Everyone Has Baggage...You are hurting yourself and your partner by pretending you don't

If you're in a relationship and claim you have no baggage, you're either lying or dangerously unaware of yourself.

The truth is, we all carry emotional suitcases packed with unresolved pain, faulty beliefs, and protective behaviours that sneak into our relationships. Call it trauma, call it childhood wounds, call it attachment issues. The baggage itself can be problematic but what’s even worse than having baggage is pretending you don’t…

In my clinical work with couples, I’ve seen one thing over and over: it’s not the baggage that ruins relationships. It’s the refusal to claim it and address it.

Unclaimed baggage is like a rogue carry-on that falls out of the overhead compartment mid-flight. One minute you’re discussing the dishes or dinner with your partner, and the next, you’re reacting to your partner when in actual fact you are responding to your past where you were made to feel small or disposable by a parent or ex-partner. It sounds pretty complicated and it can be messy. Our past intricately intersects with our present. When a partner does something that upsets us, sometimes it may be just about what they've done, or sometimes it’s our own wounds tearing again. Maybe it’s a bit of both. Unfortunately though, most people have no idea this is happening and arguments over seemingly small things can escalate without making seeming sense.

We tend to reject the idea of having baggage because it’s confronting. It implies damage. Weakness. But pretending you’re unaffected by your past doesn’t make you strong, it makes you dangerous. Emotionally dangerous to yourself, and to anyone who tries to get close to you. It means your old wounds are left to fester and leave you with little other than pain. 

Take wounded love baggage. It’s what shows up when your partner texts a friend and your stomach flips because some part of you believes betrayal is always just around the corner. Or criticism baggage: the reason you snap when your partner suggests loading the dishwasher “differently.” These reactions feel irrational, until you trace them back to the emotional blueprint you’ve been carrying around for decades.

Not claiming our own baggage creates chaos. But we also need to be careful how we are handling our partner’s baggage. We don’t want to ignore or mock their vulnerabilities. Or worse, weaponise them. It’s hard to accept that our partner has vulnerabilities that are playing out in our relationship if we don’t also look inward to ourselves.

The good news? Baggage isn’t a relationship death sentence. But it is a responsibility.

So how do you claim it?

Start by getting curious about your strongest emotional reactions. Jealousy, rage, shutdowns, these aren’t random. They’re clues. Ask yourself, What part of me is being triggered right now? What story am I telling myself about what this means? Then (this is the hard part) share that story with your partner, not as a blame, but as an insight.

Say something like, “When you didn’t respond to my text, I felt dismissed. I know that it’s partly my stuff, being ignored was a big part of my past. And I want you to know where it takes me emotionally.” That kind of vulnerability takes courage, but it’s also how real intimacy is built.

Claiming your baggage doesn’t mean wallowing in it. It means owning it, naming it, and working with your partner to create a relationship that heals rather than reopens wounds.

We see taking care of baggage as one of the core relationship pillars in a healthy relationship. If you don’t take care of baggage then it’s likely your relationship won’t take care of you and will start to degrade. We dive into everything baggage, how to claim it and what to do with it, in our book The 8 Love Links. We also have a whole module, called Baggage Claim in the My Love Your Love app.

Helen is a clinical psychologist and couples therapist and co-author of The 8 Love Links.