Happily Never after: Young Women's Stories of Abuse in Heterosexual Love Relationships

Abstract

Although repeated exposure to narratives of romance in popular culture from an early age may lead young women to expect idealized romance in their heterosexual love relationships, a good number encounter abusive experiences. This article draws on young women's stories of abuse in heterosexual love relationships gathered from interviews with 23 young women aged 16-18 years. These stories are examined using a feminist, poststructuralist form of narrative analysis to explore the extent to which young women draw on cultural narratives of romance or alternative narratives and to explore how self and boyfriends are positioned within these narratives. Although at one level romance seemed to be a trap that prevented young women from abandoning an abusive boyfriend, at another it was a resource that they used in an active way to make sense of what had happened. Ways in which this work might usefully inform prevention, education and counselling are discussed.