and analysis; each author was responsible for one stage. Interview The second author created the semi-structured questionnaire and conducted the interviews.1 The informants were recruited from women’s shelters in 1 The group interviews were conducted in collaboration with research assistant Christine Bender. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 205 different parts of Sweden. The extent of the participants’ shelter contact varied substantially. The informants ranged in age from 24 to 57 years and their education levels varied, with the 9-year compulsory education as the minimum. All informants lived in cities and towns, the latter located in more or less rural areas. Some informants could be described as working class, others as lower middle class, and some as upper middle class. Eight of the 10 informants were ethnic Swedes. All informants had been cohabiting with the abusive partner and eight had children with him.2 The abuse suffered varied in kind–psychological, physical, and sexual–and severity. The duration of the relationship varied from 3 to 25 years, and the time elapsed from the breakup to the first interview varied from quite recently–with the first interview conducted while the woman was living at the women’s shelter–to as long as 20 years ago. The limitations of our study are common to many “leaving as a process” studies: a selected (i.e., women’s shelters) and predominantly white (i.e., ethnically Swedish) sample and the retrospective nature of the recorded descriptions. These limitations must, of course, be borne in mind when assessing our results. However, we hope that we nevertheless have succeeded in pinpointing some of the “similar” (see discussion above). The women were interviewed three times, at intervals of approximately 1 year, during a 3-year period. The interviews consisted of two in-depth, in-person interviews, conducted in a place of the informant’s choosing, and a third follow-up telephone interview. The in-person interviews lasted 1 to 2 hours while the follow-up interview was somewhat shorter, rarely exceeding 1 hour. Three participants declined further participation after the first interview and one of the informants was impossible to locate for the final telephone interview. All in-person interviews but one were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. In the (one) case of the informant declining tape-recording, extensive notes were taken during the interview. The follow-up telephone interviews were also documented in the latter manner. In addition to the individual interviews, two group interviews with shelter staff and volunteers were conducted, focusing on the leaving process as they perceived it. These interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. The total material consists of 25 interviews. The 23 individual interviews were, however, the primary material for analysis. 2 Marital status was not regarded as an important feature in this Swedish context. Cohabiting is such a widespread and accepted phenomenon in Sweden that the issue of whether or not to get married—although entailing some legal consequences—is primarily regarded as a matter of taste and personal choice. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 206 V. Enander and C. Holmberg Analysis The first author was responsible for the analysis, with the second author as collaborator and supervisor. Several analytic modes were applied in an intuitive ad hoc manner, as described by Kvale (1996). While listening to the tape recordings and reading the transcribed interviews, an effort was made at critical reflection on pre-existing notions, as described by Malterud (1998). A set of critical questions was reflected on, and pre-understandings were written down with the aim of “putting them in the desk drawer.” A modified thematic analysis (Aronson, 1994) was subsequently performed in the search for recurrent themes. This search was conducted in three steps, starting with discerning (sub-)themes, which were incorporated into more comprehensive themes in the next step. In the third step, we searched for factors that seemed to inhibit or facilitate breaking up. At this stage of the analysis, we found it interesting that some of the identified factors could be both inhibiting and facilitating. However, a multitude of themes and factors3 on many different levels emerged, obscuring rather than elucidating the original question of why the woman leaves. The analytical course was therefore changed in an attempt to discern the processes connected to leaving. This turned out to be rewarding, yielding three separate but deeply connected leaving processes, Breaking Up, Becoming Free, and Understanding. We will return to and describe these main processes in detail later. First, we will present some findings that may enable a better understanding of the complexity of the breakup: the impact of the traumatic bond and the significance of battered women’s resistance. THE TRAUMATIC BOND Socioeconomic factors have been found to be of vital importance for abused women’s stay/leave decisions, as shown in two reviews (Anderson & Saunders, 2003; Barnett, 2000). Barnett (2000) concluded that economic factors and (insufficient) response from the criminal justice system were of primary importance for women’s decision not to leave. Similarly, the Anderson and Saunders (2003) review showed that access to external resources outweighed subjective factors as explanations for women leaving an abusive relationship in a number of studies; income variables were found to be “possibly the most powerful predictors of the stay/leave decision overall” (p. 171). It is important to emphasize these observations to avoid 3 The difference between themes and factors, as defined by us, can be illustrated by the following example: one or several women saying that “you should try to stick together for the children’s sake” could be a theme, which in turn touches on two factors, i.e. nuclear family ideology (inhibiting) and children (inhibiting and facilitating). Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 207 reducing the question of women’s remaining in abusive relationships to a matter of individual will/psychology. The point of departure for our study was, however, that emotional, rather than material, obstacles to leaving are often most incomprehensible to an outsider, and thus the focus of our research. At this point, we introduce the concept of a traumatic bond,4 consisting of entwined ties. Some of these are purely emotional ties, i.e., love, fear, hate, compassion, guilt, and hope, while others are more composite ties, i.e., the desire to understand, dependency, and internalization. Below, we will briefly describe these ties and the traumatic bond that they create. Love, fear, and hate are three strong emotions that are often regarded as being in opposition to each other. All three were vividly described by our informants and seemed to be deeply intertwined: It was so intense emotionally, it was both fear–I was afraid of him the first time I met him and the whole time really, wasn’t I? He just had to do this (gestures) (. . .) for me to cower, because I thought he would (hit me), that feeling stayed in my body. (. . .) It was exactly that fear and that intensity that came from both love and hate. (. . .) I don’t know how to explain. It was so intense that I got completely consumed. (Anneli, 2nd interview) That love may be binding is self-evident. But the same is valid for hate; hate is directed at someone and thus requires someone to be its object. And fear of the abuser may be a very palpable imperative for staying. A feeling of compassion can also be binding and the strong sense of pity that our informants felt for their abusive partners was a recurrent theme in our material. Furthermore, an abused woman may perceive that she has participated in and is accountable for the abuser’s violence in some sense, i.e., the tie of guilt. This is partly synonymous with the reactions of victims of other types of crimes and can also be connected to victim- (or woman)blaming on the part of society. In the classical myth, hope is at the bottom of Pandora’s Box, under all the misery. This can be interpreted as hope as compensation for all bad things, which is exactly how it seems to function within a violent relationship. Ingrid, for example, stated that the abuser “always gave her hope of something else,” and that for a long time, that hope was enough for her to go on living with him. Hope has a binding effect as long as it is directed toward the man and the relationship rather than beyond them. The same can be said about the desire to understand, in which the arrow of understanding points toward the abuser. A very strong desire to understand the abuser and his actions was another recurrent theme in 4 With reference to the concept of traumatic bonding (Dutton & Painter, 1981). Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 208 V. Enander and C. Holmberg our material. From a psychological perspective, this urge to understand can be comprehended as an attempt to create meaning as well as a sense of coherence and control in a traumatic situation. However, it also has a binding effect. Anneli, for example, who had been out of the relationship for many years, explained her return to the abuser by her strong desire to understand what happened the first time they were together. The tie of dependency is complex, being a type of interdependency. The abusive partners were described as utterly dependent by our informants, who seemed to have been made acutely aware of this “fact” (which might in itself be interpreted as abusive). An emotional dependency on the part of the abused was also vividly pictured in metaphors, e.g., the abuser was likened to “narcotics in my blood”; another described a suffering of “abstinence” from the batterer. Finally, internalization is a strong and devastating tie. As mentioned previously, Lundgren (1991) claims that a victimized woman may internalise the abuser’s motives for his violence and his demands on her, eventually regarding herself with his eyes. However, as we use the concept, internalization means that a victimized woman may internalise the abuser’s concept of reality in a much broader sense. She may come to regard not only herself, but the whole world, with his eyes, resulting in her questioning herself and her own concept of reality. Anneli describes the devastating consequences of such internalization: None of your own opinions, your own values, there’s nothing left. You can’t even decide what to have for dinner, because it’s like “That’s up to you.” It’s like you have no opinion of your own and you’re (. . .) strapped into the other person who is a person instead of you. (Rebecka, 1st interview). Lundgren connects internalization to adaptation in a process perspective; we, however, regard internalization as a tie that binds the woman to the man. Together, these ties weave a traumatic bond, a bond that can serve as (part of) an explanation for the immense power an abusive man can wield over the woman he abuses. Two main consequences of the traumatic bond deserve mention: (a) becoming “bewitched,” i.e., simultaneously fascinated by, scared by and (reluctantly/temporarily) obedient to the abuser, a state described in retrospect as incomprehensible by our informants; and (b) betraying or violating oneself . The latter was described by our informants as the utmost in painful experiences and negative consequences of living with violence, which has led us to conclude that it is the pivot of the traumatic bond. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 209 ADAPTATION AND RESISTANCE Because adaptation and resistance are two strategies adopted by battered women that have been vigorously discussed in Nordic feminist research on violence against women, we were interested to see if and how these strategies were represented in our material. Furthermore, while Hydén, as described earlier, has proposed that leaving is to be explained by resistance, we found necessary to examine this proposition. When it came to adaptation as a primary strategy, as described by Lundgren (1991), this was well represented among some informants, for example Ingrid, who stated that she adapted from the very beginning: I felt like I was a flea. That he might just take his finger and snap it and I’d be gone. This was early on. I obeyed him, somehow. I guess I was scared to lose him as he was the love of my life. (Ingrid, 2nd interview) Rebecka also described an adaptation that started early, for instance, when her