Table 5.

Theme 2: Emotional regulation coping.

Findings	Categories	Theme
Love women feel for the abuser [U]	Love	Emotional regulation coping
Abuser displays caring and loving behavior [U]
Maintain the romantic fairy-tale ideal (love) [C]
Love influences a woman's commitment to remain in a relationship, albeit an abusive one [U]
The victim blames herself that she is responsible for the abuse [C]	Self-blame
She deserves to be treated in that way [C]
The women tended to blame themselves for their partner's violence, and accepted their partner's blaming of them [U]
Place blame of experiencing IPV on themselves (self-blame) [C]
They had hope and identified that as a coping mechanism [U]	Hope
Hope that relationship will return to a better time [C]
Participants believed that their partners could change [U]
Women retaliates and is prepared to fight [U]	Anger/Fight
Fighting back [U]
Anger at the abuse [U]
Victim accepts there is nothing she can do about the abuse [C]	Acceptance
Enduring the relationship [C]

U, Unequivocal; C, Credible.