Subjects were volunteers recruited through newspaper advertisements, posters, speeches, and radio and television appearances. All had been violence-free for at least a year. Information was collected on six battering incidents, including the first, second, third, worst, and last. Battered wives most often approached members of their own families for help, usually mothers or sisters, and commonly received material help or direct services. The subjects rated this help fairly successful in 77 percent of the incidents. Although in-laws were less likely to be used as a help source than the wife's own family, they could be very effective because of their intimate knowledge of the husband's personality. Neighbors were the least commonly used informal source of help. Friends were the second most common source and steadily became more important as battering incidents escalated. Only 10 percent of the victims used shelter services after the first incident, but this rose to 29 percent in the last battering incident. a wife's relatives were the most common source of shelter services at 56 percent, followed by friends and neighbors at 23 percent, and women's resource centers at 5 percent. Shelter services had the least positive short-term effect on the husbands, but the highest long-term success ratings in ending wife beating. Informal help sources helped these women improve their self-image and ultimately catalyzed their personal development to the point where the women enlisted formal aid to alter the power balance in their marriages. Tables, suggestions for future research, and 26 references are supplied.