A Mixed-Method Approach to Understand Themes of Love in Victims’ Dismissals of Civil Protection Orders

Abstract

Domestic violence protective orders are the most widely used intimate partner violence-related legal intervention in the United States, yet many victims later ask to have these orders dismissed. This article uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the conditions that help explain why victims of intimate partner violence dismiss their protection orders. Quantitative findings from 841 civil protection order cases show that victims who need protection the most are the most likely to seek dismissals. Victims who experienced recent or physical abuse were significantly more likely to dismiss their protection orders. Qualitative findings from 200 dismissal requests reveal that victims reference common themes of loving the abuser, that the abuser is a good parent, that the abuser is seeking treatment, or that they desire to save the relationship. Victims draw from broad romantic rationalizations when describing their decision to drop a protection order from the court. Building upon insights from constructs of romantic love, this study highlights how the rationalizations victims invoke in their dismissal requests are also associated with their experiences of abuse. A mixed methodological approach reveals a significant contrast between the language in victims’ petitions and their dismissal requests. Victims voiced fear and violence in their petitions for protection orders, then employed meanings of romantic love, reconciliation, and change when requesting that these temporary protection orders be dropped. This contrast reflects the cyclical nature of abuse and suggests that greater attention must be paid to ensuring court officials have a strong understanding of the complexities of victim attrition.

Keywords

intimate partner violence protection orders mixed-methods legal intervention

Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual violence, and stalking remain pressing social issues in the United States that carry serious physical, mental, and financial consequences (Smith et al., 2017). Victims of IPV often turn to the justice system for civil protection orders, also known as restraining orders, that are intended to prevent further violence by enforcing separation between abuser and victim (Goodman et al., 2003; Fleury-Steiner et al., 2016). Yet, after securing temporary orders from the court, many victims seek to have those same orders dismissed. This attrition raises three related questions that carry implications for understanding IPV and its responses. First, which victims request to dismiss their orders? Second, given the fear and abuse described in their original petitions, how do victims explain their decisions to dismiss their protection orders? Specifically, what are the common themes among reasons provided in victims’ dismissal requests? Third, are the explanations that victims provide for dismissing protection orders shaped by their experiences of abuse?

To answer these questions, this study uses a mixed-method approach to analyze an original dataset of over 841 civil protection order cases from Nebraska. The dataset contains information from court petitions, such as the type of abuse and relationship between victim and abuser and victims’ own explanations for their subsequent dismissal requests. This novel dataset enables a multi-method research design that connects theoretical insights from ideologies of romantic love to specific empirical insights from IPV studies.

The results suggest that victims who are currently in a relationship with the abuser at the time of filing or have minor children with the abuser are the most likely to request dismissal of their temporary protection orders. Additionally, victims of IPV selectively draw on scripts of romantic love and contrition in their dismissal requests. While victims may use romantic scripts when describing their decision to drop their protection orders to the judge, victims’ actions are similarly shaped by their experiences of abuse. The striking difference in style of victims’ original petitions for protection and their applications for dismissal highlights the need for understanding the victim experience at every stage of the protection order process.

Literature Review

Civil Protection Orders

A civil protection order, which has become one of the most commonly sought remedies for IPV, can restrain an individual from contacting, threatening, or harassing a victim (Goldfarb, 2007; McFarlane et al., 2004). Victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by a partner turn to civil protection orders to maintain their safety (DeJong & Burgess-Proctor, 2006). Victims typically apply for a civil protection order by filing a court petition that includes a written account of recent incidents of abuse, often without the assistance of an attorney.

In Nebraska, the site of this study, judges may respond to a petition by denying the request, by granting a temporary ex parte protection order based on “immediate and present danger” to the victim, or by postponing a decision until both parties “show cause” for an order to be granted or denied (Eigenberg et al., 2003; Groggel, 2021). After filing a petition, a victim may withdraw the petition by requesting that the temporary or permanent protection order be dropped or by not attending the final hearing (Zoellner et al., 2000). Civil protection orders are uniquely valuable for studying victim attrition and how it relates to a cycle of abuse because they require victims to provide explanations to the court.

Victims must justify their requests for protection orders, and then must justify any requests to remove those orders. Studies of the legal system use the term “victim attrition” to describe the difference between the number of victims who initiate legal action and the number of victims who pursue their legal action through its originally intended conclusion. At first glance, these actions, and their justifying explanations, seem contradictory. For example, a victim explains in their request for a protection order that they are living in fear and concerned about future abuse. The same victim may later return to the court and justify a request to remove the protection order by claiming that they are in love and want to save their relationship. But this contradiction makes sense if court proceedings capture a cycle of abuse, with victims changing their stories from one of fear to one of love.

Understanding the mismatch between the institutional logic of the court system and victims’ lived experience has been a concern for many scholars. Judges may deny ex parte orders of protection when they do not understand the realities of domestic violence, especially the counter-intuitive aspects of domestic violence (Stark & Choplin, 2017). Or judges may grant protection order provisions, such as custody or visitation provisions, without assessing a victim’s risk related to the perpetrator’s drug and alcohol use, suicidal threats, and sexual violence (Nichols-Hadeed et al., 2012). By first examining which victims are more likely to request a dismissal, this study highlights the complexities behind attrition in civil protection order cases.

Leaving Abusive relationships

Attrition in civil protection order cases occurs when victims withdraw petitions, decline to participate in hearings, or seek the reversal of previously granted requests. Scholarship has outlined various individual, interpersonal, situational, and structural factors that affect an individual’s ability to safely leave abusive relationships (Nabors et al., 2006). In situations involving IPV, victims often leave violent relationships and return multiple times before permanently separating from their abusers (Anderson & Saunders, 2003; Barnett, 2001; Lacey et al., 2011; Lerner & Kennedy, 2000; Rhatigan et al., 2006). Likewise, the decision to leave an abusive partner is not a one-time event but a complex process where victims often experience a gradual increase of violent behavior (Khaw & Hardesty, 2007; Murray et al., 2015).

