"I know she deserves to get married," Diddy, 37, tells Essence magazine in its December issue, "but I'm just not ready."

He explains, "It’s not a reflection on how much I love Kim. It's that I'm just learning how to be a good boyfriend. When I'm finished with this step, I'll move on to the next.

When he and Porter first met in the nineties, "She kind of made me nervous," Combs says. "She wasn't like a New York girl. She was Bohemian, mixed with Georgia-peach hospitality. I got the idea she'd like doing stuff like walking barefoot in the grass. I didn't think I could get her to like me."

He was also intimidated by her reserve. "She was smooth, you know, like ice. She's cool and collected and thinks before she speaks. You meet a lot of young ladies, and they just don't do that. Kim was never pressed; she was always in control."

KIM ON DIDDY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH J.LO
"That relationship wasn't real. The world just saw the bright lights and the camera. But I knew what was really going on. He was still in love with me."

She adds, "People just believed everything they saw in print, and they were talking to me like I was really crushed. But I had just had a baby. I couldn't be somewhere in a corner heartbroken. I have kids. I'm a grown woman."