“So,” I said, “what do you think? Are you going to keep seeing him?” I was having coffee with a work colleague, a woman who had re-entered the dating scene after a painful breakup. She’d been excited about one guy in particular, and the night before they’d gone on another date.

She made a face. “I don’t think so.” She paused, and then shook her head. “No, definitely not. Just… no.”

“What happened?” I said. “I thought you liked him. You said there was a good connection, great chemistry.”

“He has too much baggage, you know what I mean?”

Not really, I thought. This was well before I became a therapist, so I pressed on. “What do you mean?”

“You know. Ex-wife. Kids. That kind of stuff. He talked about it last night and he said he feels guilty, and then he got, like, super emotional.” She shuddered. “No way, I don’t need that kind of drama in my life.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yeah, I just want someone who has no baggage whatsoever. Zilch. Nada. No angry exes, no messed-up childhood, no wounds to heal, no stuff to process. I want a guy who’s got their act together, someone who checks off all the boxes.”

A few months later I moved on to another job, but I still thought of her once in a while. The older I got and the more I experienced my own relationships, the more I doubted she would ever find her unicorn of a person. Not because she had nothing to offer, but because I soon found out that no person is baggage-free.

And that perhaps it’s not a terrible thing.

What is baggage, anyway?

There you are, fresh out of your mother’s womb and reliant on adults for survival. In your hands is a metaphorical suitcase, but you’re too small to carry or pack it, so the people caring for you start to fill it with everything they think you’re going to need. They pack the beliefs that have always worked for them, and the values they consider most important. They throw in whatever religious views they believe to be the gold standard, and tools you’ll need to survive.

Your caregivers aren’t the only ones who throw stuff in there. Teachers, external family members, neighbors, coaches; pretty much anyone with enough influence and consistency in your life can shove something in there when you’re not looking, with or without your permission.

As you get older, you too start packing a few things: feelings of joy, safety, and comfort, happy experiences you want to keep. You pack things you see on a daily basis, like how adults interact with each other. They might be caring and loving, or emotionally co-dependent and/or abusive. You watch how they treat other people: whether they lie or tell the truth, how they gossip or use certain words to describe groups of people who are different. Whatever the behavior, you pack it because you assume it’s normal, especially if nobody’s talking to you about this kind of stuff.

 

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You pack heavy emotions like hurt, fear, and sadness caused by harsh words, physical and/or emotional abuse, parental neglect, or unstable environments. This is because each time you try to show these emotions, adults tell you it’s not OK to display them for all the world to see, so they’re shoved in your suitcase time and again.

You arrive in adolescence, and this is where it gets complicated because you’re done letting other people pack for you. You start examining the things that have been packed, challenging their utility. You butt heads with the adults in your life, because you don’t agree with some of the stuff they’ve packed.

You try to make space for your own things, but it’s hard because your emotions are taking up a lot of space. You can’t figure out which choices are right, which beliefs are yours, and which identity feels true, but still you manage to squeeze in some stuff.

You get older and enter adulthood, and now you’ve got a map that was handed to you by the same adults who packed your bag, and this map has clear directions to the destination they believe is the best one for you: college, career, marriage, kids, or all of the above. You may not agree with where you’re going, but you proceed anyway because that’s where everyone else seems to be headed.

All the contents inside your suitcase inform how you travel down your own path; how you approach your job, how you problem-solve, how you make friends and keep them, how you speak to strangers. They influence how you view people who are different from you, how and why you make certain decisions, and they especially impact how you show up in a relationship.

Baggage in a relationship

“I always expose all of my vulnerabilities, weakness, and fears on the first date,” said no one, ever. We approach first dates with the idea that we need to show the best version of ourselves. On the first few dates, we are easy-going, flexible, loving, kind, and compassionate. We are epic humans with absolutely no baggage or anything to hide.

But let’s be honest. Most of us hide those parts of ourselves we think are unattractive because, like my co-worker, we’ve been taught to believe that someone with baggage is not an ideal partner. But hiding can only take us so far. Eventually, we get comfortable with the other person and the contents of our baggage make themselves known. What we don’t realize is that what we all carry has purpose and value, and that how we manage it can make all the difference in our relationships.

Below are just a few ways that baggage shows up in a relationship, and how it can help you learn and grow:

You don’t think you have baggage. After having been single for a long time, you get into a relationship. After months of yoga, juicing, and meditation, you’re convinced nothing will rattle your sense of peace. Inevitably, they do or say something that triggers something in you: anger, frustration, or even anxiety. You were at peace when you were single, so you assume it’s their fault.

Conflict exposes the contents of what we carry, and we can easily blame the other person if we don’t consider our own stuff. If you’re triggered by what they said or did, know that this is an opportunity for you to learn something about yourself, for you to unpack something buried in your own suitcase.

You’ve unpacked, but they haven’t. Let’s say you’ve decided to unpack all kinds of stuff, whether in therapy or on your own, and you’ve experienced the benefits of doing so. You understand what gets triggered and why, and you assume your partner will want to do the same because it will help your relationship.

But that’s a dangerous assumption to make because why and when people choose to unpack their stuff is unique to their circumstances. Sometimes they have to hit rock bottom, or lose a loved one, or experience a significant life event like an illness that forces them to turn inward, none of which you can control.

But dating someone who has unpacked baggage doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship. Far from it. You may not be able to force them into it, but you can offer them the space to unpack it at their own pace and the calm environment you create by being aware of your own triggers and refraining from engaging in conflict.

You try to carry their baggage. You consider yourself to be an empath, and you hate to see your partner suffering, so you commit to doing things to lighten their load. You adjust your lifestyle and behavior to make their journey easier. You say yes when you should say no, you agree to do things you don’t want to, and you put their needs first because you’ve seen their baggage burst wide open and it’s kind of scary.

But nothing changes, and you end up feeling angry and resentful, both of which cause what you’re trying to avoid: conflict. Even worse, you’ve realized you’ve been in the same relational pattern over and over, and you wonder what you’re doing wrong that it always ends in feelings of defeat and failure.

It’s not about you doing anything wrong, it’s about what may be packed in your own suitcase that consistently leads you down the same path. Think about from whom or where you picked up this relational pattern. Doing this may help you feel compassion for yourself, rather than shame and failure. It can also help you make space for a new way of being in a relationship.

The journey forward

Claiming and appreciating baggage is a process that begins with awareness, with the idea that people don’t do things to us; they do things, period, and the contents of our baggage then trigger a reaction or a response.

Unpacking doesn’t happen overnight, and it requires patience, courage, and grace. Whether you do this with a therapist or on your own, know that you may discover a lot of emotions, and maybe that’s OK because you’re tired of feeling weighed down.

This process is important, because when you understand better all the ways in which your baggage has impacted your journey, you can decide what to throw away and what to keep, giving you agency over how you want to move forward.

Most importantly, a lighter load eases suffering, and when you stop suffering, you stop perpetuating suffering in others, and who doesn’t want that?

I certainly do. Do you?