<p>This paper investigates how domestic violence, fertility aspirations, and women’s bargaining power shape marital stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Using pooled DHS data (2007, 2013/2014, and 2023/2024) and a recursive bivariate probit model, the analysis addresses the endogeneity between domestic violence and union dissolution. Results reveal an equilibrium of endurance under constraint: domestic violence sharply increases separation, whereas fertility aspirations and bargaining power exert stabilizing, yet distinct, effects. Women with high fertility ideals are less likely to exit unions, suggesting that reproductive goals act as normative anchors that discourage dissolution even in violent settings. Bargaining power, unexpectedly, protects unions in non-violent contexts but loses its stabilizing force when conflict escalates, a “conditional fragility” in which empowerment cannot counter coercive control. Interactions show that autonomy weakens the binding role of fertility ideals: for women with higher decision-making authority, these aspirations no longer dictate marital continuity. Subsample analyses reveal spatial contrasts. In rural areas, bargaining power and pronatalist norms reinforce “negotiated endurance”, sustaining unions despite adversity, while in urban contexts, empowerment supports “autonomous resilience”: it is associated with lower exposure to violence and greater union instability under violent conditions, reflecting a lower tolerance for harmful relationships but also the possibility of male-initiated dissolution. Findings underscore that public interventions must address both violence and the reproductive and structural constraints that bind women within harmful unions.</p>