**8. Conclusions**

The results alert us to the need for professionals to think of support for the victim of IPV as a dynamic process, whose factors, at different times, may constitute an obstacle or a stimulus for the decision-making process concerned with leaving or staying in the abusive relationship. The professional is a crucial mediator who accepts the meaning-making of individuals who, through the process of sharing their narratives, can develop new understandings of their experience of victimization. An intervention that seeks to find the intrinsic or extrinsic forces of the individual (self-regulation, family support) can help victims deal with the situation in a more positive way. A person-centered approach and skills can help victims feel more supported and therefore better able to assess challenges, define strategies for coping with violence, and make a decision to leave the abusive intimate relationship. By paying attention to the victim's narratives and their IPV experience, professionals can offer an intervention more focused on the victim's needs.

The victim's uncertainties about the future reinforce their belief about the need to maintain a violent relationship, with negative consequences for herself and her children. Given that our focus is exclusively on women (with children), we cannot fully consider the role and importance of children in the decision-making process, but it is clear that children are a central element in the victim's decision to stay in or to leave the abusive relationship. However, the presence of other extrinsic factors such as interpersonal support (family, friends, neighbors, community), enhanced and maintained through personal qualities (e.g., gratitude, compassion, generosity, forgiveness), can lead to a better capacity for self-regulation to face adversity. Recognizing this, professionals can plan interventions that enhance the health and well-being of the individual at any stage of the process of leaving or staying in the abusive intimate relationship.

The individual construction of violence is highly influenced by the internalization that takes place in the context of social experience (e.g., gender discrimination, human rights). The identification of extrinsic factors (e.g., security, social support) among the victim's concerns reinforces the need for the individual transformation process to be accompanied by a network in which professionals from various areas (e.g., police, courts, social action) work simultaneously with external factors that can, as we have seen, constrain motivations and decisions for change.

Given its nature, the results of this study cannot be generalized, but it is hoped that they provide an expression of the complexity of the experience of the victims and raise awareness that the intervention process should be flexible enough to attend to the individuality of the victims and the specific combination of factors involved. The resilience model is intended to meet these aims. The study makes a modest contribution to the understanding of the motivational process of leaving the abusive relationship and the development of more effective interventions focused on the victim and their experience of victimization.

To establish a broader understanding of these areas and add further weight to our conclusions, we sugges<sup>t</sup> that future studies could address issues such as the type of sample (comparing victims with children and without children); the size of the sample (recruiting more participants); gender (creating contrasting groups or mixed samples); and evaluations at di fferent times in the decision-making process to try to identify di fferent phases and/or attempts to confront the problem. Other issues that could be explored in-depth include the aggressor's role and considerations of justice, protection, and children's rights.

There is a complex interplay of multiple factors that influence the victim's decision of whether to leave or stay in an abusive relationship. Going further, adopting an ecological approach to the problem of domestic violence would make it possible to study factors at several levels, including the individual, family, community, and society. An important extension would be to develop studies with samples from di fferent countries to look at the influence of culture.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, A.I.S.; Formal analysis, A.I.S. and D.P.; Investigation, A.I.S. and D.P.; Methodology, A.I.S.; Writing–original draft, A.I.S.; Writing–review & editing, A.I.S. and D.P. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was partially financially supported by Portuguese national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the framework of the Research Centre for Child Studies of the University of Minho (CIEC) project under the reference UIDB/00317/2020.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
