Maintaining a Marriage - Our Story
“Shut up.” This was my response to my husband’s suggestion that I shouldn’t wait around for him after we learned that he would be serving 85% of a 7 year prison sentence. That was the end of the conversation and the last time he ever brought it up.
Marriage is a Daily Choice
After he went away, the sentiment continued as I heard similar statements from people who knew about our situation. “Why did you stay with him?” It’s such an awkward question, but people asked it all the time. I never understood why anyone would ever ask that question or how to even answer it. I finally settled on “Why wouldn’t I?” It was a little more argumentative than I would ordinarily respond, but the question caught me off guard every single time. Especially when I knew that the person asking it had not been told about our situation by me. So not only did I continually view the question as inappropriate, it was a signal to me that people were talking about us behind our backs. I guess it all comes down to my understanding of marriage. To me, marriage is a choice. Everyday. One time, I heard a young person ask another how you know when it’s “the one”. When she asked me, I explained my thoughts. There isn’t just “one”. Regardless of the 6 year sentence, I choose him. I choose him everyday. When things are fun and easy, I choose him. When things are frustrating and difficult, I choose him. When I had to call the correctional center 10 times in a week to try to get him the medical care he needed, I chose him. I realized that by choosing him, I choose all of him. I take the agreeable parts and the disagreeable parts. And he does the same for me.
Staying Present Through the Hard Times
The beginning of the sentence was far more traumatic for him than it was for us. He was facing dehumanizing and deplorable conditions, while I faced life as a solo parent now responsible for the family’s well-being as well as serving as a staunch and ardent advocate for my incarcerated husband. While we both faced traumatic experiences related to his incarceration, I quickly realized that one of my new roles was to listen to him as he vented to me about the experiences he was having. I knew that there was little to nothing I could do to help him besides listen to him and remind him that we love him and will always be there for him. At first, when he called, we would be in the midst of bedtime, or doing housework, or driving home from a long day and I tried to get a lot done while we were on the phone. But then I learned that he probably stood in line for over an hour for the opportunity to talk to us on the phone or had to threaten an altercation to get his turn on the phone for our 15 minute call. So I began to see our calls as the very best part of his day and I owed it to him to be present in those 15 minutes and stop what I was doing to give him my full attention. I also became very good at compartmentalizing. He could vent to me about something horrible that he experienced that day and not feel like I was busy with something else. However, that behavior was challenging for both of us as well. We both learned that it didn’t do any good to complain to each other and we quickly shifted to leaving some of the most difficult parts of our days out of the conversations. He protected me from some of the most vile things, while I protected him from some of our financial struggles, or the difficulties of dealing with the DOC after his incarceration. We weren’t keeping secrets, we just learned that we were stronger together by focusing on the things that we could control, while spending as much quality time on the phone as possible. I always felt stressed and terrible though when I would miss his calls. Sometimes he waited in line for over an hour and then I wasn’t able to answer. But he also learned that I never failed to answer because we were ignoring him, only because I wasn’t able to.
Finding Strength and Gratitude Together
For a long time, I was terrified of the person that would be coming home to us. I was fearful that he was quickly turning into a different person and definitely a worse version of himself. He went to prison as an alcoholic, and was turning into a criminal. However, we both failed to accept that and his desire to come home as a worthy father and husband led to a journey of personal development and reading that helped him understand who he was, and how he got to where he was. He strived to return to us as someone not only worthy of our love, but a better husband and father as well. He began to learn about his own trauma and life experiences and we could speak about them during our calls and in the visiting room. We both studied and learned to speak with compassion, to truly listen to each other, and to practice empathy and daily gratitude. In the moment, he didn’t understand that he was establishing a foundation to return to us not only worthy, but a better husband and a father with a firm foundation based in faith, family, community and an understanding that he is something bigger than himself. During a recovery group, he got an idea from a volunteer that led to our daily gratitude practice. Every night, we would arrange a phone call. We scheduled bed time to align with the late night count and we would stay awake until he was able to call. During those bedtime calls, we would each share what we were grateful for from the day. Regardless of how difficult or fantastic our days had been, we finished them by expressing what we were grateful for and this allowed us to reset and begin anew the next day. Even after his release, we continue to “do grateful” at the end of each day.
It fascinates me that he says that prison saved his life. Now, he has a mission and a calling to help others and we share this mission. It has become a foundational element of our marriage. Helping others makes our marriage stronger. I don’t know if prison saved his life, but I do know that despite the immense and traumatic challenges of having a loved one in prison, we have a choice to stay together. We make that choice daily and with it comes the acceptance of each other. There is no doubt that we are both different people than we were before incarceration. We continue to choose each other daily, and our marriage is stronger because of it.
Learn more about our story by signing up to join our newsletter.