puzzled

am not very sure whether the life
or the ceremony itself that i want

btw, below article is me indeed

Leave Your Emotional Baggage Behind
By Emily Battaglia, LifeScript Staff Writer

Can you name one woman who doesn’t bring a week’s worth of outfits and half the contents of her medicine cabinet for a weekend getaway? Overpacking can be cumbersome. That holds true for emotional baggage, too. Lugging around angst from past relationships can sabotage your chances for happiness in the present. Find out how to unpack it, heartache by heartache.

If you drag emotional baggage from one relationship to the next, you put a prospective mate at a disadvantage before you even begin.

When you present yourself as damaged goods, you might as well have a billboard on your head that screams “Please be the one to fix me!” And as much as guys love to repair things, they prefer cars and gadgets to women. No sane and stable man wants to play Mr. Fix-it when it comes to the dating game. He wants a partner capable of fixing herself, one who isn’t going to test his devotion by seeing how many storms he can weather.

Every relationship should start with a clean slate. But sometimes our insecurities and scars from breakups past make us punish a new love for crimes he didn’t commit.

What’s Stuffed Inside Your ‘Suitcase’?
Here are some common signs of emotional baggage:

- You don’t open up: Women with unhealed wounds from broken romances often feel vulnerable, making them too scared to open up even when a new guy provides a supportive and loving environment. The result: you shut off all possibilities of a healthy relationship because of preconceived, and probably untrue, notions.

- Your actions speak louder than your words: You tell your new guy how much you admire or love him, but then do everything in your power to disprove that with condescending or hurtful behavior. It’s your defense mechanism; you hurt him before you get hurt.

- You test your new guy: To find out where you stand in a relationship, you test him every chance you get. Maybe you try to “catch” him doing something wrong by checking recent calls he’s made on his cell phone. Or you threaten to break up with him every other day. Testing your new guy, especially if he’s good to you, will push him away faster than you can blink an eye.

- You carry around stereotypes and hang-ups: If all your boyfriends have cheated on you, you might assume that all men cheat. If your ex-husband controlled you, you might wrongly conclude that all men are control freaks. Or you might develop any of the following hang-ups: feeling that you aren’t worthy of being loved, aren’t attractive enough, have nothing to offer, will never fully satisfy a man, will never find someone you’ll like or will inevitably get dumped again.

- You don’t take responsibility for your mistakes: You blame your previous partners for the demise of your relationships and for every bad thing that’s happened to you. Refusing to shoulder any responsibility or blame cultivates a victim mentality, which is the ultimate emotional baggage.

5 Ways to Unload Your Emotional Baggage
If any of the behaviors above sound familiar, it’s time to unpack the baggage for good. Resolve never to treat others badly just because you were hurt. Learn from broken relationships, but don’t let them rule your current love life.

1. Give him a break. Whenever you meet a new potential partner, assign him a 100% scorecard. Only when he messes up are you allowed to deduct points.

2. Don’t burden your new guy with sob stories. Resist the urge to tell him how your ex cheated and destroyed your trust in men. He doesn’t want to hear your laundry list of problems – especially on your first date. Never bring blame for past partners’ wrongs into your new romance.

3. Analyze every failed relationship you’ve had. But don’t focus exclusively on what he did wrong. Scrutinize your role, too. Use your conclusions to decide what you do and don’t need from a new partner, and choose your next man accordingly.

4. Face your faults. Taking responsibility for your mistakes will help you stop wasting energy on the blame game (he lied, all men lie) and help you conquer the victim mentality so common among emotional baggage carriers.

5. Realize that emotional baggage is a huge turn-off. And it’s not healthy for you either. Start looking at past relationships as life experiences that can help you choose better men and improve yourself. Stop letting old wounds poison healthy relationships.

Are You Over Your Ex?
It’s been months since you and your ex parted ways, and you’ve been navigating the road to recovery ever since. Has it been surprisingly smooth or unbearably bumpy? Find out if you’re really ready to move on to new adventures in love and life or if you’re still hung up on your ex.