I stumbled across your site while looking for information on how to handle a relationship "time out," and a ton of it resonated with me -- so I figured I would ask for some feedback based on this particular article. Here's the problem: I'm 40, 4 years out of a long-term relationship, and finally ready to couple up again. He's 37 and in the middle of divorcing someone he married when he was 23. We've been seeing each other for 6 months and we both tell each other that we're deeply in love with each other and really want to be together -- but at the same time, he's not ready to be exclusive because he doesn't want to race out of one serious relationship and into another. I understand that because I was there not so very long ago myself, but it makes me incredibly insecure. We both think we have something really special, and we don't want to break up. But if we keep going along as we are, we know that I'm going to start getting clingy and resenting him not proving his love by committing to being exclusive, and he's going to start pulling away and resenting me for not giving him time to experience being single for the first time in his life. So after a lot of struggle, we decided that we're "putting things on hold" for 6 months so he can finish and mourn his divorce, make up for the wild oats he didn't sow when he was younger, and experience what it's like to live alone and not answer to anyone but himself without me feeling like I'm standing there tapping my foot, asking him if he's ready to get serious yet, and feeling rejected when he's not. We even circled a date on our calendars and agreed to meet at our favorite restaurant on that night. I really want to do this, because I want us to be together because we choose each other. We both have manipulating, controlling partners in our pasts, and we really don't want to do that to each other. But the thing is, it's only been a week and I'm already feeling so sad and impatient and scared that I just want to scream and beg. It's hard for me to just sit with those feelings and trust that we really do love each other and want to do the right thing for each other. Six months feels like a million years, especially since that's as long as we've known each other. Is this a Win Win solution, or have we just lost our minds?