Hello mc, welcome to SR!
I'll try to offer some brief thoughts, I'm certainly not a guru or expert when it comes to recovery relationships. I've had my experience, it wasn't exactly a good one, but it led me to the healthy relationship that I have today. I've seen relationships that work between two people in early recovery, but they're few and far between, and sadly I've seen more than a few that ended unhappily, or disastrously with one person deciding to "check out" on life because they couldn't deal with the emotions.
I've also heard the comparison that having a relationship is like pouring Miracle-Gro on our character defects, my personal feelings are that it can be like holding loaded guns up to each others heads. I know that sounds harsh, but honestly I needed to stay focused on my recovery and the 12 Steps as much as possible, it was impossible to do that with all the raw emotion I was trying to process over the possibility of an "exciting relationship".
Here's a great acronym too....
Really
Exciting
Love
Affair
Turns
Into
Outrageous
Nightmare
Sobriety
Hangs
In
Peril
If you truly love each other and are meant to be with each other, then can't you wait until you've both finished your Steps and your recovery has a fairly solid foundation? Can you make that commitment to each other and still remain the best of friends until the time is right for your relationship to progress? Just my experience: My fiancee is my best friend, and always has been. That's the most important part of our relationship as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, and sorry to drone on, but here's something to think about if you're contemplating God's will for your relationship:
On His Plan For Your Mate Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone, to have a deep soul relationship with another, to be loved thoroughly and exclusively.
But God says to a Christian, "No, not until you are satisfied and fulfilled and content with living, loved by me alone, with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to me alone. I love you, my child, and until you discover that only in me is your satisfaction to be found, you will not be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you. You will never be united with another until you are united with me, exclusive of anyone or anything else, exclusive of any other desires or longings.
"I want you to stop planning, stop wishing, and allow me to give you that most thrilling plan existing, one that you can't imagine. I want you to have the BEST! Please allow me to bring it to you. You just keep watching me, expecting that satisfaction, expecting the greatest things, and know that I Am. Keep learning and listening to the things I tell you. You must wait!
"Don't be anxious. Don't worry. Don't look around at the things others have received. Don't look at the things you think you want. You just keep looking off and away up to me, or you'll miss what I want to show you.
"And then, when you're ready, I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than you would ever imagine. You see, until you are ready and until the one I have for you is ready (I am working this very minute to have both of you ready at the same time), until you are both satsifeid exclusively with me and the life I have planned and prepared for you, you won't be able to experience the love that exemplifies your relationship with me...and this is perfect love.
"Dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love. I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your relationship with me and to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty and perfection and love that I offer you with myself. Know that I love you utterly, I am God Almighty. Believe and be satisfied." --Author Unknown