Generational Curses

I find myself asking this question often:

Are we destined to repeat the generations that came before us, or can we choose something different?

Perhaps that question lives so close to my heart because I did not come from a healthy family system. There was love in many places, but there was also dysfunction, addiction, abuse, secrecy, mistrust, and generations of wounds that were never fully healed. Those experiences shape us whether we want them to or not, and I think many of us spend our adult lives trying to determine which parts of our upbringing we want to carry forward and which parts we desperately hope will end with us.

I have often looked back at my family tree and wondered where it all began.

Both of my grandfathers were described to me as abusive men. One died before I was born, and the other died estranged from nearly all of his children. My maternal grandmother was largely separated from the family, yet she would secretly call us. Those phone calls became normal to us, so normal that we never stopped to question what they represented.

Looking back now, I realize they were part of a much larger pattern.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“Keep this quiet.”

“Don’t let them know.”

Secrecy was normal. Mistrust was normal. Divided relationships were normal. Honest conversations, healthy conflict resolution, accountability, and genuine reconciliation were not. The family system often seemed to operate through whispered conversations, fractured relationships, and unspoken alliances rather than openness and trust.

My biological father was an abusive alcoholic and drug addict. The things my mother, my siblings, and I experienced were unacceptable. Those experiences left scars that took years to understand and even longer to begin healing. While time may soften some wounds, it does not automatically teach us healthier ways of relating to one another.

As I grew older, I began noticing something unsettling. The faces changed. The names changed. The circumstances changed. Yet many of the same unhealthy patterns continued showing up in different forms.

Secrets.

Division.

Manipulation.

Triangulation.

Pitting one relationship against another.

Using children as messengers.

Using loyalty as a weapon.

Avoiding accountability.

Protecting dysfunction instead of confronting it.

Over time, I realized that unhealthy people often set the emotional tone for entire families. Their behaviors become the weather everyone else learns to navigate. Children adapt. Siblings adapt. Spouses adapt. Entire family systems adapt. Eventually, nobody remembers what healthy feels like because survival has become the norm and dysfunction becomes so familiar that it is mistaken for love, loyalty, or family obligation.

For a long time, I did not break those patterns either.

My first marriage was abusive. There was manipulation, mistrust, division, and dynamics that mirrored things I had witnessed growing up, even though I swore I would never repeat them. That is one of the cruel realities of generational trauma. We often recreate what feels familiar long before we understand why we are doing it. We find ourselves standing in situations we once promised we would never tolerate, wondering how we arrived there.

Some lessons are learned intellectually.

Others are learned through heartbreak.

Today, when I look at my life, I can see both my failures and my victories. I did not get everything right. I made mistakes. I tolerated things I should not have tolerated. I stayed in situations longer than I should have. I trusted people who did not deserve that trust. I missed warning signs. I carried wounds that affected my choices in ways I did not fully understand at the time.

Yet somewhere along the way, I became determined to do things differently.

One of the most important decisions I ever made was choosing honesty over secrecy. Even when I feared judgment. Even when the truth was messy. Even when it was embarrassing. Even when it would have been easier to stay silent.

I chose transparency in my marriage.

I told my husband everything.

The uncomfortable parts.

The painful parts.

The ugly parts.

The things many families spend decades pretending never happened.

Not because we enjoy reliving difficult things, but because secrets lose power when they are brought into the light. What remains hidden often grows stronger. What is acknowledged honestly can finally begin to heal.

Today, in our home, we talk. We communicate. We work through disagreements. We have difficult conversations. We apologize when we are wrong. We tell the truth, even when it is uncomfortable. Most importantly, we do those things with love, respect, and emotional safety.

Our adult son, who turns twenty this week, knows he can talk to us about difficult things. He knows he does not have to hide mistakes. He knows he does not have to perform perfection to earn love or belonging. He knows that honesty is safe here.

That matters.

Because I have come to believe that generational curses are rarely broken through grand gestures or life-changing revelations. More often, they are broken through thousands of small decisions repeated consistently over time.

They are broken when we choose honesty instead of secrecy.

When we choose accountability instead of excuses.

When we choose healthy boundaries instead of guilt.

When we choose healing instead of denial.

When we stop demanding loyalty to dysfunction.

When we stop asking children to carry burdens that belong to parents.

When we learn that love and truth can exist in the same room.

The reality is that not every relationship survives that process. That has been one of the hardest lessons for me to learn. Sometimes the people who are most comfortable with the old patterns struggle when someone begins changing them. Sometimes healing creates distance before it creates peace. Sometimes breaking cycles comes with losses that feel impossible to understand, and there is real grief in acknowledging that.

That part is heartbreaking.

Yet I still believe the work is worth it.

I believe it is worth it because every healthy choice changes the future. Every boundary changes the future. Every honest conversation changes the future. Every apology changes the future. Every act of accountability changes the future. Every child who grows up in emotional safety changes the future. Every family member who creates emotional stability changes the future.

None of those things seem particularly dramatic in the moment, yet together they become the foundation of an entirely different legacy.

If you come from a family where dysfunction has existed for generations, I want you to hear this:

You are not responsible for the wounds you inherited.

You are responsible for what you choose to do with them.

You do not have to repeat what was modeled for you. You do not have to normalize what hurt you. You do not have to carry every burden that was handed to you. You do not have to become the next chapter of someone else’s unresolved pain.

Your story can be different.

Your children’s story can be different.

Your grandchildren’s story can be different.

The mantra I come back to again and again is simple:

Awareness.

Accountability.

Healing.

Repeat.

Awareness.

Accountability.

Healing.

Repeat.

One obstacle at a time.

One conversation at a time.

One boundary at a time.

One act of courage at a time.

That is how cycles begin to break.

That is how legacies begin to change.

That is how healing begins.

The past may explain us.

It does not get to define us.

S. Cooley #FeralNotes