Whether you are in your first dating relationship or your tenth, we all have emotional baggage from our past, which affects our actions in our present relationships. Is there a mature dating method to deal with such baggage and have success in our relationships?
Some of our baggage is very hurtful; other baggage is not as bad and other baggage is neutral in the way it affects our current actions. Some people have more emotional baggage than others and this can cause conflicts in our relationships which hinders us at times from living in a mature dating way.
No matter where you are in your relationship, you need to be accepting of your past and the past of your partner. Before you even start to take a peek at the baggage that your partner is carrying, you need to look at the baggage you are dealing with first. If you’re a lifeguard and someone is pulling you down into the water, you need to disengage yourself from this person’s hold so that you can be free to actually help this person to shore. This is how we need to think about the mature dating method to work through baggage in our relationships. Deal with your own past and the baggage you’re carrying first, and then you can help your partner.
If your partner is having a difficult time working through his or her baggage, be supportive and do what you can to help your partner work through the past. Whatever you do, don’t be condemning of your partner for past mistakes. We all have past mistakes that we need to deal with. Condemnation is not constructive. Encouragement and unconditional love and acceptance are the key to success in working through the past baggage we all deal with.
Remember that you are not a counselor and neither is your partner. If you need to seek professional help, then by all means, do so. However, in order to further enter into a mature dating relationship, you need to realize that you should not try to handle all of the past in one sitting. Your partner may be dealing with more baggage than you are and you need to be careful not to be insensitive when talking about the past. If your partner does not want to discuss the past, don’t force the issues. Your partner may be dealing with some very hurtful things from his or her past and if you press the issues, you can do irreparable damage to your partner that you may not even realize. If the emotional damage done to your partner is very severe, your partner should seriously consider seeing a professional counselor to seek help to work through the past.
If you want to be in a mature dating relationship, don’t ever use the past to hurt your partner. Once you know the details of what happened in your partner’s past, don’t bring it up in arguments to hurt your partner. If you do, this will be very hurtful to your partner and cause a rift in the trust level of your relationship. When your partner shared the emotional baggage of his or her past with you, it was a moment of true vulnerability and it took a great deal of courage for your partner to share this information with you. When you and your partner share such emotionally intimate details with each other, it is very special and should be treasured.