I come from a family who has always experienced financial instability. My great-great-grandmother grew up in poverty. She then had my great-grandmother who grew up in poverty, and then she had my grandmother who grew up in poverty, and my grandmother had my mother and they also grew up in poverty. I have now joined a union, a lovely relationship where my partner is very free-flowing and financially, emotionally, and mentally healthy, but I struggle with a poor person's mindse

I noticed something scary. I made a resolution to fix my finances and relationships, but I realized I’m doing exactly what my mother did at my age. I feel like I’m stuck in a loop. How do I stop this ‘New Year, Same Struggle’ cycle so I don’t pass it to my kids. Am I Repeating My Mother's Patterns? — Breaking the Chain

I grew up in a single-parent household, watching my mother carry more weight than one person should. She worked tirelessly to provide for me and my baby brother, and because of that, I had to grow up fast. I never had that steady presence of a father to tell me I was enough, to affirm me, to model what love from a man should look like. Because of that, I went searching for it. I gave my love away too easily, thinking if I could just be enough for someone, they wouldn’t leave