This paper describes a study concerning the experience of women being abandoned by their husbands. It aimed at understanding how women from Tianguá-CE-Brazil experienced the breaking up of a relationship, by describing the factors recognized as agents responsible for the breaking up. Based on experiences lived in Tianguá, the hypothesis raised was that those women had experienced the breaking up as a stigmatized experience of destruction of their personal lives. The critical phenomenological methodology, based on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, was used to carry out semi-structured interviews with 15 women, from 25 to 35 years old, who had lived with their partners for at least 2 years and had had children with them. The results have confirmed the hypothesis raised: the women, subjects of the investigation, felt stigmatized with the breakup, thus finding in their bodies a support to express their emotions and pain, besides recognizing themselves as incompetent and discriminated by the local patriarchal culture.
breakup; stigma; Phenomenology