Hi everyone,

I'm married to a wonderful man who is in prison. We met two years ago and he has 6 more years (has been in for 13). We are both in our early 30's. Neither of us are perfect, but we are very committed to each other and love each other. But we fight a lot. I work a lot on researching ways to deal with conflict, we read books, and we have a lot of discussions, but what it keeps coming down to is that while we could definitely do some work on Love Busters, the #1 problem in our marriage is how little of each others emotional needs we can really meet in this situation, and how high the stress level is.

For example, if you look at the Emotional Needs Questionnaire:

1. Affection. We can do some of these things - cards, gifts (limited), and one hug and kiss at the end of each visit, and holding hands during a visit. That is the extent of the physical connection allowed. I visit him 3 times a week, the visits are 3 hours. I'm very happy with what he does, but I'm very unhappy overall because of how little he can do.

2. Sexual fulfillment. We do what we can in terms of writing erotica, talking, and touching each others hands, but really, not the same. Again, we're very happy with what we are doing with what we can do, but not happy at all at the fact we can do so little.

3. Intimate conversation. We talk a lot, but we have no privacy. All conversations are either through letters (read), phone calls (recorded), or visits (in public, on camera, watched by a guard). It definitely changes the feeling of a conversation to know it's not really private.

4. Recreational companionship. Yeah, that's like, board games in the visiting room.

5. Honesty and openness. We talk about this a lot, and overall I think we're both satisfied. Sometimes I wish he would be more vulnerable when he has hurt feelings, but at the same time, he is managing this dual role of wanting to be emotionally soft/open with me, but needing to be hard/tough in that environment.

6. Physical attraction. We are both very happy here. :-)

7. Financial support. He is barred from working a real job or making any money. The phone calls are expensive (16 cents/minute) and I send him money for food (so he can avoid the chow hall where lots of fights start) and things like underwear and toothpaste. So I'm working a lot and no, I'm not happy, but it's not his fault.

8. Domestic support. Obviously I'm managing my own home. We don't have kids.
9. Family commitment. We don't have kids.

10. Admiration. I do think we could both do a better job of communicating admiration.

So, my point is this: we have years yet to go. We don't want to keep fighting with each other. But we both feel like the #1 thing preventing emotional needs from getting met isn't each other not being willing, it's that it's physically prevented from happening. And the stress of the situation is so high that we end up not being at our best when we talk to each other.

Our fights lately usually revolve around hurt feelings, usually mine (I get hurt easily). And then I get upset and want comfort, but he doesn't want to talk about it because he wants to talk about something happy, and I'm like, well, just comfort me a bit and then I'll be happy again and he's like, no, you'll just stay in your unhappy feelings because you like them, and then it goes downhill from there. Actually he tends to make deflecting jokes to try to "get me back to happy", which is annoying and hard b/c I'm hurt and actually need him to be present, not making jokes. It's especially stressful if it's near the end of a call/visit b/c its really hard for him when we part and are not back in connection. And it feels like he wants me to just pretend to be happy for him and I hate that. So then the fight is kind of in the air until the next time we see each other or talk, generally the next day. It's this recurring pattern.

So obviously we could workshop that argument and we have, and identified the thoughts and feelings and why it happens, but the bottom line is that if he were home, he would just hug me, and I would be fine, and he wouldn't be so stressed out that he had no tolerance for conflict. And we wouldn't have other people determining when and how long we could talk.

I guess I feel some hopelessness. We both try so hard and are so committed, and it feels like this situation just takes every opportunity to make connection difficult.

So I guess I'm looking for advice from people who have been in extremely stressful situations that took a toll on their marriage and that were out of their control, like a serious illness, accident, tragedy, natural disaster--something where you really had to cope with something awful and how did you not let it affect your marriage.

Have you read Dr. Harley's policy of undivided attention (UA)?

He has been in prison the entire time you have known him? Tell us more about how this relationship developed and more about yourself and him.