partner got upset over not being able to open the plastic bags she had tied: I didn’t understand that the mental abuse started at that point, did I? I just thought he wanted to save the plastic bag so I’d better start tying them like he does. And then life became more and more like that everything he did was right. In order to avoid the rows, you had to try to change yourself. I had to become who he wanted me to be. (Rebecka, 1st interview) Interestingly enough, however, Rebecka also described active resistance: Well, I did question everything he did. Lots of people have asked me, “How could you do that? You were in a lot of danger already” (. . .) But that’s the kind of person I am, I can’t live in a relationship (. . .) where someone just criticises you and says that you should do this or that without getting an explanation of why I should do it. (Rebecka, 1st interview) Rebecka had both adaptation and resistance as her predominant strategies, which indicates that these strategies are not mutually exclusive. In fact, all our informants (including Ingrid) described resistance, and some of the informants described only resistance. This means that the kind of adaptation described by Lundgren as women’s primary strategy for coping with violence was not reported at all by some informants. This in turn suggests that adaptation may be understood differently, a discussion to which we will return. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 210 V. Enander and C. Holmberg Resistance: The Way Out? Adaptation (and normalisation) has been proposed to lead to the abused woman becoming emotionally “broken down,” by Lundgren (1991) and others (e.g., Eliasson, 1997), while Hydén (2001) stipulates that resistance leads to leaving. One might thus assume that the active resistance put up by our informants would protect them from being broken down and facilitate a breakup. Unfortunately, we did not find this to be the case. While several informants resisted by refusing to yield to the abusers’ demands, screaming and hitting them back, this did not protect them from being broken down, not did it seem to lead to leaving. Sara, for example, described how she ended up powerless and resigned, despite her active resistance: And yet I still feel him breaking me down. No matter how much I fight and feel that I don’t deserve this. I deserve better. I think I got back up again, in my mind. But my arms were still so weak that I can’t describe it. This sense of powerlessness I felt. It makes no difference what I think or feel or do. I’ll still be shattered. You get ground down somehow. (Sara, 2nd interview) Despite the fact that the informants all described some kind of resistance, they also described being broken down. This means that an abused woman may resist, but still stay in the relationship and be broken down by it. Resistance, we conclude, does not simply seem to be a “force directed outwards” as proposed by Hydén (see quote above). What purposes, then, does this resistance serve? Our analysis showed that resistance as a strategy had three main functions: 1. Resistance may demonstrate to the woman that she is not subordinated. By (occasionally) talking back, refusing to obey, etc., the informants could disconnect themselves from the over-simplified and reductionist picture of abused women as passive victims. However, this also meant that they did not perceive themselves as victimized at all, and therefore saw no reason to leave the relationship. 2. Resistance may give a sense of control over the situation. This is exemplified by Sara, who recounted that she used to hide a clothes hanger in her bed to defend herself against her husband’s sexual violence, whenever she felt that “something was going to happen.” She told this as a story of successful resistance. However, she contradicted the reports of her own success by recounting that her husband’s rape attacks could occur “when least expected.” This means that while the clothes hanger in the bed apparently gave Sara a sense of control over the situation, it did not lead to her actually being able to escape the violence. 3. Resistance may fuel a hope that the abuser will “understand” and change. Informants described hope that the man would “wake up,” realize that Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 211 what he was doing was extremely negative, and change for the better. Resisting was one way to try to make him “wake up.” These three main functions of resistance as a strategy may all have an “inhibiting” rather than “facilitating” effect: If one does not consider oneself to be victimized, thinks one can control the situation, and hopes that it will change to the better, then why leave? Our findings regarding the purposes of resistance strengthen our conclusion, in contrast to Hydén’s proposition, that resistance keeps the woman in the relationship rather than motivating her to leave it. Resistance = Meta-Adaptation What contribution may the findings described above make to the understanding of violent relationships? Our interpretation is that space is given, within the violent relationship, for the woman’s resistance. An abused woman puts up the resistance she can, within the framework of the relationship, but does not manage to break the framework itself. It has been proposed (by Skjörten, 1988 and Lundgren, 1991) that (some) abusers sense just how far they can go in their violence without risking the woman’s life, or the relationship. Likewise, the abused woman may sense just how far she may take her resistance. Resisting thus becomes a normal part of life in the violent relationship. This requires a new understanding of resistance within the framework of the violent relationship. We propose that adaptation and resistance are not opposing strategies, but that resistance is in fact a kind of adaptation. In this context, we return to one of the more powerful images of resistance presented in our material, the clothes hanger in the bed. Apart from being an, unfortunately, failed attempt at control, how is the hanger in the bed to be understood? At first glance, it looks like a strong and dynamic act of resistance. But from a meta-perspective, it might instead be regarded as an adaptation. When Sara hides the hanger in the bed it is an adaptation to an absurd