There are countless explanations as to why victims return to an abusive relationship. Liang et al. (2005) outline relevant factors of a victim’s decision-making within an abusive relationship: individual, interpersonal (e.g., attachment to abuser), and sociocultural factors (e.g., cultural attitudes about IPV). Victims may return to an abusive relationship because of financial dependence (Gonzalez, 2005). Abusers may block a victim’s access to bank accounts or otherwise attempt to force the victim to rely on the abuser for their financial needs (Postmus et al., 2012). This would explain why victims are more likely to leave when they have greater access to economic resources (Reisenhofer & Taft, 2013).

Physical violence also plays a role. Studies have found that women who have experienced more severe abuse are more likely to seek help and use strategies to stay safe (Bonomi et al., 2006; Goodman et al., 2003; Parker et al., 2016). But victims may believe they could face severe abuse or retaliation if they do not return to a relationship or if they do not give up their attempts to secure a protection order against their abuser. The association between victim attrition and fear of retaliation is particularly important given that women are more likely to be killed by their abusers if they have left or attempted to leave (Campbell et al., 2017).

Common reasons for staying in or returning to an abusive relationship are emotional attachment and values related to “the feeling that the children need a father” (Bartholomew & Allison, 2006; Bostock et al., 2009; Cravens et al., 2015; Kelly, 2009). These feelings of obligation and commitment to an abusive partner are also associated with the abusive partner promising to change or showing remorse (Anderson et al., 2003). Recent work has recast strategies of promising to change and apologizing for the violence as a type of coercion or “latent” control tactic (Alves et al., 2017).

Within an abusive relationship, displays of love or contrition may reflect a larger pattern of abuse with “alternation between violence and warmth” being used by abuser to gain and maintain control (Lundgren, 2004). This coercive strategy reflects the cyclical nature of IPV with victims experiencing stages of tension building, incidents of abuse, and then a third stage, which is variously called the “loving contrition,” “reconciliation,” or “honeymoon” stage (Walker, 2017). In this stage, the abuser is often apologetic about their behavior or promises to change (Paradis, 2017). Victims may believe that their partner has changed during this third stage (Hendy et al., 2003; Walker, 2009). Over time, as the cycle repeats, relationships spend more time in the first stage of tension building stage and less in the stage of loving contrition (Walker, 2017). The following section outlines how these strategies or stages relate to cultural ideologies of romantic love.

Romantic Love

The belief that “love conquers all” is one of the most dominant cultural ideologies in American culture. Books, magazines, television, novels, movies, and the internet depict the mythic power of true love (Galician, 2004; Lee, 2008). Cultural beliefs about love, reinforced and reproduced by media depictions, structure individuals’ expectations of their own relationships, leading individuals to use meanings of love as a resource they pull from to make sense of their own experiences and relationships (Holmes, 2007). A cultural script that places women in loving and nurturing roles becomes a romantic discourse that victims use when returning to or staying in abusive relationships. But this discourse minimizes a partner’s abusive behaviors and allows victims to blame themselves (Boonzaier, 2008). These messages reverberate across media, ranging from films such as Beauty and the Beast to music videos like Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie” (Enck & McDaniel, 2012).

Narratives of love emerge when one’s lived experiences do not make sense and “find some way to generate coherence—or the illusion of it” (Wood, 2001, p. 242). Many victims may initially conceptualize their abusive partners as good and worth living with, but subjection to violence leads to a cognitive-emotive dissonance (Enander, 2011). Using meanings of love as an explanation provides coherence to victims’ experiences when attempting to end a relationship or attempting to re-establish control after incidents of abuse.

Victims may orient their perceptions in response to their partners’ controlling or abusive behaviors. When confronted with violence in their relationship, victims may seek to align their experience to a narrative of love or contrition which provides consistency within their relationships. Attached to romantic love narratives are depictions of acts of jealousy and controlling or violent behavior (Hayes, 2014). Media, such as the Disney princess films, project an ideal of romantic love “which provides life’s magical meaning, requires suffering and transformation” (Garlen & Sandlin, 2017, p. 2). This leads individuals to view controlling behaviors as signs of love rather than red flags (Donovan & Hester, 2010; Fraser, 2005; Papp et al., 2017).

Current Study

The current study uses a mixed-method approach to address three research aims. The first aim is to investigate predictors of which victims dismiss their temporary protection orders. The factors associated with victims returning to abusive relationships provide insight into the phenomenon of victim attrition in the justice system. The decision to separate from an abusive partner affects and is affected by other help-seeking behaviors such as applying for a protection order. Koepsell et al. (2006) found that women who left their abuser were more likely to have left several times before and had sought a protection order against their abuser. Hypotheses about victim attrition were formed based upon research on leaving abusive relationships.

Women in current relationships with the abuser are more likely to drop their order than victims who consider the abuser a former partner (Malecha et al., 2003). This aligns with research that shows feelings of commitment or obligation are often connected to victims feeling as though they have invested a great amount of time and effort in the relationship (Eckstein, 2011; Rhatigan & Axsom, 2006). Because emotional attachment or commitment to a relationship are common reasons for returning to abusive relationships (Anderson & Saunders, 2003; Bartholomew & Allison, 2006), victims’ relationship with their abuser at the time of filing will affect whether they seek to dismiss their temporary orders. Thus, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 1

Victims who are currently together with the abuser at the time of filing will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order.

Hypothesis 2

Victims who are married to the abuser at the time of filing will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order.

A victim’s decision to stay or return to an abusive relationship is also associated with feelings that their children need a father (Cravens et al., 2015; Kelly, 2009). Shared children will likely affect victim’s decision to seek to drop their protection orders. For example, if the protection order prohibits abusers from contacting their children, victims may feel guilty, or believe that this result is not in their children’s best interest (Barnett, 2001; Kuennen, 2007). Court-ordered visitation may also create opportunities for the abuser to continue harassment of the children and of the victim (Beeble et al., 2007; Fleury-Steiner et al., 2016; Harrison, 2008). Intimate partner violence victims have also reported fearing raising children alone and losing custody of their children to their abuser (Bui, 2003). This study builds on these previous findings by examining how victims having children with their abuser may also predict victim attrition. Thus, the following hypotheses will be examined:

Hypothesis 3

Victims who have minor children with their abuser will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order.

Hypothesis 4

Victims who have a custody or other related court filing will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order.

