I orig­i­nally wrote this last month, but some rea­son didn’t post it. Bet­ter late than never.

It’s been almost two years since I started dat­ing Bear. I remem­ber clearly the day we had a con­ver­sa­tion about what I like to call “shack­ing up”. I was totally against the idea. In my mind, if a man wants our rela­tion­ship to move to that level then he should be ready to make a com­mit­ment towards marriage.

I take liv­ing together seri­ously because the thought of the breakup after­wards seems so dev­as­tat­ing. Maybe all this time I’ve been pro­tect­ing myself from that. The thought of hav­ing your lives so entwined and than to rip those bonds a part because the rela­tion­ship ended seems difficult.

I remem­ber that day express­ing my dis­dain for “shack­ing up”. I said that I didn’t believe in it. He saw a rea­son for it but he too agreed that it wasn’t necessary.

I think that God loves to watch peo­ple eat crow. Before the end of this month, I know that will be my din­ner. Bear is mov­ing in and it was totally my sug­ges­tion. He’s mov­ing in with­out that solid com­mit­ment towards mar­riage that I spoke of ear­lier. Instead we hold an under­stand­ing that one day we will get mar­ried. There are a cou­ple of things on the check­list that we need to com­plete before we think about fully join­ing our lives together.

For now, we’re “shack­ing up” and I couldn’t be hap­pier. Of course there’s some sor­row asso­ci­ated with the fact that I will no longer live alone. It was some­thing that was going to end one day just a lit­tle sooner than expected.