life situation created by the abusive man and shaped by his violence. This means that resistance can, on the meta-level, be regarded as part of an overall adaptation to violence. We therefore suggest that adaptation–resistance is a false dichotomy and that adaptation should instead be regarded on two levels: as direct adaptation and as meta-adaptation (resistance). Meta-adaptation thus means that the woman adapts to an absurd life situation created by the man and the violence to which he exposes her. I: BREAKING UP We have thus far then proposed that a complex traumatic bond binds an abused woman to her abuser and that resistance exists but does not Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 212 V. Enander and C. Holmberg lead to leaving. Next, we suggest that leaving entails three different, albeit overlapping, processes: Breaking Up covers action, Becoming Free covers emotion, and Understanding covers cognition. Breaking Up concerns the act of leaving and what precedes and initiates it. The factual leaving was often preceded by a feeling of having hit rock bottom and of being totally “done in.” Descriptions of this were manifold and painful in our material: I was so deep down at the bottom that I couldn’t cope with being there anymore. I told him, “Now I’m like a bottle that’s been turned upside down and wrung out. There isn’t a drop left. I’ve got nothing, nothing moves me, nothing.” (Ingrid, 2nd interview) However, it was apparently often here, “at rock bottom,” that the course of events turned, and this was echoed as an almost organic experience: You have to wait for that break inside your body, in your heart. . . (It) has to come on its own, the idea that you have to give up, that there’s nothing to keep fighting for. (Liljana, 2nd interview) The breakup was initiated at a turning point which made leaving imminent. The turning points found were compared with Fuchs Ebaugh’s conceptualizations, and some similarities were found. However we are of the opinion that battered women’s turning points are of two distinct and specific kinds: (a) when it’s a matter of life or death and (b) when someone else is at risk. When It’s a Matter of Life or Death When a battered woman has hit rock bottom, it seems to be a matter of life or death, a permeating feeling of “if I don’t leave now, I will die.” In our material, this feeling was sometimes associated with the woman being at literal risk of being beaten to death. More often, however, it was related to a sense of being on the verge of dying mentally: No, I just felt that this can’t go on. I just felt it in my whole body, like. It was like I could feel it all the way out to my skin somehow, “I’m going to die now.” I don’t know what I’m doing. (. . ..) Something came over me. It’s desperation in more desperation. You know they say you have something that stops you, inside you. Either I’ll get twisted and turn into some kind of monster or I’ll hurt myself and something will sort of happen to me so that I’ll get locked up somewhere, or else I’ll have a go at him. (Tove, 1st interview) You reach a certain limit. At that point, it’s not just about him abusing me, but about the whole thing. You get exhausted, I don’t give Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 213 damn now, either you’re done for or else it’ll happen, something’s got to happen. (Stina, 2nd interview) Tove’s description, above, summarizes an experience shared by other informants at this turning point: that the alternatives are to die, to go mad, to kill the man, or to leave him. If a woman leaves to avoid killing the man, the first turning point might be said to blend into the other. When Someone Else is at Risk The basis for leaving can also be the realization that staying in the relationship would mean that someone else might be harmed, as exemplified by Sara’s story. She seemed to be beyond the “matter of life or death” point, saying that she had “accepted” that the man would eventually kill her. But the day she came home and saw her husband strangling her daughter, she decided to leave: Then I saw what was going on. My God, I thought, is he messing her about as well? Wasn’t it enough with me? I had accepted that he was going to kill me. He will kill me. Whether I wither away or he beats me to death doesn’t matter, but he will kill me. (Sara, 2nd interview) It is clear from Sara’s account of her experiences within the marriage that she could have had strong reasons and motives to leave at many other times. But throughout all three interviews, Sara insisted that the event described above was decisive. According to Fuchs Ebaugh’s categorization, Sara’s turning point could be defined as a special event, but it has the special characteristic of someone else being in danger. The analysis of Rebecka’s turning point showed that it was manifold, and entailed almost Fuchs Ebaugh’s whole “catalog” of turning points. Rebecka’s life and that of her newborn child were threatened by the husband/father, i.e., a special event. Rebecka then turned to a psychologist at the antenatal clinic for help. This psychologist perceived the situation as serious and told Rebecka that she would recommend that social services take the child into care if Rebecka did not leave her husband. Rebecka was thus confronted with an either/or alternative: the man or the child. Furthermore, it gave her a kind of excuse. Most central in all of this was, however, the fact that her child was at risk. The well-being of children has been reported by many authors as incentive to leave (Davis, 2002; Haj-Yahia & Eldar-Avidan, 2001; Hoff, 1990; Kurz, 1996; Moss et al., 1997; Patzel, 2001; Ulrich, 1991). However, in the Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 214 V. Enander and C. Holmberg case of Anneli, the animal lover, an animal was at risk. When her partner abused her dog, she left him.5 We can conclude that several of the turning points described by Fuchs Ebaugh have been found in our material. But they were of the special character of being a matter of the woman’s life or death or of someone else’s safety. Tragically enough, an abused woman must apparently be on her way to perishing or someone close to her must be in harm’s way for her to be able to break up from the man, probably due to the strength and vitality