The second focus of the paper is to examine common qualitative themes among reasons victims provide when dismissing their protection order. A romantic love script provides understanding of the nature of abusive relationship and the reasoning male and female victims may communicate in their dismissal requests. Hayes & Jeffries (2013) found that a romantic love script provides a motivation for maintaining an abusive relationship. For instance, the film version of the classic love story Beauty and the Beast portrays an abusive relationship that includes forced captivity, threats, and throwing furniture in a fit of rage (1992). But despite the abuse, Belle returns in order to save the Beast, believing he is a changed person, and a narrative of fear and violence becomes part of a larger story of love and redemption. Other work has found that victims often use the metaphor of “Jekyll and Hyde” when describing the abusers (Enander, 2010; Zink et al., 2006). Thus, victims may pull from a romantic discourse that depicts their abuser as “beast/prince,” where hard masculinity hides a softer side uncovered with love and help of the heroine (Baly, 2010).

As outlined above, a victim’s feelings of obligation or emotional attachments to the abuser are common reasons provided for returning to an abusive relationship, these feelings are also associated with the abusive partner promising to change or showing remorse (Anderson et al., 2003). Other work has also shown that a romantic script of love often minimizes a partner’s abusive behaviors and allows victims to blame themselves (Boonzaier, 2008). Therefore, in this context of this study, I expect victims to use themes of romantic love and contrition in their dismissal requests.

For the third research question, the relationship between the explanations that victims provide for dismissing protection orders and their experiences of abuse is explored. Scholarship has recast abusers’ expressions of contrition, apologizing for the incidents of abuse, and promising to change as a type of coercion or “latent” control tactic (Alves et al., 2017). This paper focuses on understanding not only how victims’ experiences of abuse may predict which victims drop out of the justice system, but how their experience of abuse might be associated with victims’ rationales in their protection order dismissal request to the court. Displays of contrition or promises to change reflect an “alternation between violence and warmth” being used by an abuser to gain and maintain control (Lundgren, 2004). If victims use romantic scripts of a romantic commitment to the abuser and emphasize the abuser’s contrition when dropping protection orders, then the dismissal reflects a stage of the cyclical dynamic of abusive relationships. Thus, I form the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 5

Qualitative themes of “romantic attachment” and “contrition and change” in victims’ dismissal requests will be associated with victims’ experiences of abuse.

Methods

Predictors of Dismissal Request of Temporary Protection Order

This study draws from an initial statewide sample of domestic abuse civil protection order cases filed in Nebraska in 2015 retrieved from an online database with 30 cases being selected from each county. Cases that were denied temporary protection orders by judges were dropped from the dataset so that the sample consisted of granted temporary orders through either an ex parte order or a show cause order. By only analyzing cases that had been granted temporary protection, it was possible to identify significant predictors of victim attrition. In Nebraska, an ex parte protection order or show cause order lasts until the victim goes to court and serves as a temporary protection order until a final hearing or show cause hearing takes place.

The sample was then restricted to IPV for heterosexual romantic relationships since the initial sample yielded only one same-sex IPV case. This was accomplished by dropping cases involving relatives, “persons related by consanguinity or affinity,” which is an additional relationship outlined in Nebraska law (Nebraska Revised Statutes, 1978). Other cases in which the relationship would not pass Nebraska’s specific “qualifying relationship” for a domestic violence protection order, such as a neighbor filing against a neighbor, were also dropped. This resulted in a final sample of 841 cases used to examine the first research question. This first research question of which victims seek a dismissal of their temporary protection order was examined through the four separate hypotheses.

To test the four hypotheses, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using logistic regression to examine the associations between whether victims sought to dismiss their temporary protection orders and their sociodemographic characteristics and experiences of abuse. The outcome of interest, whether victims requested to dismiss their order, was coded as a binary variable (“1” for yes and “0” for no). Analyses account for a victim’s sex, relationship status, the types of abuse they experienced, the victims’ other court proceedings, and additional relevant incident details such as references to drugs or alcohol.

Table 1 provides descriptions of the coding criteria of independent variables constructed from the court form for protection orders. Using information provided from court documents and court form that asks victims to describe the most recent incidents of abuse towards themselves, a number of variables were created. Relationship variables, such as type of relationship between abuser and victim, whether the abuser and victim had minor children together, and whether the couple was currently together at the time of filing were constructed. A binary variable for shared minor children was created across relationships to indicate when the victim and abuser had minor children together and was used in all models. In one model, a categorical relationship variable with spouse as the reference category was used as independent variable with other remaining categories being former spouse, dating, previously dated, living together, and previously lived together. In another model, a binary variable to measure if the victim was currently in a relationship with the alleged abuser at the time of filing was created. Thus, cases in which the victim was currently dating, living with, or married to the abusers at the time of filing were assigned a value of “1” and other relationship categories were assigned a value of “0.”

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of Granted Temporary Protection Order Cases.

	Number	%
Type of temporary order
Show cause order	151	18%
Ex parte order	689	82%
Dismissal of temporary order requested	200	23.7%
Sex
Female victim	740	88%
Male victim	101	12%
Relationship
Spouse	323	38.4%
Ex-spouse	63	7.5%
Dating	46	5.5%
Previously dated	203	24.1%
Living together (unmarried)	80	9.5%
Previously lived together (unmarried)	126	15%
Current relationship (currently dating, living with, or married to)	449	53.4%
Shared minor children	401	47.7%
Abuse
Physical (shoving, kicking, pushing, etc.)	559	66.5%
Sexual (rape, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact)	80	9.5%
Threat (threaten to hurt victim, children, family, etc.)	425	50.5%
Destruction of property (Damage to home, car, or other property)	231	27.4%
Stalking (follows victim; drives by place of employment or home)	117	13.9%
Emotion (belittling, name-calling)	230	27.3%
Financial (threaten to withhold money, bank accounts, rent)	77	9.1%
Verbal (shouting, yelling)	514	61.1%
Harassment (frequently calls, texts, or emails)	107	12.7%
Abuser threatens to commit suicide	55	6.5%
Child abuse (children in household abused)	155	18.4%
Minor Injury (bruises)	171	20.3%
Severe Injury (broken bones, choking, burned on purpose)	160	19%
Other court proceedings
Previous or current protection order case	113	13.4%
Divorce or separation	90	10.7%
Child related cases (custody, visitation, paternity, child support)	56	6.7%
Incident details
Children present during incident of abuse	315	37.4%
Recent incident (occurred within past 3 months)	778	92.5%
One incident described	184	21.9%
Two incidents described	192	22.8%
Three incidents described	364	43.3%
Four or more incidents described	101	12%
Drugs or alcohol referenced in incident	202	24%

N = 841.

