Living 3D Faith

Surviving the hand dealt by dissolution

I have taken to texting my estranged wife. Certainly not because it is easier to communicate that way, but it has become a way I can distance myself from the audible reminder of the one I wanted to love until the day I died.

I thought I would be strong enough to be emotionally isolated from the hurt of this loss, but nearly 2 years of getting used to being without Lucy, hasn't made the change any more natural or bearable.

I see the advances in telecommunication as a convenient work-around for those of us...an increasing number of social emo-phobes...who have come to prefer the more hands-off modes of communication like email and text-messaging. It brings a level of detachment that is probably not a healthy thing for me to be doing, since detachment is an aspect of my depression that I need to overcome. But similarly, the sound of Lucy's voice evokes too many painful reminders of a life and love we shared. The distance I hear in her voice is hard to bear. However, when the same information is transmitted via email or text the distance is undetectable. The tenor or emotional inferences within the spoken word are a fading dimension that used to be a part of the communicative arena. Less painful for me, but not necessarily a good thing.

I have to wonder if the communication was always spoken person-to-person, would the added emotional dimension of that discourse lend itself to any greater possibility for reconciliation? Am I strong enough to continue hearing the ring of my beautiful love's voice in the ear that is attached to a wrecked mind? It seems to me that the ultimate rejection can only be left behind if a person hopes to move ahead on their path. But personally, I cannot move ahead so easily when I am tied to the one who hates me.

I love my kids so awfully much. But sometimes I regret the fact that they keep Lucy strung to me like the carcass of some rotting albatross...preventing me from being completely free. I know such outlook isn't healthy or right in God's economy, but for now it is just what I am having to deal with.

Still, every time I get a text from Lucy, I hope that it holds some promise, no matter how slight, that she might be willing to salvage our relationship. But after nearly 2 years, her openness to the possibility of a re-start...clean slate kind of thing seems even less likely than it did immediately after she asked for the divorce. She no longer resembles the woman I married and raised kids with. She is a stranger that has moved farther and farther away in her heart from me. I'm sure my voice is as much a unwelcome reminder to her as hers is to me. They just evoke different emotions. Emotions each of us would rather be free of forever.