WE'D been having the same conversation for years. "He undermines me," she'd say.

"He didn't buy me a birthday present because he says it's a commercial construct." Then: "When I ordered dessert, he asked if I really needed it."

Down the phone line, my heart crumpled. My funny, loyal, thoughtful friend - the girl who'd fling me the top off her back, "because you love it more" - was being messed around by a jerk. A surfing, "between jobs", dope-growing jerk called Richard (and, yes, he was a Dick).

So, what did I say?

a) "He'll change; give it time."

b) "Dump the idiot; you deserve better."

c) "Sorry to hear that; it must be hard."

Actually, none of the above - friends owe each other more than gentle therapy-speak. "Give him up for six months," I advised in an uncharacteristic moment of blinding clarity. "You know he'll be there if you want to go back, but it opens you up to other opportunities."

It's not a one-size-fits-all solution, but my friend was 37; she'd been with this man for four years and her dreams for a family were fading. She was in a 'roadblock relationship' - one which stymies your progress or causes you to veer so much off course, you forsake forever the path you had planned.

Roadblock relationships are at the heart of 'emotional infertility' - a condition which women say is every bit as painful as medical infertility. If we put X-rays of the emotionally infertile on a light box, we'd see the hairline fractures left by commitment-phobe partners, scar tissue from relationships lingered in too long and the emptiness so many keep hidden.

Brigid Moss from Red magazine, which recently coined the phrase, defines it as "being childless not by choice [but] due to not having a partner or a partner not wanting to have children. A doctor can't help with emotional infertility."

No, but we can help each other. While it's not possible to magic up an obliging partner exactly when you'd like to have a baby, it is possible to clear the roadblocks that often steal those crucial years.

We all know women - ourselves included - who gave three, four, sometimes 10 years to a doomed relationship. (And, yes, with dreary predictability, he often went on to match and hatch within months of you splitting up.)

"What was I thinking?" says a friend who devoted five years to a man so pathetic, he begged her to clear away the bird that flew into the front grill of his car. Another despairs of the years she spent with a bloke she hoped would "change his mind" about children.

I'm not blaming men. Biology has bequeathed them decades to fritter until they're ready. Women, not so much.

Which is why, with our mates in the passenger seat, we need to smash through the roadblocks. It's time we were as considered in our relationships as our careers. Yes, there are other factors - availability, luck, the piercing clarity of hindsight and maturity - but good fortune can't walk into a gap that isn't there.

So what happened to my friend? Five-and-a-half months into her Dick-ban, she saw an old friend through fresh eyes. He'd liked her for years but she'd been otherwise occupied. Earlier this year, I visited her. "Thanks for your advice," she said quietly, smiling as she pushed her son on the swing.

Catch Angela Mollard every Monday at 9.30am on Mornings, on the Nine Network. Email angelamollard@sundaymagazine.com.au. Follow her at www.twitter.com/angelamollard.