Other variables such as the type of abuse, severity of injury, and recency of abuse, and the sex of the victim were also constructed. Binary abuse variables were created for physical abuse, verbal abuse, destruction of property, emotional abuse, stalking, financial abuse, harassment, and if minor children in the household were abused. For instance, victims’ petitions which included at least one reference to physical abuse were assigned a value of “1” and cases that included no incidents of physical abuse were assigned a value of “0.” Two injury variables were also constructed for severe physical injury such as broken bones, being burned on purpose, or choking, and minor injury such as bruises (“1” for yes and “0” for no). Abuse variables that occurred in less than 5% of the sample such as threat of revenge porn, abuse of pets, threats to kidnap children, or attempts to kidnap children were tracked but not included in the models.

On the civil protection order petition form, victims were asked to list past or current court cases. From this information several binary variables were constructed. A variable was created to reflect if the victim and abuser has an existing or previous paternity, custody, visitation, or child support case. If victims reported that they had a current or previous filing for paternity, custody, visitation, or child support, then they were assigned a value of “1,” and if the victims did not have a child-related case filing they were assigned a value of “0.” A binary variable was created for whether the victim reported having a current or previous divorce filing with the abuser. Lastly, a binary variable was constructed on whether the victim reported that they had a previous protection order against the abuser.

Binary variables were also constructed on relevant contextual factors such as if children were present during the incidents (“1” for yes and “0” for no). A variable was created to account for recency of abuse. If the victim referenced at least one incident of abuse that had occurred in the last 3 months, it was assigned a value of “1” and when the petition only referenced older incidents it was assigned a value of “0.” Another binary variable was created to reflect if the victim’s petition made reference to either drugs or alcohol use in connection to abuse (“1” for yes and “0” for no), since alcohol abuse is a risk factor linked to IPV (Foran & O'Leary, 2008; Langenderfer, 2013).

Qualitative Themes in Dismissal Requests

For the second research question, analysis was performed on 200 dismissal requests which included victims’ written or typed explanation of why they made the request. The majority of these requests were granted (96%), meaning that victims’ temporary protection orders were dismissed by the judge. ATLAS.ti software was used to tag, highlight, and code victims’ responses to this prompt in their dismissal motions: “In support of this request, the petitioner sets forth the following reasons for this request.” A grounded theory approach was used to examine dismissal requests and highlight emergent themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). First, an exploratory thematic content analysis approach was used on victims’ dismissal requests, identifying and reporting patterns or themes within data such as the victim loving their abuser (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Once an initial set of rationalizations were formulated, the dismissals were reread and rationalizations compared to each other in order to change or collapse categories together into broader themes. These broader themes were then compared to existing scholarship on the complex process of leaving an abusive partner (Bermea et al., 2017; Khaw & Hardesty, 2015). These themes were grouped into five broad categories: victims’ emotional attachment to their abuser, abusers’ contrition and change, reframes the past, family issues, and change in life circumstances.

Qualitative Themes in Dismissal Requests and Experiences of Abuse

To examine the third research question on the relationship between the abuse that victims described when they initially sought protection orders and their qualitative rationalizations for dismissal, the content of their dismissal request was combined with the variables of abuse constructed from the victim’s initial petition. The requests were coded independently from the victims’ initial petitions for protection orders to avoid potential bias. Thus, only after the dismissal motions were coded were those qualitative themes combined with the existing dataset of victims’ descriptions of abuse to answer the final research question.

Qualitative dismissal themes were treated as binary outcome variables. The association between the types of abuse victims experienced and whether they invoked particular themes in their dismissal requests were investigated using logistic regression (“1” for yes and “0” for no). Given the sample size of dismissal requests, analysis was restricted to the two most dominant themes: “emotional attachment” and “contrition and change.” To test the fifth hypotheses, ORs and their associated 95% CIs were obtained from logistic regression to examine the associations between victims seeking to dismiss their temporary protection orders and their relationship with the abuser and experiences of abuse. Models included the victim’s sex, the relationship between abuser and victim, whether the abuser and victim had minor children together, and whether the victim experienced minor or severe injury.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics of the granted temporary orders. Approximately 88% of victims in the sample were female, and 47% had shared minor children with the individual they filed against. Over 53% of dismissals involved cases in which the victim had filed against a respondent with whom they were in a relationship at the time of filing.

Table 1 shows that over 92% of victims had experienced incidents of abuse that had occurred in the 3 months prior to filing for and receiving a temporary protection order. The high prevalence of recent abuse is not surprising, as the sample consisted of cases that were awarded temporary protection orders, and orders are awarded when there is recent evidence of danger to the victim. Victims who were granted temporary orders were also likely to experience threats (50%) and physical violence (66%) such as kicking, shoving, or pushing. Roughly 19% of victims had experienced severe injury such as choking or broken bones. Approximately 24% of victims who received temporary ordered requested that their order be dismissed.

Table 2 displays the descriptive statistics of the dismissal requests after receiving a temporary protection order. Approximately 90% of dismissal requests come from cases where the victim received an ex parte order. The vast majority of these requests were also made by female victims. Victims who requested that their temporary order be dismissed had experienced physical abuse (75%) and severe injury such as choking or broken bones (24%). Judges largely granted victims’ requests with over 96% of temporary orders being dropped.

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics of Dismissal Requests of Temporary Orders.

