External / Internal

There are internal boundaries and external boundaries in relationships.
What bugged me about Boy during the YOW was that my exploration of the relationship was blocked by external boundaries, ie: my perception of how I should be acting towards my feeling during the YOW and therefore remaining faithful to the marriage.
I dislike external constraints. What I like to do is explore the internal boundaries in relationships, explore what the relationship, any relationship, (family, friendships, romantic) is made of. Now that the YOW is over I can do that with Boy and with others. There is this other relationships which was remarkably compelling for some time, and is still, but only mildly now. For a short period of time there were external boundaries only in that relationship and it drove me mad because I couldn't explore it. I paced up and down that external boundary fence like a wild cat looking for a way inside. I found one, and now the relationship is growing again, still respecting its external constraints, but still developing along its nature. And now I can explore the internal constraints inherent within it.
On another thought, my YOW is over. I am a single mom, two kids, school, working, and actively creating a lot of music. There's no romantic interest in my life, and truth be told I am not that interested in there being one. I am, however, really digging the new friendships with guys that are developing, and I am digging exploring those relationships. What I realize with all of this is that it's admittedly still a difficult situation for me, there are a lot of demands on my time and energy, and I am tired most of the time, however, a real blessing and something which I am experiencing for the first time in my life is that there is no one who is purposefully sabotaging me. While I was growing up, it was my mother, due to her mental illness mostly. And then, it was my husband. There's this saying about person A who wants person B to be free, but piggy backs on B all the time, forcing B to do A's work. That is what is felt like to be married to my husband.
As for that guy I was obsessed with during the YOW. There's nothing really there now. He is distant. And I am not interested. I'd be interested in potentially getting to know him and seeing if we can be friends, and maybe that will happen over the next year or so. We'll see.
This other guy, he and I were good friends while I was in my YOW, and he was in one too. However, when mine ended, suddenly, there was attraction between us, so we chose to do the prudent thing and we stopped hanging out. That is something that I am curious to see play out as well, over the next year or so. I'd like to continue exploring the friendship we had, not a romantic relationship.
In fact, I feel totally allergic right now to romantic relationships. And I really don't get them. I'm sick of society's preoccupation with "co-dependent romantic love". As I told my daughter and her best friend, when her friend mentioned "boyfriends". I said, "boyfriends are waste of time. You can have many friends who are boys and one day you will choose one of them to marry and he will be your husband."
We are told in the Writings to develop spiritual bonds of love. So what does that look like between a man and a woman, immersed in a society and culture that encourages any opposite gender relationship to become romantic and/or physical? I think this question is what I am exploring now, definitely through the internal / external boundaries within the relationship with this other guy and with many of the other guys I know too.
One thing that is very interesting, and not really surprising, is that with non-Baha'i guys there is almost no possibility of having a friendship, and therefore exploring this concept of spiritual bonds of love, as they are too blinded by sex.

Thank You

Thank You God that this is over. Thank You for delivering me from the hell of my own choosing of my marriage. Thank God that he is gone from my life. I feel so grateful. I feel so peaceful. I am done. I will only accept what God gives me now. I am so blessed. The only men around me now in my life are men that love me and that will be good friends to me.
Thank You for "curing me of my ridiculous obsession with [romantic] love."
Praise be to God, Who hath created existence from non-existence and carried me safely through the raging rapids of my choices.
If for all eternity every droplet of my blood would cry out with millions of tongues in thanks to Thee it would not be sufficient.
Ya Baha'u'l-Abha!