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.