There are many potential pitfalls here. The two of you have have never experienced real life together outside of the prison. Fighting is a sign that you are in a relationship with a renter, which is understandable under these circumstances.

Words fail me.

How does the reality differ from what you envisioned? How did you see the marriage evolving under these circumstances?

If you have not ever lived together, you have never been able to meet the majority of these needs. (And by the way, Family Commitment does not start only when a couple has its first child. The need for FC can mean that one spouse wants the other to want children. A woman who is still only single or dating can have a need for her prospective or imaginary husband to want kids.)

If you are unable to live together for another 6 years, you will be unable to get those needs met for that long.

Your question is "So I guess I'm looking for advice from people who have been in extremely stressful situations that took a toll on their marriage and that were out of their control, like a serious illness, accident, tragedy, natural disaster--something where you really had to cope with something awful and how did you not let it affect your marriage." However, your situation is not out of your control. You married a man who was already serving a lengthy prison sentence, so you knew of the circumstances in advance. They are not out of your control. Certainly you are unable to change the circumstances for the next six years, but you are not in the same position as people who had a traditional marriage to begin with, and then were met with difficult circumstances.

People serving 20-year prison sentences are not generally wonderful men. What crime did your husband commit? Why did you decide to get romantically involved with someone who committed a crime of the kind that would merit such a sentence?

Can't imagine why you would marry a prisoner in the first place. Obviously you can't sustain a marriage if you don't live together, but surely you knew this when you married him.

Why is he in prison?

Wow. It is amazing to me that someone who is intelligent & measured and intentional enough to read thoroughly about ENs would focus on an inmate. It doesn't add up to me.

Maybe there is a good explanation for this?

I met him volunteering in prison, he was a teaching assistant in a communication class, as was I. I didn't go out looking for a man in prison. I wasn't looking at all, I was living my life and this amazing, beautiful gift of love happened in a completely unexpected place. I decided to marry him, despite the circumstances not being ideal, because the love we share is more important to me than the fact that he is in prison. And I refuse to turn my back on love because it is difficult, or because most of the world wouldn't understand why I would make this choice.

His case is personal information and I don't believe it is relevant to my question. I didn't ask "Should I marry this man?" or "Do you think this man is a good person?". I asked "How can we best cope with the difficulties in this situation?". I understand that it is hard for people to trust that I was thorough in my assessment of his character without knowing all the details, but please trust that I had all the same questions and concerns that you would have, and within the process of getting to know each other I addressed each of them and I am satisfied and do not have concerns in that area.

His sentence length is not a good measure of who he is as a person, so much as an indicator of the screwiness of our criminal justice system. If you are unaware of the injustices in our prison system and how many people get sentences far longer than make sense given their crime, then please Google "prison reform" or visit the site "Families Against Mandatory Minimums". http://famm.org/ Inmates are also not all the same. There are over 2 million people incarcerated in the US. I would hope that you could imagine that there might be at least one person in 2 million who is incarcerated who is worth marrying and waiting for. Regardless, I didn't marry him *because* he was an inmate. I married him *despite* the fact that he was an inmate.

We are already committed to each other for the rest of our lives, and that is not something I am here to debate. When I decided to marry him, it was "for better or worse", and that doesn't change just because "the worse" will have to come before "the better" for us.

I am not here to defend our love, our relationship, his integrity, or my intelligence. I'm here for help in strengthening our marriage and getting through this with our love intact. I do not wish to hear my marriage, me, or my husband being judged. Neither of us are "renters". We are committed to each other, just as committed as any other married couple, and enduring a system that does everything it can to make connection difficult if not impossible. So please, if you cannot conceive of any inmate as someone who is worth marrying, then you can't help me and I would ask that you excuse yourself from this thread. I'm not here to make a case for marrying inmates, or debate my decision to marry him. You can have whatever opinion you want, but I am here for help and I would like to focus on that. Thanks.

