There's some verbal chicanery going on here. "Intimate partners" includes not just husbands but boyfriends and those involved in less-formal relationships. The term "intimate partners" is deliberately designed to obscure an important fact: the vast majority of women murdered by "intimate partners" are not murdered by husbands, but by partners in less-formal relationships.
Boyfriends are a much bigger threat than husbands.
In any case, careful selection of "partners" is important.