Gender, Desistance and Women as Affected Others: A Case Study Exploration of the Pains of Desistance Emotional Work

ABSTRACT

Desistance research promotes intimate relationships without recognising the gendered expectations of support. Desistance Emotional Work (DEW) is a novel framework that helps to address this oversight by identifying the impacts on women of supporting a partner to desist. This co-authored case study expands DEW by incorporating a pains of desistance lens to this theoretical framework, exploring a woman’s experience of supporting her partner’s desistance and identifying respective pains of desistance for women as affected others. Recommendations emphasise the need for holistic, trauma-informed and gender-sensitive support for women aiding desisters, to enhance their agency and reduce desistance-lapse risks.