The women were self-selected from an outreach support group linked to a shelter for battered women. All reported experiencing repeated interpersonal violence of a physical, psychological, or emotional nature. Data came from detailed interviews that were tape-recorded and transcribed. Results revealed that the violence often began as verbal abuse in the initial stages of the relationships. The women's decisions not to tell others generated feelings of complicity in the violence and rendered the men's actions invisible to outsiders. Maintaining invisibility was a face-saving strategy. The women's belief that no one would be able to help them led to the contradictory beliefs that only they could stop the violence and that they were powerless to stop it. Invisibility remained an interactive process. The women used both problemsolving and self-preservation strategies to contain the violence. When their efforts were unsuccessful, most looked to personal solutions to resolve what an essentially social problem. They did not examine the cultural expectations of the conventions of the relationships. The findings indicated the need to examine more fully how concepts of family, intimacy, home, marriage, and power contribute to violence against women in intimate environments. 50 references