In life, we all have baggages. We often forget that we have ours and get carried away observing the size and colors of other people’s own.
Every one of us has multiple baggages. The difference is in how heavy, massive, interruptive, and noticable they are. Some of us have learnt to deal with ours, others have overcome theirs, while some others are ignoring theirs.
One of the major issues with people and their baggages is that we often notice people’s baggage before we notice the people themselves. This influences how we presume and prejudge them.
In cases where we are not opportune to meet people’s baggage first, we meet the best version of them and get to love and respect them.
As soon as we start to get closer to them though, their bags and baggages start to come into view.
One of the characteristics of love is its blinding power. It blinds us to all the things we normally would not like about a person.
That is why when you “start to fall out of love”, or love starts to wear out, you begin to notice annoying things about your lover that “were not there before”.
It seems like they suddenly or gradually changed. The truth is that they have always been like this, but you were too busy in love to notice.
Sometimes, it is not because the love is waning. Instead, it is because you are starting to get closer. You are spending more time together.
Just like you can see the texture of a tree’s bark when you come close to it, that is how you will see your lover’s flaws when you are cooped together with someone.
If at that point, the love is still sizzling, those faults will be easily overlooked or forgiven. It becomes more of an issue when the stress the baggage brings outweighs whatever pleasure is derived from the relationship.
Love is a key building block for a long-term relationship, but it is not the only block. There is the place of finance, patience, selflessness, romance, religion and spirituality, ethics and morality, expectations and reality, shared interest, interest in each other, and then knowledge.
There is knowledge in terms of career, child care, personal care, politics, finance, scripture, etc. I know lots of people find knowledge attractive. Even sexy. But there is a different knowledge.
Knowledge on how to relate with, treat, and love your partner.
If you have intentions of truly loving your partner and treating them right, you need to understand their baggages.
You need to take time and go through the baggages of the other person. To understand what they are carrying. To know why they are the way they are.
You have not known them since childhood. Some of their lashing out or recoiling are born out of previous experiences. Even if you’ve known them all their lives, you were not a witness to everything they’ve been through.
Searching through their baggages will teach you how to love them properly.
You also need to let them go through yours. Not everything you do is actually normal. It may seem normal to you, but others can tell it’s not normal.
Your friends may have been opting out of telling you what they find disturbing about you because they know you are not their burden.
You came into the relationship with your own baggages too. Let your lover go through it, it will help them love you better.
Don’t you want to be loved right?
If you or your lover feel overwhelmed by your baggages, or you are struggling to unpack them, seek professional help.
You can go for couple’s therapy, but you might also need personal therapy.
And if your baggage turns out to be too much for your partner to bear, let them walk away. You know if it was vice-versa, you will do the same.
Let them go. Then go sort yourself out.
When you are baggage-free, you will make an awesome spouse for someone else. And you will love every minute of it.
Yours sincerely,
Wilson J.
Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. @IJOSWIL
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