What we have going for us is that we are both dedicated to learning and growth, and to each other, and we have plenty of time to talk and give each other undivided attention. And we do--we discuss everything. The issue is more that it's incredibly stressful, and we are both emotionally sensitive.

Regarding children, neither of us want children and we have never had a disagreement about that, so those sections didn't seem relevant to us.

I don't think you can post about your very unusual situation and then tell people that they may not talk about it. Well, you can, but you might not have any luck getting them to comply.

In my view, nobody in prison is worth marrying and waiting for. Somebody who has served a sentence might be worth marrying, depending on how well he has reformed, but not somebody in prison.

If he is serving a 20 year sentence then he did something heinous. You won't admit that to us, but we know it. If he did something that does not justify his sentence then you would be proud to tell us about it.

You have every right not to defend your love, your relationship, your integrity and your intelligence. You also have the right to live with the consequence of your decision to marry someone with several more years of a sentence to serve. The consequence of that is that you don't have a relationship that is recognisable as a marriage.

I don't see how the principles apply. It isn't as if he had a wide choice to choose from - let's be real here, he has every benefit without having to even provide FS (heck you pay!). I worked in the CJ system, I thought that this would have been considered a serious ethical breach? Unless volunteers aren't. Find that hard to believe, I would imagine. Marriage based on fantasy, not reality.

I don't expect you to take our advice though, we can't be the first ones to question your senses. I agree with you about criminalization, but that doesn't change the total lack of reality here. You don't think any man would jump at the chance to have a lady on the outside who puts up with this? Especially one without kids?

I don't think you worked in the system long enough to see what this is.

And I'm sorry, comparing yourself to marriages separated by natural disaster, medical disability, etc? Strikes me as fantady-land. Romeo and Juliet were teenagers.

Ok, this is not feeling like an emotionally safe space, so I'm going to sign off. If someone does come along and has something to say that addresses my question in a respectful way, please send me a PM.

People are not being disrespectful simply because they see your choice as insane.

Let me know where you eventually find an "emotionally safe space" where people support unquestioningly your decision to marry a lifer.

I've been to prisoner family support groups, and even those wives would find the choice to be foolish. Most end up in divorce, even with real marriages/families prior to sentencing. What does your family/friends think?

rolaren, his crime is very relevant. It speaks to his character and your judgment in choosing this person. Dr. Harley has addressed prison weddings on the radio in the past, but I can't remember the date. Some of the points I remember:

Women who marry men in prison are women who are looking for a controlled environment.

They usually divorce when he gets out of prison. [when control is lost]

Not a good idea to marry a criminal.

Dr Harley recommends getting a divorce.

People generally want someone on their same level.

People with low self esteem tend to go with losers.

They choose a guy who seems to have no other options.

As soon as he gets out of jail he will probably be dangerous.

Most guys in prison have terrible tempers and low IQs.

When they get out of jail they have a hard time holding a job because of their tempers.

The average man in prison tends to be sociopathic.

I remember every one of those points being made. In fact, I think Dr Harley dealt with such a case in a recent radio show.

The overall point is that men who end up in prison, and especially those who've committed the crimes that result in long prison sentences, tend to be sociopaths. That is why they have ended up in prison.

The women who choose to marry men serving sentences have a terrible fear that if they choose someone who is above them, that person will leave them. When they marry someone in prison, that person has nowhere to go - they can't leave. Thus they are safe for the women with low self-esteem...until they are released from prison, and their violent, sociopathic behaviour is unleashed, and the wife is forced to divorce them.

There is nothing worth saving in this insane, dangerous, pointless marriage. Divorce him now or divorce him later. Now would be better.

We are emotionally "safe," but we are not here to tell you what you want to hear. Most of us don't consider enabling to be very cool behavior.

You might think you are following the Marriage Builders program, but you aren't. A couple has to live together in order to sustain a marriage. You have never lived together. So applying the concepts doesn't make much sense outside of the context of marriage.