We Are the Cycle Breakers

How Our Shared Wounds Taught Us to Show Up Differently for Our Children

There’s a certain kind of pain that doesn’t announce itself loudly—it settles in quietly, over time. It shows up in the missed calls, the words left unsaid, the aching silence between people who were supposed to know how to love one another well.

My husband lost his father when he was just 11. But in many ways, he lost his mother too—emotionally, if not physically. Grief swallowed her whole, and though she remained, her presence faded. The connection he longed for never came back.

And while my story is different, it rhymes in all the painful places. I know what it’s like to feel forgotten by the people who were supposed to protect you. I know what it's like to internalize silence and to grow up wondering if emotional closeness will always feel just out of reach.

The difference now? We have each other. And more than that—we have a choice.

We chose to build something different.

Our home isn’t perfect, but it’s full of presence. We show up for each other. For our kids. For ourselves. Every bedtime story, every family dinner, every hard conversation—we see these not as obligations, but as sacred moments that shape the kind of love we wish we had known growing up.

I once wrote a letter to my mother-in-law. My heart was aching for the boy she raised, the man I love. I told her that she gave me an incredible gift in him. But I also told her what she was missing: the best parts of his life, the most healing, redemptive chapters. The way he parents, the way he loves, the way he tries—those are things she doesn't get to witness.

And that’s the tragedy of unhealed wounds—they keep love at a distance, even when it’s reaching out with open arms.

But my husband and I—we’re doing the work. Together, we’re raising children who won’t have to question if they are emotionally safe. Children who won’t wonder if they’re too much or not enough. Children who will grow up hearing “I’m proud of you” as often as they hear “I love you.”

We are the cycle breakers.

And I truly believe that what we’re building is beautiful.