I'm Natalie Lou and you're listening to the baggage reclaim sessions.

Hello hello. How are you doing?

I'm super excited to announce that I'm hosting the first live show of this podcast on June 18th, 2022 at the International Women's Podcast Festival in London.

Yeah baby, it's happening. I'll be recording an episode of the show in front of a studio audience and then I'll follow that up with an exclusive

Q&A for participants. You can be assured that it's going to be great crack and I'm

looking forward to connecting with

listeners in person for the first time since before this bloody Rona. If you are in

or near London I would absolutely love it if you would come along and support.

And you can find out more and book your tickets

at baggage reclaim.kuk.

forward slash live show.

Okay, let's. forward slash live show.

Okay, let's get in to today's topic.

Many years ago, so this is like back in 99 2000, I was still living back home in Dublin and I broke up with a shady X after being together for a year. This is the X that used to make purvy comments at my friend. He kept trying to pressure me into doing stuff that I didn't want to do and he colluded in racist comments from his friends and family. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway, everyone, so friends, family, even some of my coworkers detested him, and I felt ashamed of our relationship.

Yet a couple of months after ending it, I finally gave in and agreed to give things another shot.

Looking back on what happened in the year that followed, I can undoubtedly say that I engaged in subtle,

passive aggressive acts that were my way of communicating my anger, frustration, resentment and hurt. During our time apart, I'd got a really good job,

and I knew that I had my solid friendships, but I guess my insecurity about what I had done to call someone that I hadn't even been into in the first place, to behave as he had to me, really I think sort of ground me down a bit.

In that final year of our relationship, I rarely included him on outings with friends and that included like birthday celebrations

Christmas and so forth. Unlike before where I would have dropped everything to see him

even if I was feeling away about something, I'd taken to forcing myself to make the effort to see him like once a week at a push and I was

uninfused when we were together. I didn't give two hoots about whether I was

...