The subjects included 48 female undergraduates who were victims of relationship violence and 74 female nonvictims. The results showed that the victims of violent relationships did not, in general, experience higher levels of distress than nonvictims. While victims increased their use of problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies when experiencing distress, their appraisals of control over the violence did not influence their choice of coping strategies. Victims were likely to cope with nonviolent, negative relationship events in much the same way as they coped with violent relationship events, while nonvictims were more likely to appraise a stressful relationship event as controllable and increase their use of emotion-focused coping strategies. 4 tables, 1 note, and 32 references