This is interesting that you said this " Maybe it is among those of us who have been abused in childhood and marry men that carry on old family dynamics". A therapist somewhere said "that we subconsciously gravitate to that which is familiar"... I don't know if this is true, but it does make sense....

In my case, my second marriage, I married both my mother and my father. My father, what I can remember, was very passive.. My mother is controlling and abusive.... And my husband, was both passive and abusive. I think his abusive ways were more cultural, as he is from Iran. Either way, he was very controlling and abusive. He made the decisions from the food we ate to the furniture in our house. I was so torn down that I was ashamed to leave the house, for fear that people would see how worthless and stuipd I was... Anway I do believe self-esteem has a lot to do with how much we give of ourselves in relationships. Most women who are strong would not tolerate one minute what I tolerated for l2 years. I may not have had the greatest self-esteem when I married, but when I left the marriage, I had no self-esteem, whatsoever.

Dang, I lost my train of thought and I had a lot to say. Maybe it will come back to me later...