Formerly battered women: A qualitative study of their experiences in making a decision to divorce and carrying it out

Over the past three decades, extensive research has examined why battered women stay with their abusers. However, very few studies have focused on the subjective experiences of formerly battered women in the process of deciding to divorce their abusive husbands and in their attempt to carry out their decision. Semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 formerly battered divorced women, focusing primarily on the women's interpretations of the two above-mentioned aspects of the divorce process. The results indicate that the women contextualize the experiences related to their decision to divorce and to their efforts to carry out that decision in terms of relevant ecological factors. Specifically, the women emphasized intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural-organizational, and sociocultural factors related to the divorce process. The limitations of the study and implications of the results are also discussed.