What Does Love Look Like?

Recently someone commented on my blog and asked me what love looks like in my eyes.

Honestly that's a tough question. Love is unique to each person- we all define it in slightly different ways. I don't think a woman who loves an inmate has a hugely different view on love than the rest of humanity. I think we're just better able to maintain that love despite huge obstacles that most people would walk away from. We are extremely loyal and determined to uphold our relationships through their bids, however long they be.

However we are not just "waiting". If you just put your life on hold and wait, that's not going to work long term. What we do is find a way to co-exist with our partners despite the distance. We adjust to the circumstances. I don't think I'm just sitting around until the day he comes home, I am living my life with him. He's as much a part of my life as if he was right beside me every moment. We make decisions together. We share our thoughts, hopes, and fears. We plan for the future. We support each other emotionally and mentally.  So when people tell me "you're wasting your life waiting for him, why don't you find someone who can give you a real relationship and a real home?" I get mad. I have a real relationship. And I have a real home. That I created. So what if I was the one who provided it instead of him?

And that brings me to another point. An inmate's woman walks a very, very fine line. In many ways the old ingrained dynamic of the man wearing the pants in the family has been turned on it's head by his incarceration. Now I am the breadwinner. I go to work every day and bust my ass because I know I have to bring home a paycheck to take care of us both. And I know it's a blow to his pride. When he's already enduring so many humiliations behind bars, with every move monitored and controlled, the last thing he needs is to feel like less of a man because he's unable to support me financially. So I'm very careful to make sure he knows he's still the Boss in our relationship.  I go to him for guidance in all things. I lean on his strength and I accept his final decision on every issue.  He, in turn, takes very good care of me.

One more point. Most people think an inmate's woman has no boundaries or limits, and that she will accept any behavior or abuse from her man. This is untrue. I do have boundaries and limits. If I succeed in getting his butt out of there and he goes back to his old ways, he's on his own. And he knows it. I cannot control him and I have no wish to. But I am involved with him and am putting everything I have and everything I am on the line for him because I believe in our future together. If he goes back to a life of crime, that future will be compromised and I will walk away. I will love him forever and nothing will change that. But I do not want to be around to watch him destroy himself and possibly take me with him. Everyone has their line of self preservation that they will not cross, and that is mine.

So, that is what love looks like to me. Not so very strange, is it?