Every month I get dozens of letters for Feminist Advice Friday that follow the exact same pattern:

The woman outlines an emotionally abusive relationship. She’s doing all or most of the parenting and household labor. Her partner treats her like garbage. She’s getting nothing from the relationship. And she wants to know if she’s crazy for wanting to leave and demanding better.

These women already follow me. They know my work and presumably agree with it. But they think they may be the exception to the rule that women don’t deserve bad treatment, that a relationship that’s not a partnership is not one worth having.

What these women are basically telling me is this: “I know this treatment is unacceptable when it’s directed at other women. But maybe I deserve it, don’t you think?”

Listen. It doesn’t matter if you nag, or you don’t ask for your needs, or if you criticize too much, or you’re selfish or controlling or have standards that are too high (and in reality, probably none of these things are true of you anyway). No one deserves to be treated like a servant in their own home. No one deserves abuse and mistreatment. Everyone—every last human being on this planet—deserves emotional support and compassion, especially from the person who claims to love them. If your partner is systematically denying you these things, he doesn’t love you.

Every shitty man wants his partner to think she’s the exception to the rule, and that she is so uniquely awful she deserves the treatment he dishes out. Every woman needs to recognize that they are all using the exact same playbook.

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