	Number	%
Type of temporary order
Show cause order	20	10%
Ex parte order	180	90%
Judge granted dismissal request (no-0, yes-1)	192	96%
Sex
Female victim	181	90.5%
Male victim	19	9.5%
Relationship
Spouse	92	46%
Ex-spouse	6	3%
Dating	18	9%
Previously dated	32	16%
Living together (unmarried)	30	15%
Previously lived together (unmarried)	22	11%
Current relationship (currently dating, living with, or married to)	60	30%
Shared minor children	110	55%
Abuse
Physical (shoving, kicking, pushing, etc.)	151	75.5%
Sexual (rape, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact)	19	9.5%
Threat (threaten to hurt victim, children, family, etc.)	97	48.5%
Destruction of property (damage to home, car, or other property)	62	31%
Stalking (follows victim; drives by place of employment or home)	16	8%
Emotional (belittling, name-calling)	58	29%
Financial (threaten to withhold money, bank accounts, rent)	15	7.5%
Verbal (shouting, yelling)	133	66.5%
Harassment (frequently calls, texts, or emails)	22	11%
Abuser threatens to commit suicide	14	7%
Child abuse (children in household abused)	46	23%
Minor injury (bruises)	43	21.5%
Severe injury (broken bones, choking, burned on purpose)	48	24%
Other court proceedings
Previous or current protection order case	16	8%
Divorce or separation	15	7.5%
Child related cases (custody, visitation, paternity, child support)	8	4%
Incident details
Children present during incident of abuse	79	39.5%
Recent incident (occurred within past 3 months)	192	96%
One incident described	38	19%
Two incidents described	50	25%
Three incidents described	91	44.5%
Four or more incidents described	21	10.5%
Drugs or alcohol referenced in incident	19	9.5%

N = 200.

Which Victims Request Dismissal?

Models in Table 3 display logistic regression analyses for examining factors associated with requesting a dismissal: the abuses victims experienced, whether the victim had previous or current court proceedings and the victim’s relationship to the alleged abuser. The associations are expressed as OR. Model 1 in Table 3 uses a categorical variable for relationship with married victim as a reference category. The second model used the “current relationship” variable that reflects that the victim was currently dating, living with, or married to their abuser at the time that they filed for an order in lieu of the full relationship variable. The current study found support for Hypothesis 1 that victims who are currently together with the abuser at the time of filing will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order. For victims who are in a current relationship with the abuser at the time of filing, the odds of dismissing the temporary protection order increase by a factor of 2.15, holding other variables constant ([CI = 1.49, 3.11], p < 0.001). Similarly, divorced victims and victims who had previously dated their abuser had lower odds of seeking a dismissal compared to their married counterparts (p < 0.05). Thus, Hypothesis 2 that victims who are married to the abuser at the time of filing will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order was supported.

Table 3.

Odds Ratio of Logistic Regression for Dismissal Requests of Temporary Protection Orders.

	Model 1		Model 2
Variables	OR	95% CI	OR	95% CI
Temporary order Type (show cause-0, ex parte-1)	2.09**	[1.22, 3.57]	2.03**	[1.20, 3.45]
Male victim (female-0, male-1)	0.74	[0.41, 1.31]	0.69	[0.39, 1.22]
Relationship
Current relationship (married to, living with, dating)	-	-	2.15***	[1.49, 3.11]
Ex-spouse^a	0.33*	[0.13, 0.84]	-	-
Dating^a	1.78	[0.87, 3.63]	-	-
Previously dated^a	0.58*	[0.34, 0.95]	-	-
Living together^a	1.72^†	[0.98, 3.04]	-	-
Previously lived together^a	0.69	[0.39, 1.22]	-	-
Shared minor children (no-0, yes-1)	1.96**	[1.28, 2.99]	1.68*	[1.13, 2.49]
Abuse
Physical abuse (no-0, yes-1)	1.52^†	[0.99, 2.35]	1.52†	[0.99, 2.33]
Verbal abuse (no-0, yes-1)	1.22	[0.84, 1.78]	1.20	[0.83, 1.75]
Threats (no-0, yes-1)	0.89	[0.63, 1.26]	0.90	[0.64, 1.28]
Destruction of property (no-0, yes-1)	1.19	[0.82, 1.74]	1.21	[0.83, 1.76]
Emotional abuse (no-0, yes-1)	1.12	[0.75, 1.68]	1.13	[0.76, 1.67]
Stalking (no-0, yes-1)	0.60^†	[0.33, 1.10]	0.60†	[0.33, 1.08]
Sexual abuse (no-0, yes-1)	0.91	[0.51, 1.64]	0.90	[0.50, 1.62]
Financial abuse (no-0, yes-1)	0.63	[0.33, 1.20]	0.65	[0.34, 1.22]
Harassment (no-0, yes-1)	0.75	[0.44, 1.27]	0.71	[0.42, 1.21]
Abuser threatens to commit suicide (no-0, yes-1)	1.15	[0.59, 2.27]	1.16	[0.59, 2.27]
Child abuse (no-0, yes-1)	1.65*	[1.08, 2.50]	1.62*	[1.07, 2.46]
Severe injury (no-0, yes-1)	1.28	[0.81, 1.99]	1.31	[0.84, 2.04]
Minor injury (no-0, yes-1)	0.77	[0.49, 1.20]	0.76	[0.49, 1.18]
Court proceedings
Domestic violence-related cases	0.54*	[0.30, 0.97]	0.54*	[0.30, 0.97]
Divorce or separation	0.65	[0.34, 1.24]	0.56^†	[0.30, 1.03]
Child related cases	0.45^†	[0.19, 1.04]	0.49^†	[0.22, 1.11]
Incident details
Recent incident (no-0, yes-1)	2.08^†	[0.94, 4.64]	2.10^†	[0.95, 4.67]
Children present during incident (no-0, yes-1)	0.77	[0.51, 1.15]	0.74	[0.49, 1.10]
Number of incidents	1.08	[0.89, 1.30]	1.06	[0.88, 1.28]
Drugs or alcohol (no-0, yes-1)	1.41^†	[0.95, 2.07]	1.46^†	[1.00, 2.14]

N = 841, † < 0.1, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 Reference category for relationships was spouse.

In line with Hypothesis 3 that victims who have minor children with their abuser will be more likely to dismiss their temporary protection order, Table 3 shows that victims who had minor children with their abuser were more likely to drop their temporary protection order. Controlling for other factors, if a victim had minor children with the abuser the odds of seeking to dismiss the protection order increased by a factor of 1.96 ([CI = 1.28, 2.99], p < 0.01).

For Hypothesis 4, though there is a significant association between custody and other related child filings and dismissing a temporary protection order, the relationship was in the opposite direction of what was expected. When the victims who had previous or current child related cases, the odds of dismissing the temporary protection order decrease by a factor of 0.45 ([CI = 0.19, 1.04], p = 0.06).