of the traumatic bond. Giving up. We have described the “hitting of rock bottom” as something that precedes or coincides with the turning point. The relevant question then is whether it is a necessary prerequisite for leaving. Does a battered woman have to hit rock bottom to be able to break up? Several of our informants stated that they had hit rock bottom. Others, however, had not. The first kind of turning point, a matter of life or death, is very closely connected to the experience of hitting rock bottom. What apparently happened at rock bottom was that the woman gave up, which Liljana mentioned (see quote above). On the other hand, the second kind of turning point, when someone else is at risk, does not seem to be as closely connected to hitting rock bottom. In these cases the breakup had often been brought about by a dramatic special event that made continuing appear impossible. This also entailed giving up certain things, such as hope for a future within the relationship or conceptions of the man that had definitively turned out to be unrealistic. We therefore conclude that the giving up is central. It may consist of giving up hopes of different kinds or of giving up resistance and resigning. Apparently, a battered woman must not necessarily hit rock bottom to be able to leave, but she must give up. However, she will often not give up until she does indeed hit rock bottom. II: BECOMING FREE Above, we analyze the breakup and the turning point to which it is connected. That an abused woman has left the abusive man does not, however, automatically mean that she has broken the strong emotional bond. This is a separate process, Becoming Free. We will present this second leaving process in the form of a model, exemplified by findings from our study, (but) originally emanating from clinical work. The first author has worked with battered women for many years at women’s shelters and as a counselor. Based on her clinical experiences, she has developed a model consisting of four emotional 5 See also Faver and Strand (2003). Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 215 stages through which battered women seemed to progress. Part of the process of undertaking research was, as described earlier, the attempt to leave pre-existing notions behind and look at the material with “a fresh view.” However, the previously defined emotional stages were so clearly represented in the material that we have chosen to include and present them. The stages represent the respective honest replies to the question, “What do you feel for him today?,” i.e., “I love him,” “I hate him,” “I feel sorry for him,” or “I don’t feel anything.” Note that an abused woman passes through all stages, according to this model, irrespective of in which stage the breakup occurs. This means that a woman can hypothetically remain in the relationship throughout all four phases or leave during the first one. However, we suggest that breakup during the later stages is more probable. “I Love Him” The first stage is dominated by infatuation and love. The experience of “falling in love” does not vary much between women in non-violent and violent relationships in societies in which relationships are based on romantic love. Possibly the feeling of love is somewhat stronger in violent relationships, or can be experienced as such in contrast to the “bad parts.” Ingrid, one of our informants, thus described her conviction that she would never again feel anything as strong as her love for the abusive man. None of our informants had left during this stage, in which love seemed to be stronger than fear. Leaving at this stage of the relationship seemed inconceivable in the retrospective depictions. In the analysis of our material, it was also evident that love, apart from being binding in itself, is connected to (the tie of) hope. Therefore, it could be said that this is a stage in which the traumatic bond is woven rather than broken. “I Hate Him” The second stage is dominated by hate and a wish to repudiate the man and his actions. The outsider may easily interpret this to mean that the woman is really on the way to liberating herself from him. But as stated earlier, hate binds an abused woman to her abuser since he must be present–in some sense of the word–to be the object of it. Moreover, hate is closely connected to resistance: reacting and talking back in anger. And as we have seen previously, a battered woman resists primarily in the hope that the man will change. The cliché of hate being close to love is quite relevant here, in that this is the emotional stage immediately following the love stage. An observation from clinical practice, reflected in one of the shelter interviews, is that a woman who comes to the shelter at this emotional stage often quickly returns Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 216 V. Enander and C. Holmberg to the man. After expressing her anger and hate to the shelter staff (often giving the impression that she is very intent on leaving) and sometimes to the abusive man himself, she seems to slide back into the love stage, which may be interpreted in the light of the emotional ties still being essentially intact. Battered women have been estimated to leave 3–5 times temporarily, i.e. before the final relationship termination (Dobash & Dobash, 1979; Eliasson, 1997; Barnett, 2000). It is reasonable to assume that some of these temporary breakups occur during this phase, prompted by anger and resistance. According to our model, however, it is not as probable that the definitive breakup will occur during this stage, due to strength of the traumatic bond. Even in the latter part of this stage, it is only the tie of love that has been broken or just somewhat strained. Erika was the only one of our informants that had left during this stage; her breakup thus merits a deeper analysis. Erika left when she found indications that her husband might have sexually abused their daughter, i.e., she reached a turning point of the “when some else is at risk” kind. In the analysis of the first, second, and to some extent also the third, interview, we had the pervasive impression that Erika had actively distanced herself from the reality of what had happened. This can possibly be related to her leaving so early in the process of