One thing for sure - K started his self discovery only after seeing P.
He is like a little kid going to school in the first year and slowly learning lesson after lesson. Prior to meeting her, he is the kid who is acting grown up with the son of sajjan singh costume worn. For him to graduate from this school, it will take the needed time. I feel that his education is slowed down because of his almost blind and obsessive love for P. By hitting this kind of speed breakers that he has hit now, it will give him the time and oppurtunity to see the world beyond P and his love for her. And this will definetely make him a mature man and take him few steps forward to graduation after which he will not look back in his life.He would have started this self discovery in some other way also, if not for P, may be through some other girl who entered his life through arranged marriage or may be some crucial incident in his life. But this scenario is out of question here because his destiny is with P.
Ummm...IMO , He did not start a self discovery or any such things ...from his POV, there were certain stipulation's to make P happy and he did it quite amicably bec he wanted a peaceful and happy wife...n not bec he accepted the stipulation's...
He is not learning the lessons, he is doing the rote memory system ,which means that once that hurdle is crossed, that lesson gets deleted from his memory ..but now it is about survival..surviavl of his sanity, his ego, his character , as such the survival instinct will kick in and he will begin to learn the ways,rules to succeed in this war...P can map out the way for him to survive ...taking that map or plotting his own way should be Krishna's decision..