A number of other predictors of victim attrition were also identified. First, the comparison between ex parte and show cause orders suggests that immediate danger played a role in dismissal requests. Victims who received ex parte orders by showing the court that they were in immediate danger were significantly more likely to drop their orders, compared to victims whose requests required a show cause hearing before a judge would grant a permanent order. Second, across models, physical abuse was associated with victims requesting a dismissal. Victims who experienced physical abuse, such as shoving or kicking, were more likely to request a dismissal of their temporary protection order (p = 0.05). Third, when victims referenced minor children being abused in their petition, they had significantly higher odds of requesting a dismissal (OR: 1.65; [CI = 1.08, 2.50], p < 0.05). Fourth, we find marginal support that victims who had experienced recent incidents of abuse had increased odds of requesting a dismissal of their temporary protection order (p < 0.07). Lastly, victims who had a previous protection order against the abuser were less likely to dismiss the temporary order. Specifically, for victims who had a prior protection order the odds of dismissing the order decreased by a factor of 0.54 holding other variables constant ([CI = 0.30, 0.97], p < 0.05).

In short, experiencing physical violence, being in a current relationship with the abuser, having minor children with the abuser, and these children being abused were all significant predictors of victims requesting a dismissal of their temporary order. To understand this pattern, the study examined the victims’ own narratives in their dismissal requests.

Themes of Dismissal Requests

Table 4 summarizes the themes in victims’ dismissal requests, and how these themes were grouped into broader categories. The 200 dismissal requests include written accounts from both male and female victims. Both male and female cases were used in the analysis. However, the majority of qualitative examples are from female victims since only 9% of dismissal requests were from male victims.

Table 4.

Qualitative Themes of Victims’ Dismissal Requests.

Themes	Rationalizations
Emotional Attachment 137 (68.5%)	Reconciliation: save the marriage, get back to together, give the relationship another try, want to work out their issues Love: love and miss respondent; respondent needs them Good person: respondent is a good person, nice person Parenthood: for the sake of the family, want family together, abuser is a good parent, child misses the parent; victim is pregnant and wants respondent there for the birth and child’s life
Contrition and Change 138 (69%)	No threat: victim no longer afraid of abuser, no longer a threat Counseling: couples counseling, family counseling, abuser is attending counseling, or has promised to seek counseling or therapy
	Anger management: abuser is working on/seeking help for anger issues, realize that he/she has a temper, will step back when frustrated
	Sobriety: abuser is sober, attending Alcoholic Anonymous, promises to seek drug or alcohol abuse treatment, entered rehabilitation, has expressed desire to be sober, abuser is a different person when sober
	Mental health: abuser has mental health problems and is back on medication
	Order followed: respondent has followed and not violated the existing protection order
	Emotional change: abuser has matured, grown as an individual, asked for help
	Employment: abuser is seeking or has gained employment
Reframing the Past 38 (19%)	External forces: victim was pressured or forced by friends and family to file, police lied in report, victim was under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or had mental health issues when victim filed
Reframing the Past 38 (19%)	Downplay past: victim views them both at fault, he/she provoked the abuser, things got out of hand, filed rashly, filed out of spite/anger
Family Issues 48 (24%)	Children issues: hassles with communicating about children, childcare, attending children’s activities
Family Issues 48 (24%)	Household issues: Need to communicate regarding property, assets, or unable to avoid one another in public spaces and functions Respondent’s employment: hurt respondent’s employment, respondent would be unable to join armed forces
Change in Life Circumstances 39 (19.5%)	Move: victim or abuser has moved
	Other filing: divorce, separation
	Incarceration: respondent is on probation or currently in jail

N = 200. In requests, victims utilize more than one rationalization so percent totals do not equal 100%.

Victims employed multiple themes in their dismissal requests to the court. Combined categories of themes made it possible to distinguish between situations in which victims used multiple rationalizations to reiterate the same theme, and situations in which victims used multiple rationalizations to draw on different themes. For example, in a single dismissal request, a victim might emphasize that the abuser is seeking treatment for drinking, that the abuser is a good person, and that the victim wants to save their marriage. In this example, the rationalization that the abuser is seeking treatment for drinking would be classified within the “contrition and change” theme, and the rationalization that the abuser was a good person, or that they are working to save the marriage, would be classified into the “emotional attachment” theme. Emotional attachment. The most common theme was emotional attachment to the abuser (68.5%). Within the emotional attachment category, the most common theme was a desire for reconciliation (47%) where victims described wanting to save the marriage, get back together, give the relationship another try, or work out their issues. This language first appears at odds with the fear and abuse victims described in their initial petitions for protection orders. But the dynamics of IPV explain this pattern of fear in victims’ initial petition to the court and love in their dismissal request.

One victim’s initial petition described abuse in which her husband shoved her and called her a “stupid whore.” The petition also noted that their children witnessed this abuse. But in the same victim’s dismissal request, she described the abuser’s need for their family and his role as the father of her children: “He needs us…I know he is wrong, but we are going to work this out. I love my husband and kids miss their dad, 1 year is too much.” Rather than addressing the violence their children witnessed, she emphasized her own emotional attachment to her abuser, and to the emotional attachment between the abuser and her children, by saying that her abuser “needs” her and their children. Another female victim’s petition for a protection order described incidents in which her abuser called her a “lazy bitch,” headbutted her, and attempted to commit suicide in front of their son in an effort to control her. Despite the insidious nature of these actions, her dismissal request reflected emotional attachment by emphasizing the abuser’s needs and her self-sacrifice as a demonstration of love:

“I would like for [the protection order] to be dropped. My son wants to see his daddy and I want to go to counseling with [abuser] to get through our problems. I am the only one he has and love him very much.”

The contrast between the language in protection order requests and dismissal requests was starkest in cases of severe abuse. One female victim described how, after accusing her of cheating, her husband and the father of her children would physically attack her:

“[H]e accused me of smelling like sex and having sex with our neighbor…he punched me multiple times. I called 911 and he bit my hand and broke my phone. The assault resulted in a concussion and I had to go to [the emergency room]. I had multiple contusions from being thrown around. I suffered head, back, and neck injuries.”

Police responded to these incidents and the female victim was hospitalized due to a concussion. But in her dismissal request, the victim asked the court to dismiss the order “so my husband and I can work through issues.”

