I doubt that there is anyone on this earth that can claim to have no emotional baggage, but there’s baggage and there’s baggage.
When you’re a Fallback Girl, Mr (or Miss) Unavailable’s complicit partner, not only do you inadvertently love partners that scream ‘Help me!’ or ‘I’m really f*cked up!’, but you end up ‘loving’ these people putting their baggage ahead of you.
So, when he has a girlfriend, a wife, a gazillion kids, a babymother, an ex-girlfriend that he is still secretly or even openly pining for, something in your brain goes, ‘Ping!’ and you’re all over him like a rash.
When men put us down their list of priorities, it caters to that voice that follows millions of women with, ‘You’re not good enough’ and you then make it your vocation to get him to prove that you are good enough by moving you up the chain and throwing off some of his baggage.
The trouble with taking on men with baggage is that you go into overload mode because you are already carrying far too much baggage of your own.
However his baggage detracts from your baggage so you don’t have to look too closely at yourself, but baggage does attract baggage. It doesn’t have to be like for like but you have to have some issues of your own to be willing to take on a crash landing waiting to happen.
The modern dating world is a lot more complex than olden times. We rack up a lot more relationships before we settle down, there are a lot more single parents dating, plenty more divorcees, and things like online dating to complicate matters. It is great to have a lot of relationships. It’s not a bad thing to be a single parent. Some marriages do end, and while I personally don’t like online dating, it certainly has its place. But it is how we choose to handle our baggage that poses the issue.
Children are not baggage and you can’t change the fact that you are divorced or have had a messy breakup, but emotional baggage of the unresolved kind is highly unattractive and a surefire way to drag yourself down to a level that can be difficult to climb back from when your self-esteem is walking off down the street in his hand.
We seem to have been conditioned to believe that we can fix whatever baggage he comes with and it’s time to wake up and learn that we can’t fix everything and mold men and the relationship into what we want, especially when we haven’t got such healthy ideas about relationships ourselves.
Carrying an unhealthy amount of baggage is a diversionary tactic. It’s clear we are already carrying our own baggage and that is an issue in itself, but our willingness to load up on other people’s baggage is about distracting ourselves from our own issues.
It’s a bit of a ‘His baggage is bigger than mine’ scenario. It’s easy to think that you don’t have issues when you’re comparing, but the combination of the types of baggage that we carry can end up being quite explosive and every time we end a relationship with these overloaded Mr Unavailables, they leave the gift of some luggage behind for you.
Baggage is meant to be unpacked, dealt with, put away or given away (resolved). It is not meant to sit there like the white elephant in the room cluttering up your relationship, and from the moment that it becomes an obstacle to your personal happiness or your relationship, you’ve got more than baggage. You’ve got problems.”
In the meantime, I want to know what your thoughts on excess baggage are and how much baggage you have been prepared to take on.
Your thoughts?
In part two, I am going to show you just how bad baggage can be and give you a way to find out how much baggage you are carrying…
If you want to find out more about why we make some our relationship choices and get to understand Mr Unavailables, you should be reading my book, Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. Find out more and buy and download.
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OK after reading this article I realise that my emotional plane must be getting ready to crash! My guy is separated, has kids, and also has a babymama, plus he says he is still dealing with issues from his childhood! Why am I with him? I don’t know the answer!
NML,
this is eerie…this is just the stage i’m at with the break from my EUM. it’s been 18 days NC and i feel awful. peaceful, but awful.
i’m trying to use this indefinite time of NC to really assess why i was after him for the past year…why i believed him when he said he wanted to give it a go, but was still “not able to be in a relationship”. he claims to have had his heart broken one too many times; to be honest, i can see alot of myself in your post. trying to be the “good” person, the good girl that sticks around throughout it all. after a year of him not being able to commit and not being over his ex, i finally had to walk away. it’s difficult because my inclination is to ‘help’ (or should i say ‘enable’?). i’m in nursing school right now, so i guess you could say i’m drawn to the broken, the wounded and those in need of TLC. but i claimed his emotional cargo and buried mine beneath.
i had had enough and yet, not enough. i’m going through withdrawal symptoms of not talking to him, wondering how i can heal him, and bearing the burden of figuring it all out for the both us. so i’m going to use the NC rule as a gift to myself to figure out why *i’m* drawn to such drama and pain in my life.
Dear NML
After dealing with baggage my ex threw at me which was more than what was circulates in Heathrow (its good I can laugh about this now) you are right, I kindda forgot all about me, why we got together for, what my plans were. I was totally in Figure Out Mode and Let’s Fix Him Mode for like 20 months.
I mean do we even sit and think about OUR issues, get to the bottom of them and get out them clean and ready to give our best. I know I did not.
I have taken time off to ready face things, some I can never solve and that is ok, its time to put them away, some, the changes start with me and some we need to look it in the eye and challenge it. I think I am getting there.
You said it very well when you said we Sleepwalk our way thru relationships but some Sleepwalk throuh life and we get numb so how are we gonna recognize baggage be that ours or someone else’s.
Maya Angelou said
“You did better when you knew better”
Dear Terry
Don’t freak out, its perfectly normal what you are going throug. Trust me we’ve been there before but hang in coz take it from me – It Does Get Better with each passing day. If you are serious about getting right, facing and solving problems making contact is not the way to go, it puts you back on square one. You want better ?
Bite that darn bullet and WANT BETTER.
The ladies here have been through the wringer, me more than once. Get on this blog, write here, read, talk to NML but hang in there.
