The trick is to take your baggage and do some origami with it. See the pretty inside and fold it all up so that everyone can see the pretty.
This is also called: Dealing with your shit.
But take, for example, an ex of mine. He wasn't a good match for me but at the time I was dating him (age 20), he had a pulse and liked that I had a pulse and so we started dating. It was emotional and tumultuous and finally ended when he backed me up to a brick wall and cocked his fist back to swing into my face. (He didn't get so far as to actually swing. My knee's instinct took over.) It was a ridiculous relationship looking back. It could easily have "broken" me. I mean, it never reached physical abuse but it was obvious it was going there. And there was baggage because of that (and some other stuff of course, but this is Cliff's version).
In Dealing With My Shit(tm), I discovered the origami beauty of my baggage: Said ex once cried sloppily into my very sober lap. He was absolutely shitfaced and told me that his father never used the belt on the kids, he used his leg.
His prosthetic leg.
Father Dearest would take off his leg (hopping mad?) and spank the kids with it. **
Origami. Because dude--that is some funny shit!!
So while the relationship didn't work out and the baggage definitely surfaced, I learned a few lessons and got a really good story out of it. Worth it? Yeah, probably, if only for the anecdote. I understand I'm probably a bitch for loving the story I got out of the relationship, but I'm totally okay with that.
** (at the time, all I could think was "I can't possibly be dating a guy who is too stupid to run away from a one legged man.")