Beyond survival: reclaiming self after leaving an abusive male partner

Research on the process of leaving an abusive male partner has focused on surviving abuse and the crisis of leaving. Little is known about the experience of women who have left abusive male partners and not gone back. In this feminist grounded theory study of women leaving abusive partners, the researchers discovered the basic social-psychological process of reclaiming self in which women voyaged through 4 stages: counteracting abuse, breaking free, not going back, and moving on. The focus of this paper is the last stage, moving on, during which women move beyond framing their lives as survivors of an abusive relationship through the processes of figuring it out, putting it in its rightful place, launching new relationships, and taking on a new image. The findings extend our knowledge of the leaving process by delineating the ways in which the abuse experience and the survival process are displaced as the centre of the woman's intra-psychic, interpersonal, and social existence. Questions are raised about how nurses and other health professionals can avoid revictimizing women who have moved on.