Hard but it workds
Sindh’s right. I think the hardest part is getting real with yourself about who this guy really is. Implementing a NCR can be rough too, but with almost every day I feel better about my decision. (And more and more stunned that I stuck with him as long as I did). Keep it off and I promise it’ll pay off.
Hey Fake It Till I Make It
Don’t think you need to be fakin it much longer. I think we all healin and getting better in our own way. Its nice to see that what we write now sounds more positive about what we want, where we need to head instead of whinning 🙂
Just last night I heard someone say that baggage is like garbage…after awhile it begins to smell like sh*t. So, so true!
I’m obviously guilty of being attracted to fixer uppers. I always thought it was because I love helping people. I’m in a helping profession but have taken that a step further working with disadvantaged or at risk kids. I just thought it was because I was a helper at heart.
It’s nice to know my helping heart should NOT include helping assclowns with excess garbage…I mean baggage.
I backslided last night and made contact with my EUM after NC for 3 months. I had met a new guy yesterday afternoon who made me feel very uncomfortable and I called my EUM. I found out nothing has changed with him….he’d be more than happy to be with me on his terms again…I know he can never meet my needs and be the right guy for me, but I’m getting so frustrated with the dating scene and no one else seems to fit so well as my EUM…I hope there is hope for me! HELP!
Ladies thanks for your comments. I will respond to you all individually in the comments shortly x
Getting Stronger – I hear ya! I have many friends who have been out there dating and are totally frustrated! I’m afraid to even go there!
NML – man when you said “when men put us down their list of priorities it caters to that voice you’re not good enough then you try to prove you are by moving up the chain of his priorities”! Such an unconscious thing for me but so TRUE! Once again you hit the nail on the head! I am in hypnosis for that & today I’m feeling better. Trying to change the “not good enough mentality”. Being with an EUM can make it much worse especially if it was there to begin with! I thought after a failed marriage and 8 years of nothing but time to myself I had learned something but I didn’t until coming to this site. I owe you so much! 🙂
Kim – I am struggling also these days with the “mantra” I keep telling myself–which is that I am not good enough. It sucks because deep down I don’t believe that, but it’s hard to change the “self talk” from negative to positive. I sometimes even go as far as to tell myself that I don’t deserve the happiness that so many other people have in their lives, and I will never have a happy relationship with anyone. Where does this come from? After a 17 year marriage with an alcoholic EUM, being alone for 9 years and then another relationship with an alcoholic EUM–there has to be something better than this! As you can tell, I guess I’m having one of my “down” days….Please tell me it will get better!
Ladies
IT DOES GET BETTER – TRUST ME !!!
After 2 years with a guy who called me a B****
S*** and everything else. Never let me go anywhere, do anything, see anyone and who I thought I would die without, I am still alive and kicking. Its hard when we broke up I thought a few pills could end it, so I know DOWN DAYS and mine were waaaaaaayyyy down but I hung in there and now finally out dating again.
Was it easy ? Hell No but I learnt it is something that we bring out from our very core that makes us who we are. There is no point in rushing out there dating to attract another assclown and now I can see the sign Run from a mile away. We need to understand something, dating is not like what used to be, men and women say and do what they want but its down to us to keep our eyes out for what we need and the only way we are EVER gonna find it is to get RIGHT with us.
So I got a new haircut, am kicking ass in the gym, reading books and have started praying and I find it healing and I will be honest ladies, it sure feels good to feel good and like NML said there comes a day when you just don’t think about him anymore and now I know that happens but stop, breath, spend some time alone and just feel whatever it is you are feeling, its ok to feel like that but know that when you are hitting rock bottom, there is only way back.
UP !
Hang in there………
Terry, You ask, “Why am I with him?”
There can be many reasons. The first, big reason, is that you didn’t know any better. Whether you saw security, whether you believed you needed to be with someone, you didn’t understand that sometimes the guy just won’t work out for you.
When you understand that whether the guy is poison or is gold, he isn’t going to be good for you, you will be (almost!) ready to choose .. a new life. You will recognized that day when it arrives – you realize that you consider whether you need to wash clothes tonight, whether anything interesting is at the movies or on TV, whether you want a cat, or to feed your pet, etc. And you will realize that you haven’t thought about what you could do to adapt to the guy. That is, you not only let go an active effort to capture his interest and affection, you find there are more important things in your life today. Like getting the dishes washed.
Please don’t expect to find a new guy that will be great to replace the old guy. It doesn’t work that way. Give yourself time to heal – don’t worry if it takes a couple of years or months. Learn to live for yourself. Once you are secure and stable, you will be able to pick a decent guy – one that makes you happier than living alone. But you have to be happy and healed to have something worthwhile to compare to.
And you have to be past the point of wondering if you were good enough for him, whether there was something you could have done, or how much you hurt from his attention – or you are carrying too much baggage to be fair to the next guy. (You might not be feeling charitable about men in general right now, but you won’t find a guy that will be fair to you unless you are fair with him.)
Blessed be!
In the pickup realm (I prefer to call it social artistry BTW) we have this term we use when we come across a woman who doesn’t meet our standard for whatever reason…it’s “next!” If you find that you’ve got a douchebag or a EUM on your hands, next! him, ie ditch him and move on. As the the saying goes, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.
No one should have to deal with a partner that’s fucked up, and it’s certainly not your responsibility to fix someone. There are PLENTY of good guys and great woman out there.