Baissez, I'm sorry you're feeling like you're getting a raw deal, but it's true that this goes two ways--that women and men both can give others the shaft. It ain't a one-way street and it's important to me that we don't do man-bashing here just like we don't do women-bashing, either.

The last thing in the world that women or men alike often want to hear who're hooking up with partners who treat them badly--and it's the first question anyone who works with spouses/partners for whom this is a chronic, oingoing problem is compelled to ask, too--is "Who's making the choices to hook up with these folks?"

Sorry, I've worked for too many years in a crisis center not to know that's a dysfunctional tango that takes one person on one end to treat the other badly and, before that, a person who makes the choice to hook up with someone who'll treat him/her badly in the first place. When you can start looking at the initial choices you yourself make in that dance, that's when you'll be at the first step of being able to change the way that plays out in future relationships.