She had asked for change more times than she could count. Pleaded, even. But nothing shifted. It wasn’t until her five-year-old son quietly pointed out that his dad yelled at her—but never at him or his little brother—that something inside her broke open.
In that moment, she saw it clearly: the patterns being set, the dynamics being normalized. Her sons were watching, learning, absorbing. And she realized that by staying in a relationship where respect was one-sided, she was unintentionally modeling a version of love she’d never want them to accept—or repeat.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried. It was that nothing changed. And now, it had to be her who changed the course. Because one day, her boys would become men. And she wanted them to know what care, empathy, and partnership were truly supposed to look like.