becoming free, long before she was “finished” with her feelings for the abusive man. When asked what she felt for him at the time of the third interview, conducted 2.5 years after the breakup, she replied: It grieves me to see his inner child. At the same time, I’m furious because he doesn’t care about his own children or take any responsibility. I have mixed, double feelings. I feel sorry for him. It’s hard to see a person you have loved killing himself. [The ex-husband had an alcohol problem.] (Erika, 3rd interview) It was only at this point that Erika seemed to be approaching the third emotional stage, “I feel sorry for him.” She was still far from not feeling anything for him, or in other words, being “free.” “I Feel Sorry for Him” The third stage is dominated by compassion; i.e., the woman feels sorry for the man. This is the emotional stage that is most extended in terms of time, while the preceding stage, hate, was shown to be shorter in our analysis. Pity for the man was a recurrent theme in our material, and was reported by several informants to be the main reason for staying in the relationship. But pity and compassion can also be the dominating feelings during and long after breaking up. This leads to several conclusions. The first and simplest is that the phenomena of staying, leaving temporarily, and Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 217 leaving permanently can all be seen during this stage. The second is that although compassion was reported to be a strong incentive for staying, it does not seem to be strong enough if the woman hits rock bottom; which is more likely to occur during this stage than during the two previous ones simply because more time has elapsed. The third conclusion is connected to the second; we propose that this is the stage in which a breakup most often occurs (which was also the case with our informants). And finally, we conclude that this breakup, due to the predominant feeling of pity for the man, is often difficult and surrounded by ambivalence and guilt. However, with the onset of pity, the tie of hate breaks. “I Don’t Feel Anything” The fourth stage is dominated by indifference for the man, and if the woman has not left him before, she will now, according to our model, unless she is too dejected and broken down. This is the end. Reaching this end may, however, take time; it was not until 15 years after her divorce that one of our informants stopped feeling sorry for the man and became indifferent to him or, in our words, “became free.” With the end of feelings, something seems to change. But first, a description of what two of our informants felt for the abusive man at the follow-up interview: I’m indifferent. He is completely gone. I have no feelings at all, I’m just a blank. (Sara, 3rd interview) I don’t feel anything. He’s touchy, naı̈ve, and stupid. I’m not so furious and I don’t feel the urge to get back at him. I think he’s childish. (Stina, 3rd interview) Two of our informants gave very similar illustrations of what “the end” could entail. Sara described an encounter with the man in which she “only stared him in the eye.” She did not lower her gaze and stated that the man “understood that something had changed.” Ingrid recounted what could be described as a twin episode to Sara’s, which she summarized thus: “His power was broken.” When an abused woman no longer feels anything for the abusive man, his emotional power over her is also broken. That a battered woman has broken the abuser’s internal power over her does not, however, mean that his external oppression of her has ceased. She may have to cope continuously with threats and harassment.6 6 Fleury et al. (2000) found that more than a third (36%) of 278 women who were studied during a two-year period after shelter stay/breakup were subjected to violence by their ex-partners. Furthermore, Mechanic et al. (2000) found that as many as 94% (n = 115) of women interviewed approximately six months after shelter stay/breakup were threatened by ex-partners. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 218 V. Enander and C. Holmberg The attentive reader has no doubt noted that the feelings described as dominant in the first stages merge with three of the earlier described emotional ties, i.e., love, hate, and compassion. How, then, are ties and stages related to each other? If we return to the picture of the conflated bond, the interrelationship could be described as follows: love is the tie that breaks–or at least weakens–first. But the other emotional ties still remain: hate, compassion, fear, guilt, and hope. Hate is the tie that breaks next, followed by compassion, one of the stronger ties. The fourth stage is called “I don’t feel anything” (for the man), meaning that the woman has also stopped hoping. But even if she is mainly indifferent to the man she can still feel guilt and above all fear; fear seems to be a persistent companion.7 Guilt and fear are thus the emotional ties that break last. For a summary of our model of Becoming Free as a four-stage process, we finally turn to Rebecka. In the last interview, conducted four years after Rebecka left the abusive man, she described her feelings for him, in retrospect: I loved him at first and then I started to feel sorry for him instead. That was what made me stay so long. (Rebecka, 3rd interview) and at the time of the interview: I feel nothing for him. There’s only fear left. I used to hate him but now it doesn’t matter to me if he lives or dies. (Rebecka, 3rd interview) Rebecka described all four of the outlined stages above, unknowingly providing an illustration of our whole model. III: UNDERSTANDING The third defined process connected to leaving is Understanding. In this process, a woman defines the relationship she lives/has lived in as abusive and herself as a battered woman. We propose that this is a process primarily occurring after (the actual) leaving. In other words, women do not leave because they realise they are abused; rather, they realise they are abused because they have left. This is suggested by the fact that although all our informants had sought help from women’s shelters and several had reported abuse to the police, 9 out of 10 did not identify themselves as abused at the point of breaking up. On the contrary, informants were reluctant to define themselves as abused both before and after leaving. Here is a typical description: 7 This fear may, of course, be related to continuing threats and harassment from the abuser. However a woman’s fear may apparently be just as strong and pervasive long after they have ceased. Hydén (1999, 2000) also found that post-separation fear was pervasive and long-lasting. