Hello there you're listening to episode 99 of the Baggage Reclaim sessions.

I'm your host Natalie Lou, the writer of Baggage reclaimed.com.

And today we're going to be talking about knowing

when to fold.

Four summers ago, one morning, one of my closest friends woke up, looked to the side where

her boyfriend of nearly a year lay asleep and she knew what she needed to do.

It was something that had been niggling at her for a while,

and over the last few months, as she had pushed for him to say that he loved her, she pushed for commitment,

you know really pushed for things to go where she thought they should be going because

that's what she really wanted. She realized that she didn't really like who she was becoming,

and actually it wasn't really fair what she was doing.

And so she finished it.

She packed up her stuff, headed off home, I got a text from her asking if I could meet up with her for dinner.

That decision was really difficult for her because for her she felt like I'm in my mid-30s.

I know that I want to settle down. I'm tired of this whole dating thing and here I am.

I've just basically gone and finished it with this guy.

Maybe if I'd waited a bit longer things would have gotten better.

But she realized that the whole time that she had been with and she'd been ignoring

something which really was a whole lot of messages saying to her this just is not the right relationship for you.

She wanted it to be because then she could kind of tie everything up neatly in a bow and you know move in get

engaged get married and all the rest but she was always trying to convince herself into this

relationship and she found herself as I said

...