A Little Bit About Why

I’d like to express a little bit about why Kimberly and I found ourselves pursuing other relationships. Obviously, I can’t speak directly for Kimberly here, but I can tell you how I’ve perceived things from my end.

First, I would like to say thanks for commenting here whether you agree or disagree with my intentions, goals, and/or reasoning for my actions. I hope to add a few details to the picture and help clarify what my situation really is.

Things between Kimberly and I are not as black and white as “we were together and now we’re not”. It’s not as simple as “we had a fight and then broke up over it”. It’s more like “Okay we’ve talked about it and although we don’t fault each other for it, at this point we realize we as a couple are not ready to further our commitment to each other”. You can read that as  “OK Kimberly is ready and I’m not”. The reasons why I wasn’t ready are not relevant to the point. It just was the way it was.

When you find your relationship at this point it’s very hard to determine what’s a deal breaker and what isn’t. It’s hard because you don’t really have anything solid to blame it on. Both of you haven’t done anything wrong specifically, but there’s still the question of “How long do I wait to see – and at what point do I decide – that this particular outcome is actually final?”

My relationship with Kimberly has always been honest to the bone. Yes we have been ‘broken up’ for many months now. But this does not imply that we haven’t been best friends all along the way. I have an excellent friendship with Kimberly. I have always been concerned with her happiness.

I’m not one of those obsessive “I need to know where you are at all times of the day” kind of guys. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about whether my partner is out drifting away from me or not.

What I do want a in a partner is that when we’re together it’s because she *chooses* to be with me.. and she chooses this because she’s happy to be around me. I want her to know she always has a choice.

..So at some point I found I wasn’t able to commit to a life of marriage. I certainly wasn’t going to propose to her to buy more time for myself. That would have not been fair to her, me, or the sanctity of marriage.

I also didn’t want to just abandon her and file everything under “oh well, so much for that”. I’m a man of my word, and she’s too precious for anything less. We both gave ours words that as our relationship to ‘singledom’ progressed, we would be there for each other – no matter what.

Where and when did I suddenly become ready? It’s not as easy as that either. It could have started as early on as the day we started talking about separating. Some parts of me were changing in ways I hadn’t thought of. I started to imagine what kind of relationship we would really end up with if either of us were to have significant others. These thoughts progressed as our relationship formed a new shape.

One day Kimberly heard about the 2 Strangers experiment. She found herself contemplating the possibility that this new avenue to meet a future husband might actually have some validity to it. She began researching it and was very thorough in finding out what it really was all about. She always kept me informed of her findings every step of the way.

Because I was still not ready for marriage I would talk to her along the way and give her encouragement if I thought she needed it. As time went on I started to see things in a different light but kept quiet on my thoughts about it because I was still a little unsure and I didn’t want to muddle her decisions based on any small whims I may have had.

So today, I’m here writing all of this stuff to you.. and to Kimberly. Writing because I’m a much better writer than I am a speaker.  I’m writing to her here because at any time of day or night, she can log on and read it anytime she wants to.. and I hope that she see’s the value in my words. I hope you do too.

– Craig (Marry me Kimberly!)

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