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 219 I know that (. . .) I thought like, what do you mean abuse, I’ve only been punched in the nose or had my face slapped or been pushed. And even when he was choking me the night I left home, I didn’t even think that was abuse really but rather, what the hell, he’s just grabbed me round the neck. I was scared to death, mind you. That was more like emotional abuse. But the odd punch isn’t abuse. No, abuse is when someone is completely knocked out somewhere. So I guess I didn’t see it that way, as an “abusive relationship”. (Anneli, 2nd interview) The informants expressed notions of not “qualifying” as abused in two respects. One was that the violence they had experienced was not “severe enough.” But the definition of “enough” seemed to be relative; there was an observable shift in meaning–or a normalization (Lundgren, 1991)–here. While one informant did not define what she had been subjected to as abuse because it had “merely” been psychological, others that had been the victims of physical violence still did not define themselves as abused as they had not been–in Anneli’s words–”completely knocked out.” In summary, it could be said that our informants defined abuse as “something worse than what I have been put through.” The second respect in which one could fail to qualify as abused was simply in (not) being a “battered woman.” Elisabeth, for example, saw no reason to call the women’s shelter because she was not, in her own opinion, a typical battered woman. In this context, we would like to repeat that all our informants had put up resistance in different ways, something which is often missing in descriptions of “typical” battered women. In the light of our informants’ notions of not qualifying as battered, we think that two points should be stressed, the first being the importance of describing abuse as something primarily emotional (as opposed to physical) and of focusing on what women themselves perceive as the most devastating; i.e., the psychological abuse, the brainwashing, and the consequential betrayal of oneself. The second is that the simplified and redundant description of “the battered woman” that focuses on (direct) adaptation must be changed. As long as women who are subjected to abuse fail to recognize themselves in it, this image may directly stop them from seeking help. Rebecka—An illustration Defining oneself as abused is thus far from self-evident. Rather, it stands out as a process in its own right.8 Albeit a primarily cognitive process, it is not 8 Parallels can be drawn here to what Kelly (1988) calls “the naming process,” and our findings, made more than ten years later and in another country, can therefore be said to confirm hers. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 220 V. Enander and C. Holmberg without emotional consequences, and seems to be difficult and distressing. We have chosen to illustrate this process by presenting Rebecka’s case. Rebecka’s process of understanding was rendered more difficult by two circumstances: that she had “only” been subjected to psychological violence and that the abusive man suffered from a clinical depression. Rebecka’s previous understanding of what she had been subjected to was characterised by her interpreting her experiences in the light of her partner’s depression, and the depression and abuse seem to have merged in her mind. In connection with the breakup, Rebecka suddenly found herself at a women’s shelter and both the shelter staff and the psychologists she saw told her, independently of one another, that she was the victim of abuse. Initially, Rebecka firmly resisted this description, but a process seems to have been started by these conversations. Rebecka subsequently engaged in what can be described as an intense negotiation of understanding: depression or abuse? Eventually–following a neither simple nor straight cognitive process–she started to accept the idea of abuse, resulting in a kind of mental paradigmatic shift that entailed considerable pain: That was when the crisis hit me. Then I felt like: “I give up, I don’t give a damn if they take my son away from me, I haven’t got the strength, I just want to disappear.” It was a cruel truth when I finally realized it. Because they (the staff at the woman’s shelter and her therapist) sort of. . . they wanted it to come out so that I would understand what I had been through. Because otherwise I’ll still go around feeling bad without knowing why. And when I heard them say that. . . I didn’t want to accept it because you know it affected me. I felt bad. Then when I couldn’t fight it off anymore, I managed for about a month I think, but then I realized that they were right. It was the most difficult thing I’ve experienced, actually. (Rebecka, 1st interview) Once Rebecka had embraced the notion of abuse, a mental subprocess, replay, began. In this subprocess, an abused woman “replays” part of her life like a video film to look at it again, but in a new light: It was like starting the abuse that I realized that I had been through all over again. As if I was living through all three years of it again, but in such a short time (. . .) I went through it all in my head, right from the first day I met him, (. . .) everything that had happened and all. And it was just like I was living through it again. Like I was living. . . I was in a three-year relationship twice and was put through the same things the whole time. (. . .) So I started seeing it differently. And I realized that it was psychological abuse. But since I had repressed, well not repressed but compressed everything into his depression, I hadn’t realized how terrible I was feeling in the whole situation. How he was hurting me. That he was doing it on purpose. But then when I took a new look at Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 221 it I was living, I suppose that was