The negative impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on individuals’ relationship satisfaction along with psychological and physical well-being has been well documented. The present study examined how individuals experience and assess their relationship satisfaction when there has been a history of abusive behaviours by qualitatively exploring three questions: 1) how do women assess their relationship satisfaction when there has previously been violence in the relationship; 2) how do men assess their relationship satisfaction when there has previously been violence in the relationship; and 3) do women and men differ in the way they assess their relationship satisfaction. The study sample included five heterosexual couples. Based on the CTS-2, which was used as a descriptive measure of abusive behaviours, women and men reported differing types and frequency of abusive behaviours. Individual interviews with the women and men from these couples were completed using an interpretive phenomenological analysis framework (IPA; Smith & Osborn, 2003). Key emerging themes for the women were the importance of framing the beginning of the relationship as idyllic and the roles that agency and powerlessness played in their experience of their relationships in the face of abusive behaviours. For the men, their self-definitions along with minimization and lack of responsibility taking for their own abusive behaviours emerged as important in understanding their experience of relationship satisfaction. At the level of the couple, shared perceptions in factors precipitating and maintaining the conflict, and shared perceptions about growth and hope emerged as important to understanding relationship satisfaction. Differences in the impact of abusive behaviours were also found; themes relating to the negative impact of abusive behaviours were more salient in the narratives of the women compared to the men. The implications of the findings for clinical work with individuals and couples who have experienced abuse in their relationships are discussed.