Life After Abuse: Women's Strategies for Overcoming Abuse

Empowerment strategies were explored to overcome power and control in women's intimate relationships, using their own self-agency. Leaving abusive relationships is a recursive process of leaving and returning, for which women cannot be blamed. Women who made a paradigm shift,to establish a basis for leaving,using their internal and external resources; and who utilised different aspects of empowerment to advocate on their own behalf, were able to leave their abusive relationships. The decision-making process enabled women to gradually reclaim control over their lives. The empowerment of abused women is not necessarily equivalent to full recovery from abuse;this is a pivotal point in leaving and in the recovery process that began long before the women left their relationships. Women who had innate strength and who were able to use it to access community resources,were more likely to leave abusive relationships,despite having their lives threatened. Each of them grew and developed personlly and transformed their lives understanding there is life after abuse.