Dismissal requests often minimized the previous abuse that victims had described in their petitions for protection. One pregnant female victim filed for a protection order after her boyfriend shoved her until she fell backwards, endangering her and the fetus. Despite this abuse, her dismissal request stated, “I would like to drop this motion because he is a good person and this argument got a little out of hand. He is the father of my unborn child and I want him in my life.” Like other victims whose dismissal requests emphasized attachment to their abuser, attachment between the children and the abuser, or the abuser’s attachment to them, this victim emphasized emotional attachment and a desire to reconcile, despite the abuse she had experienced.

Contrition and Change

The second largest theme was contrition and change. Sixty-nine percent of victims invoked at least one rationalization from this theme. Within this theme, victims referenced abusers’ efforts and promises to change, such as the abuser actually or potentially going through therapy, dealing with anger issues, seeking treatment for substance abuse, staying sober, or simply not violating their protection order. For example, a victim wrote, “He is no longer on drugs and has changed his behavior. We are wanting to try and save our relationship… He plans to be more patient, understanding, and to go to the garage when frustrated.” The victim’s protection order petition had described him breaking down a door and punching her so hard that he severely damaged her eye socket, requiring a hospital visit. Nevertheless, her dismissal request suggested that her husband’s promise to change neutralized his past behavior.

Similarly, a female victim’s petition for a protection order reported that she feared for her life both when her abuser was drinking and when he was sober. She wrote that her boyfriend “got on top of me pressing his forearm against my throat. I couldn’t breathe. Then he finally stopped and started grabbing and pulling my hair and dragging me across the floor. Then he grabbed my underwear and ripped them off.” However, in her dismissal she wrote: “He needs counseling and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) treatment and I’d make it mandatory that he goes. We have a family and I feel like I haven’t used alternatives up to have this protection order.” This victim emphasized that her boyfriend would change by attending counseling and AA treatment in the future.

In another case, a female victim described how her physically abusive fiancé threatened her while he was high on meth: “[H]e said if I didn’t come see him, he would kidnap my children. He said if I ended our relationship, he would kill me. He showed up at my house 2 days later banging on all the doors and windows and again threatened to kill me if I refused to speak to him.” But in her dismissal request, the victim noted: “[He] has not broken [the protection order] and has been working very hard at going through counseling and is trying to gain employment. I want to reconcile but cannot do that with this order in place.” This victim presented evidence of change to justify dismissing the protection order, including the abuser’s ongoing compliance with that protection order. Qualitative findings from 200 dismissal requests reveal that victims referenced reconciliation or that the abuser was contrite and able to change. Thus, as expected, themes in victims’ dismissals emphasize emotional attachment and abusers’ contrition and change. These themes reflect a romantic script. This script often makes it difficult for victims to recognize coercive strategies within their own relationships but are also a barrier to victims permanently separating or leaving partners (Boonzaier, 2008; Hayes & Jeffries, 2013; Lelaurain et al., 2017).

Experiences of Abuse and Qualitative Themes in Dismissals

In this section, the relationship between victims’ experiences of abuse and qualitative themes in their dismissal requests is examined. Table 5 shows the logistic regression models for the themes of emotional attachment and of contrition and change. Each model includes the victim’s sex, relationship status with the abuser, whether the victim had minor children with the abuser, and the types of abuses victims experienced. Table 5 reveals that qualitative dismissal themes are associated with abuse in several ways. First, victims who had experienced physical abuse increased the odds of employing the theme of emotional attachment in their dismissal request more than victims who had not experienced shoving, kicking, or pushing (p < 0.01). Second, when children were abused, victims were more likely to express emotional attachment to their abuser in their dismissal request. In the opposite direction, when abusers threatened to commit suicide, victims had lower odds of emphasizing reconciliation, love, or the abuser being a good person or good parent. For the theme of contrition and change, financial abuse and harassment were negatively associated with victims using contrition and change rationalizations in their dismissal requests. Thus, Hypothesis 5 that qualitative themes of “romantic attachment” and “contrition and change” in victims’ dismissal requests will be associated with victims’ experiences of abuse was partially supported.

Table 5.

Odds Ratios of Qualitative Themes in Dismissal Requests.

	Emotional Attachment		Contrition
Variables	Odds Ratio	95% CI	Odds Ratio	95% CI
Male victim (female-0, male-1)	0.84	[0.26, 2.86]	1.31	[042, 4.12]
Ex-spouse^a	0.06**	[0.01, 0.50]	0.36	[0.06, 229]
Dating^a	0.60	[0.17, 2.69]	0.70	[0.21, 2.29]
Previously dated^a	0.98	[0.36, 2.34]	0.68	[0.26, 1.79]
Living together^a	1.66	[0.55, 4.97]	0.95	[0.36, 2.51]
Previously lived together^a	0.64	[0.20, 2.03]	0.62	[0.20, 1.88]
Shared minor children (no-0, yes-1)	3.33**	[1.58, 7.01]	1.63	[0.82, 3.25]
Physical abuse (no-0, yes-1)	3.33**	[1.32, 7.17]	1.76	[0.81, 3.81]
Verbal abuse	1.12	[0.53, 2.41]	0.75	[0.36, 1.55]
Threats	1.81	[0.86, 3.82]	1.44	[0.72, 2.87]
Destruction of property	0.71	[0.33, 1.51]	1.25	[0.61, 2.56]
Emotional abuse	1.73	[0.70, 4.28]	2.21^†	[0.95, 5.14]
Stalking	1.31	[0.33, 4.27]	2.22	[0.53, 9.26]
Sexual abuse	5.84^†	[0.85, 40.10]	0.60	[0.20, 1.85]
Financial abuse	1.72	[0.31, 9.40]	0.35^†	[0.10, 1.21]
Harassment	1.64	[0.49, 5.51]	0.34*	[0.12, 0.92]
Abuser threatens to commit suicide	0.22*	[0.06, 0.84]	0.39	[0.11, 1.29]
Child abused	2.57*	[1.03, 6.40]	1.43	[0.65, 3.16]

N = 200, † < 0.09, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Reference category for relationship^a was spouse.

