Your man will have his own story.
My own story was in 1957. My mother kept a chart in the bottom drawer in the kitchen, with a row for each of the household chores listed and a column for each date. She marked on the chart her allocation of the chores to her children.
This day my task was to sweep the concrete paths. The paths seemed very long to me, a 9 year old boy. Sweeping the porous concrete with a straw broom was physically challenging.
I thought the path looked ok as it was, however my mother was not satisfied and she wanted it swept properly.
I was taking too long to sweep the path so she came out to reprimand me. I noticed that a swagman was walking along the road at the front of the property as I was not giving my full attention to her long lecture. She noticed the swagman too and she said “You wouldn’t like to be like him, would you?”
I thought for a moment about how the swagman was free to go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted and didn’t have to sweep any concrete paths, and I answered “Actually I would”.
My mother was furious. She commanded “Walk over to the pole!” I walked across the front lawn to the power pole and she followed. She said “Lean over!” I leaned over and held on to the top of the tap. She then picked up the end of the garden hose and hit me on my bottom 3 times, and she walked off.
I started to feel the pain, fell down on the ground and cried.
I had learned to never say what I really thought.
28 years later a woman chose to live with me. I had not unlearned that lesson. It was frustrating, painful and lonely of her for more than 20 years. Our daughter suffered, missing out on having a harmonious loving home environment to grow up in.
It was not until after my daughter had left home and I had separated from my partner that I eventually healed from that childhood incident.
Our past can affect future generations if we don’t heal before it is too late.