Gals, can we get serious for a minute?

I'm starting to worry that there is not enough love in this world right now to save the women of R&B music. First, Whitney gets consumed by her troubled past. Now Rihanna is working alongside her ex-boyfriend and abuser. What is it with these strong, beautiful, talented women making such terrible choices?

My heart sank last night when I heard the news that Rihanna and Chris Brown were working together again on their latest singles. In a series of supportive, mutually promotional tweets, @rihanna and @chrisbrown revealed their latest remixes would be featuring one another's vocals.

No one is doubting the abilities of either party, and it's most likely —despite the controversy, or perhaps due to it — that we'll hear both tracks (cleaned up, of course) at dance clubs and on the radio this summer. What's even more disturbing, however, is hearing their voices in tandem again, knowing their history.

Rihanna's track "Birthday Cake (remix)" is a series of thinly veiled sexual innuendos. Brown's contribution to the track includes the line "Girl, I wanna f--k you right now/It's a been a long time and I'm missing your body."

Not exactly the public apology anybody hoped to hear from Brown before accepting him within restraining order distance to her.

But we would be fools to expect anything different from Brown. His Twitter reactions to all the criticism following this year's Grammys proved that Brown is still coping with his anger issues. Which shows that he is definitely not prepared for a legitimate do-over with the woman he publicly humiliated back in 2009... the night before the Grammy Awards.

It's easy and right to be upset with Brown, but the messy part of this equation arrives in the form of Rihanna's acceptance of this man back into her life. We've watched this scene unfold in countless tabloids and movies with damaged, vulnerable celebrities, and too many of us have watched loved ones go through the same painful process.

Domestic violence experts are watching this situation unfold with a very close eye because of the impact it could have on the countless impressionable minds of Rihanna's and Chris's fans. Ellyn Loy, the director of clinical services at the House of Ruth in Maryland, told the New York Daily News: “Statistics show generally that half of women leave and half go back a number of times before they make a final decision about the relationship.”

Current perceptions of abuse have classified it generally as a wheel or a cycle, where "honeymoon" periods of serenity and happiness are slowly replaced with tension and eventual violence. There is a whole series of reasons why abused members of a relationship remain with their abusers, not the least of which is hope and true love.

Almost as if on cue, Rihanna's tweets from Monday include these two statements: "They can say whatever, Ima do whatever ... No pain is forever <-----YUP! YOU KNOW THIS" and "Music heals the world ... we need more!!!!"

When Rihanna's graphic album Rated R came out, I figured it might be a public figure's way of working through her raw emotion in the public manner she understands. But the charged sexuality and the outright aggression lingered in her song lyrics over the next two albums, including her popular radio pairings with similarly broken down celebs Britney Spears and Eminem. Sigh.

Unfortunately, celebrities like Rihanna and Whitney are only human like the rest of us. They're just living their lives according to what makes sense to them at the time. If we don't want to watch them self-destruct, we have the option of not idolizing them like we do.

And, of course, we can't forget that this might just be a publicity stunt above all else. Why Rihanna would want to risk alienating her concerned adult fans who have sympathized or at least empathized with her situation is beyond me. Regardless of the reason, she's got the music world talking again.

I agree with Loy, who hopes that at least this situation raises awareness of relationship violence and is likely to get teens talking. “Sometimes what it does is raise the consciousness around the issue," she says. "My hope would be that there’s a lot of schools and teen groups talking about what do you think this means, do you think this is a good thing, do you think it is a bad thing?”

I can't imagine who the folks are, beyond the two against the world, who might think this is a good idea. But in the meantime, here's to hoping we don't watch another brilliant, beautiful flame get snuffed out before her time.