In this deeply personal episode, I open up about a painful but necessary truth: how the choices I made in love and survival contributed to the trauma my children now carry as adults. As a Black mother, I sit in accountability—not shame—as I reflect on staying in an abusive relationship far too long with a man ten years my senior, who already had children, a known history of violence, and a family that protected him instead of his victims.

For over a decade, I endured physical, emotional, and verbal abuse at the hands of my ex-husband, while raising our three children in the chaos of a household marked by fear and dysfunction. His family—especially the women—chose denial and vengeance over empathy and truth, enabling his behavior and isolating me further. But I found the strength to leave, to start over, and to relocate to North Carolina with my children, determined to give them peace.

Yet, the trauma didn’t disappear—it followed us. I vowed my sons would never be like him, but the wounds of their childhood have shown up in ways I couldn’t predict: anger, violence, and pain turned inward and outward. In this conversation, I don’t point fingers. I take ownership. I talk about the complexity of being both a survivor and a mother, and how I’m committed to healing—not just for me, but for the generational cycles I’m working to break.

This episode is for anyone who’s lived through domestic violence, who’s raising children in the aftermath of trauma, or who’s ready to have the hard conversations we too often avoid in our communities. It’s about truth, healing, and the power of finally saying: it stops with me.

#BlackMothersSpeak #BreakingCycles #DomesticViolenceSurvivor #GenerationalHealing #AccountabilityAndHealing #MotherhoodUnfiltered #BlackFamilyHealingOriginally recorded September 11, 2022