Preserving My Marriage

I have been happily married for three decades. These have been the best years of my life, and the prison experience has not diminished my devotion or trust in my marriage. I was forewarned that eighty-five percent of marriages do not survive a prison sentence, and the men who are married on this side of the bars struggle to preserve these precious relationships.

The man who can recognize the value in courage, resourcefulness, and stamina, has trust and faith, and is willing to pay the price for a boundless love that marriage demands may find a richness of living that is often the envy of his family and friends. I have met a few men who recognize the value and richness of a blessed marriage, and to these, I explain how I have enjoyed thirty years of bliss with the woman I love when asked. It helps me to live life for something greater than myself, and I’m not talking about building a life with the woman I love. I would move a mountain one teaspoon at a time if that’s what it took to preserve, protect and serve the woman I love, but the secret is to serve; to love, and to cherish until death do you part. Think of marriage as a rose bush. Many varieties produce spectacular flowers and many thorns. Every married couple learns to live with the thorns, so they’re able to enjoy the fragrance and beauty of the rose blossom. Be warned, it is rarely enough to only serve one another in a relationship. There must be something greater. “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” If a committed couple can embrace life’s obstacles, learn and grow from them, and support each other during the bad and good times, their faith will produce abundant love. This is how I love the extraordinary calling of leading my marriage while doing ordinary things.

How can a woman say she is proud of a man in prison? The fingerprints of God are often invisible until we’re looking back sometime later, and though we were afraid, we are not alone. Everything we believed before this prison experience has become magnified tenfold. One of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.” If a man will make the hard choices, be steadfast, share the victories and struggles of life with the woman he loves, and trust in something greater than himself, then he can summon his soul to forge the boundless love a marriage should enjoy. With her commitment and fortitude, she will also move a mountain to preserve our marriage. She gives more than she takes.

I haven’t been describing myself. I’ve been describing her. The secret is living for the other. What are the ordinary things that create an extraordinary life with the woman I fell in love with over thirty years ago? In federal custody, a man becomes chattel, literally property of the United States government. Everything I do is monitored and scrutinized. I have limited access to phones and computers. I ration my email and phone calls, but the one benefit where I enjoy relative freedom is the outgoing USPS mail, provided I use a standard envelope. All other irregular-sized outgoing mail is opened, searched, and approved by BOP staff. I never see actual incoming mail because it’s opened and they distribute a photocopy to the inmate. I ration my phone minutes to ensure I can talk to my wife for fifteen minutes every day. If I go over that limit, we can’t talk for the rest of the month. I do not share telephone minutes with anyone else, these I reserve for my wife and me. I buy email minutes, but I’m limited to 15 minutes of use per session. The outgoing mail is where I can shine.

It is my responsibility to write home every day, and keep my proses engaging and specific to the preservation of our union. I devote several hours every day to writing, and it is a burden some days. It seems mundane to describe my routine, but it is the ordinary that makes us extraordinary.