the only difference, I was living with psychological abuse for three years instead. Before that, I had been living with a depressed man for three years. The same things had happened but I looked at them differently. (Rebecka, 1st interview) Replay entails re-experiencing the relationship, in the light of the definition abuse/violence. The phenomenon of replay can be suggested to have two functions. Through re-experiencing, a battered woman can psychologically work through her painful memories. Furthermore, the reexperiencing of these memories seems to strengthen the woman in defining what she has been subjected to as abuse. Thus, replay is both a part of and strengthens the process of understanding. The difficulty of the Understanding process is also indicated by Ingrid’s description of a semi-conscious nightmare: Interviewer: What was it like to start looking at it that way, that it was an abusive relationship? Ingrid: It was bloody horrible. I got woke up by having a dagger in my hand and stabbing my husband over and over without being able to stop. I sat up in bed, almost awake. (Ingrid, 2nd interview) The process of understanding and re-experiencing the violent relationship was sometimes described by our informants as even more painful than actually living in the relationship. Therefore the following discussion is relevant. Is It Necessary to Understand? Some of our informants had not gone through the Understanding process and one might indeed ask whether it is necessary that a woman define her experiences as violence and herself as a battered woman? Catherine Ashcraft (2000) claims that women disclaim these definitions for many good reasons, one being the strong connotations with powerlessness, and the other that the women’s movement–that has named and put the problem on the agenda–has failed to abolish the connection between woman abuse and deviance/pathology. These are thought-provoking ideas that merit more discussion. We will, however, limit ourselves to describing what Understanding seems to imply. Being subjected to domestic violence has profound and sometimes devastating consequences. To describe them, several informants–and some researchers (e.g., Mega, Mega & Harris, 2000, Romero, 1985)–turn to the concept of brainwashing, a concept implying that something has been done to one, one’s brain has been “washed.” The process of understanding can be described as a comprehension of what has been done, of how this Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 222 V. Enander and C. Holmberg brainwashing has been carried out and of its consequences. A word, a definition–abuse–seems to be required to reach this comprehension.9 Finally, the process of understanding is clearly important for breaking part of the traumatic bond. When a woman defines herself as abused, one of the last emotional ties can be broken: guilt. Rebecka, whose process of understanding was depicted above, no longer felt any guilt toward the man. However she was still afraid; during the second interview she stated that she was considerably more frightened than she had been before and at the third interview this fear seemed to have become part of her life. After the woman has broken up, become free and understood, fear thus remains. CONCLUSIONS Two common features of the “leaving as a process” literature are the emphasis on women’s resistance and the depiction of the leaving process as complex and multifaceted (Anderson & Saunders, 2003). Our study is no exception in this respect; however, we offer some new interpretations and models. Regarding the first feature, resistance, the discussion among Nordic feminist researchers has been animated. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that battered women’s resistance should be included in descriptions of violent relationship dynamics, but does not lead to leaving. In this context, we propose a new theoretical concept, meta-adaptation, to cover resistance within the violent relationship. Regarding the second feature, the complex nature of the leaving process, our study provides a more detailed illustration of these complexities, with the traumatic bond as a starting point for analysis. Leaving–in its widest sense–can be seen as a disentanglement from this bond. We have shown how the majority of the emotional ties are broken during the described processes. Love, hate, compassion, and hope break during the Becoming Free process, whereas guilt breaks during the Understanding process. Fear, however, seems to remain. When and where the so-called composite ties, the desire to understand, dependency, and internalization, break is, however, a question open to further study. According to Anderson and Saunders (2003), many process studies found that when “women began to redefine the relationship as abusive and label themselves as victims” (pp. 175–176), it led to a termination of the abusive relationship. Our study differs from others in this respect, in that we 9 A comment on language is required here. Where English has a larger selection of terms, Swedish speakers mainly use the word “misshandel,” which means assault and battery. The word has been used to translate the English term “abuse,” which, however, has a broader meaning and is not as strongly connected to physical violence as the Swedish expression. One might ponder on the different possibilities this offers; while an English-speaking woman could claim that she is abused but not battered (or vice versa) a Swedish-speaking woman is either “misshandlad” or not. Downloaded By: [Göteborg University Library] At: 16:37 14 May 2008 Why Does She Leave? 223 see this as separate process predominantly taking place after the woman has left the abuser. Our informants did, in concurrence with other studies, describe an increased awareness of violence. But the pattern we observed was reluctance to label it as such until after the breakup. We therefore propose that women do not leave because they realise they are abused, but on the contrary realise they are abused because they have left. Within this framework, we have also identified two turning points which cover leaving in a narrower sense, i.e. the physical breakup: when it’s a matter of life and death and when someone else is at risk. 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