by Elizabeth Coleman

Created on: December 03, 2009

What kind of a woman marries a man behind bars? The answer isn't as clear cut as the predetermined stereotype leads you to believe. Society still clings to the illusion that women who marry a man while he is incarerated is suffering from a long list of personal and lifestyle flaws that allows her to fall prey to the worst of the worst that society has to offer. But like most stereotypes, this one also fails to live up to the burden of proof and instead hides behind fear, ignorance and misinformation.

I am a wife of an inmate, who I married after he was incarcerated. I am not hideous, uneducated, severely pyschologically damaged or desperate. I am a successful, confident woman who chose to marry the man I love dispite the popular stigma that accompanies our situation. I personally know dozens of women who were also married while their husbands were in prison and they each are amazing, compassionate, smart and strong women. What most people don't realize is it is not as simple as walking down to the courthouse on a Tuesday to marry a man in prison. You have to ask permission from the warden, get two approvals, get approval from the chaplain, file for the license and pay extra since he's absent, arrange for your own minster to perform the ceremony, and then you can get married- but without the honeymoon of course. You have to literally fight just for the simple right of getting married. There is no rush decision during a moment of weakness; this is something you have to plan, consider, and defend from the very beginning. There are no 'accidental' marriages like there are in Vegas. And yet we have to deal with societal pressure and even some times ridicule because we are seen as 'different'.

I did not fall for a line of sweet words a stranger wrote to me in a letter from half way around the world. I knew my husband before he was arrested and I can honestly say I know him better now than I ever did when he was still home. People on a whole focus a lot on the small things in life and fight over petty issues and ridiculous drama. When you have your relationship stripped down to the bare minimum you have to focus on that person for who they are: not what they do for you, the physical relationship, what clothes they wear, if they pick up their underwear off of the bathroom floor. You get to know them in a way most people just don't take the time to anymore. You are immediately tested on your commitment by having to deal with one of the hardest situations you can imagine.

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