Option #3

‘Light and airy atmosphere…’

I had to put those words in quotes above – because back in the day when my love and I were first dating it was one of the phrases he used to try to describe the feel for our ‘dating relationship’ at that time….

I DO still feel light and airy around him. However, as we’ve fallen more in love with each other and our relationship has deepened the ‘light and airy’ has been replaced with a sense of portent and destiny manifest (yeah I know it’s heady stuff – but I can’t shake the feeling that we are meant to be with one another).

That being said we’ve been (or moreso I’ve been) struggling with our living arrangements. It’s going to sound ‘weird’ but we both feel like we are married already. And yes, perhaps it’s form spending so much time together ‘playing house’. But this feels ‘right’ to me - it does not feel like I am breaking some sort of moral ‘law’ – or like I am compromising myself (I promised myself I’d never ‘shack up’ with anyone) – I had to clarify that both to myself and to Erin – in other words – no just living together without being married – since I know that Erin and I ARE going to be married I don’t feel like I am going against my own code here – it’s not a matter of trying to do this out of convenience sake – sure living between 2 houses is a hassle – but it’s also kind of nice at times – we spend enough time apart to miss one another. I know that when we do begin living together we will have our own lives – we won’t become joined at the hip. The main difference will be that I will get to wake up every morning to him and lie down beside him every night.

So off and on we’ve discussed what to do – we are currently at the mercy of waiting for the church to grant him an annulment and please don’t even get me started on the subject of annulments from the Catholic Church. Erin and I both feel similarly in this regard – but we are both very strong about wanting to be married in the church – so we need to do what we need to do…

So we end up discussing our options – I don’t want to just move in – we see each other all the time though – part of it feels like I am living there and that was not the idea/nor the thing I wanted to do…

So we have options:

Option #1 – I don’t see him as much – I stay at my place more

Option #2 – We move in together (sooner than planned – BEFORE getting married).

Option #3 – We continue to see each other as much as we do now – and we plan for me to move in down the road – when we know the annulment is done – or at least we have reason to believe it will be done soon.

We seem to be leaning towards Option #3 – Options #1 & #2 are not going to work. Not seeing Erin is to me like going without food and water – in our hearts we feel married to each other – not the tawdriness of being ‘shacked up’ but the actual spiritual connection of living together…of BEING married – a covenant between us and God if you will – which to me is more sacred and binding.

Option #2 – I don’t want to nor will I just move in there with him – it’s the wrong thing to do.

Option #3 is to work towards me moving in with Erin 'eventually' before the wedding – working out all the ‘logistics’ and at the same time continuing to see one another...

By our natures we are both busy people – we have people we see (besides each other) we don’t cling to each other – we don’t feel desperate to be with one another – we just WANT TO. We choose to. We don’t want to live without each other….we want to be together for the rest of our lives.

In my heart I don’t feel a need an organization (namely the Church) telling me I can or can not marry this man – or anyone else for that matter. I know how *I* feel and I know how *HE* feels and it’s pretty much the same for us both. I can’t wait to begin our lives together – but for now I know I have to be patient – and will do my best to try to plan my upcoming wedding to the best of my ability...