Discussion

In this study, victims who need protection the most—those who have experienced recent and physical abuse—were more likely to seek dismissals. While this study offers insight based on mixed-methods analysis of a novel dataset, it also has limitations because the underlying phenomenon is more complicated than the available data. Isolating one predictor of attrition is difficult because abuse factors are intertwined in practice. For instance, victims’ economic dependence on their abuser often goes hand in hand with imposed social isolation, in which victims are cut off from friends and family (Anderson et al., 2003).

The data in this study, while thorough in many respects, did not contain measures of social support, community resources or a victim’s financial independence, although other work has examined their effects on whether victims stay with or return to an abusive partner (Barnett, 2001; Krishnan et al., 2004). Another limitation was that race, social class, or citizenship were not available in the dataset, so the study could not disentangle their possible effects. Lastly, it was not possible to determine if victims sought dismissals under coercion or threats made by their abuser. Future work should attempt to consider the role of these factors in connection with how victims frame their experience and apply for a dismissal of their order.

The language in dismissal requests may not be a true reflection of victims’ feelings or motives. Victims may seek to dismiss their temporary orders due to coercion or out of fear of retaliation. In theory, victims could use any number of rationalizations in their dismissal requests, such as financial concerns but victims may strategically emphasize that the abuser was a good parent, for example, based on a belief that these appeals to emotional attachment are well received by judges. Despite these limitations, narratives of love in dismissals provide coherent frameworks for interpreting histories of abuse.

Utilizing a mixed-methods approach captures how victims may draw on a romantic narrative to provide coherence to the disjuncture between their experience of abuse and their responses to it. In this study, victims who had experienced physical abuse were more likely to rationalize their dismissal request by using romantic scripts that emphasized emotional attachment as well as change, whether potential or actual, in their abusers.

Victims could employ emotional attachment rationalizations because they really love and miss the abuser, because they believe that rationalizations of love and relationships will be the most persuasive to the judge, or because the emotional and physical abuse they have experienced has made them more susceptible to adapting to the abuser’s perspective. Victims may select from a repertoire of meanings of romantic love to justify their decisions, but structural factors shape which meanings are most appropriate (Swidler, 2013). This research highlights how victims’ narratives of returning to abusive relationships or dismissing temporary protection orders need to be studied in conjunction with their experiences of abuse to better understand that leaving an abusive relationship is a complex and ongoing process shaped by both structural barriers and the interpersonal dynamics of relationships. It also demonstrates that civil protection orders have the capacity to provide a rich dataset of victim narratives of their lived experiences of IPV.

Researching the connections between IPV and scripts of romantic love is critical to crafting appropriate interventions in abusive situations. At a basic level, an emotional attachment narrative can obscure violence within a couple’s relationship and eventually become a barrier to victims leaving abusive relationships. Previous scholarship has highlighted how descriptions of romantic love can be used to make IPV acceptable by recasting abusive or controlling behavior as signs of intimacy or as amorous expression (Lelaurain et al., 2018; Pyles et al., 2012).

Understanding the pattern of victims’ lived experience through the justice system presents a critical examination of human behavior, but it is also crucial because the answers have implications for broader questions of justice, legal process, and social policy. Although grounded in victims’ experiences, dismissal explanations in protection order cases may affect the attitudes of judges and attorneys. In turn, this could create a bias against victims when they reapply for protection orders, even if victims’ case filings mark an attempt to separate from their current abusive partner for their own safety. Culturally, there is the perception that IPV victims are at least partially responsible for the abuse if they remain with an abusive partner or that if they wanted to escape the relationship they could (Carlson & Worden, 2005; Policastro & Payne, 2013). Previous scholarship has found that volunteers and victim advocates who work with IPV victims themselves may rely on an institutional discourse that blames the victim (Thapar-Bjorkert & Morgan, 2010) or overemphasizes a victim’s choice, and thereby diminishes the constraints they face (Dunn & Powell-Williams, 2007).

These (mis)perceptions stress the potential value in training court officials to fully understanding the long-lasting process of permanently ending abusive relationships. If a judge sees petitions from the same victim over months or years, they may struggle to understand victims’ reasons for remaining in abusive relationships and turn a blind eye to the structural and interpersonal dynamics that victims face. Judges’ may become skeptical of victims’ narratives if victims dismiss their previous protection order after articulating concern for their safety. Special training can ensure that legal actors comprehend complexities of safely exiting abusive relationships, especially when the victim and abuser have minor children together. Future work should examine ways to ensure that judges and attorneys perceive permanently separating from an abusive partner as a long and stage-based process, rather than a single act of filing a single protection order petition.

Conclusion

In this study, petitions for protection orders often described episodes of fear and violence but when seeking to dismiss their temporary protection order, victims emphasized a story of love and happily ever after. Victims emphasized that if they tried hard enough, they could help their abusers change, or that if they loved them, they could save them. This romantic narrative can obscure abusive behavior by minimizing abusers’ violence or threat and instead focus on the hope that love provides. This narrative may also potentially hurt victims who re-enter the justice system when reapplying for protection orders. A romantic love narrative goes against institutional logic of the court that expects victims’ fear to remain static. But the difference between the language in victims’ petitions and their dismissal requests reflects the cyclical nature of abuse: victims voiced fear and violence in their petitions for protection orders, then employed meanings of romantic love, reconciliation, and change when requesting that these temporary protection orders be dropped. The current findings expand our knowledge on victims’ decisions to dismiss their temporary protection order by using a mixed methodological strategy. Understanding the relationship between victims’ emotional attachment and their experiences of physical abuse carry meaningful implications for how the justice system can best serve victims at each stage of the separation process.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Tim Hallett, Ethan Michelson, Fabio Rojas, Jeannine Bell, and Peggy Thoits for their assistance in developing this project. Special acknowledgement is also owed to the Journal of Interpersonal Violence staff and reviewers, whose thoughtful commentary greatly improved the quality and clarity of the article. In addition, the author would like to thank Dan Johnston for his support and feedback.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Indiana University Bloomington.

ORCID iD

Anne Groggel

Author Biographie

Anne Groggel, PhD, is an assistant professor of Sociology at North Central College and a visiting Research Fellow at the Australian National University. Her work examines the gendered dynamics of intimate partner violence, sexual consent, judicial decision-making, emotional labor, and role-taking.

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