Love In A Hopeless Place

My love story with an inmate began in February 2019. I was a single mother of 3, I was in the process of leaving an abusive toxic relationship of 15 years with my ex-husband since December of 2018 he was in and out of my life as he made it difficult to keep him out of my home I would leave to my best friends house to avoid him and his reckless behavior at the time my best friend had a boyfriend who mad some poor choices and had to serve some jail time. My best friend asked if I was interested in a penpal her boyfriend had some new friends asking I wasn't intrigued at the idea turned it down one day we where bored so I agreed and he introduced me to Tony. I had never had a friend or family incarcerated so me communicating with someone incarcerated was something new to me. So as everyone knows most institutions have video calls. So through one of their video calls they let us talk a bit and see each other. Well I gave it a chance who can't use a friend that listens right? But an inmate? He was my first acquaintance incarcerated. I am more of the shy, nice girl that doesn't get in trouble follows the rules all around good girl, independent responsible single mom. I agreed to go with my best friend to visiting in the jail when she went to visit her boyfriend as it is a process to do waiting in a room 30 min prior to them being brought out so I would go keep her company and I did. It being my 1st time visiting an inmate I didn't know what to expect. We would always sit next to each other once they are brought out u see them through a glass window and communicate through a phone depending on their housing location they are assigned a date and time you are allowed a 1 hour to visit once a week with the inmate. So once a week we would go to visit until my BFFs boyfriend was relased. So by that time me and Tony had this unique connection, friendship. He would listen to all my chaos with my ex-husband and his affairs the toxic family environment. He would advise me on some situations eventually I created an account so we may continue to communicate, I continued to visit him in jail. I didn't realize was I had just met my soulmate the synchronicities that where about to start just started to get more and more common and strange. Tony was understanding, patient, funny and Tony felt the same way about me. I was always making jokes and he would laugh he has this loud kind of annoying laugh (Shh..Dont tell him I said that haha) and I my self have a loud annoying laugh too. An other reason we felt to perfect for each other. So when I met him in February he still had about 1 year left on a 3 year scentance. Eventually we became exclusive and decided to start a relationship before he was released. I visited him almost every Saturday and would talk on the video about 1-2 a day 15 min calls. He was so perfectly imperfect for me. It felt like my prayers were answered in the strangest ways. Before meeting Tony I would constantly cry trying to get out of my marriage. My ex would constantly cheat eventually having 4 other children with 2 different females had 2 of his sons a week apart and any time I confronted my ex about cheating it would upset him, so him throwing something at me or shoving me to the floor kick me depending if he was sober or intoxicated how intense the abuse would be. I shed many tears staying in that relationship for 15 years. Most of my crying took place in the shower thinking to myself. I just wanted to meet someone who was funny liked me as much as I like them, tall (as I am tall my self and my ex-husband was shorter than me) a tall man was something I really wanted, I wanted an older man that was 40 but did not look 40 looked to be in his 30s but mature some one I could connect with so when I met him I was shook to find out he was 39 years old, he was 6 feet 4 inches tall, funny and we had an amazing connection we didn't have many disagreements. We would communicate our disagreements as adults with respect until we reached an agreement. I couldn't believe it, how perfectly imperfect he was for me. Tonys unfortunate situation of being incarcerated actually worked in my best interest. He only required 2 hours of my time once a week and 15-30 min phone call a day it worked perfect for me. As any single mom of 3 knows free time or me time is rare. I didn't bring partners around my kids, which made dating for me almost impossible as I didn't have the time. Tony being in jail fit well with my single mom life. My oldest child still had some issues with it feeling I wasn't paying her attention when I would take his calls in my room. We continued to go forward with our relationship. In time my ex-husband the father of my children became aware of my relationship became upset being his usual self begged to take him back with his broken promises I knew he wasn't going to change and I had finally had enough and walked away and he chose to drink his problems away about 4 month after our separation he was in a horrible accident that landed him in ICU for about 2 months and 8 months in a rehabilitation hospital not close to home at that time I was still his wife so his medical decisions I did what was best for him. In part 2 I will talk about how being a wife and a girlfriend got complicated