This experience (especially the earlier stages before union) is meant to trigger your deepest fears and insecurities so you can work through them. The physical stuff isn’t really the main event. Certainly a huge plus, but you don’t need to start there for it to be the real thing.
If you haven’t been physical yet, it just means one of you awakened before the other.
I’ve read about couples who’ve been in union for years who say most of the hard stuff happened before they got physical. The crisis stage, the running, all of it can happen without ever having touched. I think @Dasbopster is probably a good example of that. Once you’re actually physical, it can even trigger more running because the intensity gets cranked up even more.
The obstacles you listed - work, age gap - those might be there, so you both have time to do the inner work first, without the complications of a physical relationship muddying things up.