Dating Advice: Having good boundaries around your baggage is important!

Appropriate vulnerability and boundaries around personal information is an important topic. I had to learn this, and I see it all the time. People will overshare their personal history very early on in dating - disclosing mental health struggles, personal trauma, family strife... And I hear ya - you want to be "honest". But on the first or second date, or before even meeting in person, is generally much too soon to disclose this stuff. Hear me out...

It's not dishonest to have appropriate boundaries with that deeply personal information. More often than not, early disclosure of that stuff functions both as a defense mechanism and (in some cases) desperation. The defense mechanism is "here's all the bad shit about me and all my pain, so if you're going to reject me because you can't deal with it, do it now." The desperation is "please someone love me, even with all my flaws." BUT, disclosing all of that when a person hasn't gotten to know and gotten to love the good parts of you will almost* always drive people away - if they only know mostly your flaws, how can they balance that with your good parts to make a fully informed decision on whether or not they can take the good with the bad? And I'll come back to the almost in a minute. That will create a self fulfilling prophecy of "I'm not loveable because all of my baggage", which then can mess with confidence and self esteem. We ALL have baggage. It's how you choose to handle you baggage that matters.

Now regarding the almost always bit: someone who goes forward with you even after all that is very often (not always, but often) someone who likes to fix people - and the fixing of others is a way to avoid their own problems. This leads to relationships that are considered "fiery" and "passionate" and terms like "unconditional love" get thrown around. More often than not, these relationships actually end up being pretty toxic. One partner should not be trying to fix the other. That's not a healthy dynamic in a relationship. Supporting a partner through tough times, yes, but not fixing.

My last bit on this topic is: ask yourself - "Has this person done enough to EARN my trust for this info about me?" And remember that in the early dating process, we tend to tell our friends a LOT of info about the person we're dating. Are you comfy with your baggage potentially being shared with people you don't know and haven't personally invited into the conversation?

Submitted August 15, 2020 at 11:36PM

Appropriate vulnerability and boundaries around personal information is an important topic. I had to learn this, and I see it all the time. People will overshare their personal history very early on in dating - disclosing mental health struggles, personal trauma, family strife... And I hear ya - you want to be "honest". But on the first or second date, or before even meeting in person, is generally much too soon to disclose this stuff. Hear me out...It's not dishonest to have appropriate boundaries with that deeply personal information. More often than not, early disclosure of that stuff functions both as a defense mechanism and (in some cases) desperation. The defense mechanism is "here's all the bad shit about me and all my pain, so if you're going to reject me because you can't deal with it, do it now." The desperation is "please someone love me, even with all my flaws." BUT, disclosing all of that when a person hasn't gotten to know and gotten to love the good parts of you will almost* always drive people away - if they only know mostly your flaws, how can they balance that with your good parts to make a fully informed decision on whether or not they can take the good with the bad? And I'll come back to the almost in a minute. That will create a self fulfilling prophecy of "I'm not loveable because all of my baggage", which then can mess with confidence and self esteem. We ALL have baggage. It's how you choose to handle you baggage that matters.Now regarding the almost always bit: someone who goes forward with you even after all that is very often (not always, but often) someone who likes to fix people - and the fixing of others is a way to avoid their own problems. This leads to relationships that are considered "fiery" and "passionate" and terms like "unconditional love" get thrown around. More often than not, these relationships actually end up being pretty toxic. One partner should not be trying to fix the other. That's not a healthy dynamic in a relationship. Supporting a partner through tough times, yes, but not fixing.My last bit on this topic is: ask yourself - "Has this person done enough to EARN my trust for this info about me?" And remember that in the early dating process, we tend to tell our friends a LOT of info about the person we're dating. Are you comfy with your baggage potentially being shared with people you don't know and haven't personally invited into the conversation?