Chronicles of a Prison Girlfriend

Chronicles of a Prison Girlfriend

A Personal Journey

H.L.Perkins

People have a misconception of prisoners, especially here in America. We are taught that everyone who goes to prison are evil and deserve to be there. We are taught that they are guilty until proven innocent. We forget that these are people. These are people who have made mistakes, or did what they had to do to survive, or are innocent. Not everyone who is in prison are bad people. In fact, probably eighty-five percent of prisoners are not bad people. Most need rehab, therapy or a good job, not prison time. Others are serving time in purgatory, waiting for the day someone realizes that they are innocent.

Every love story has a beginning. Some are movie like, some extremely romantic, some by chance, and some develop over time. No one expects to hear that your love story began in a prison. Most people stop listening when you tell them that the love of your life is a prisoner. I never thought that I would be dating someone in prison though. I was indeed a hypocrite. I believed in the misfortune of people in prison and doing what you can to help but I had always told myself not to date anyone who’s been to prison. I told myself they can’t build with you and not to involve yourself with someone who is for the streets. This is partly from having law enforcement in my family and partly from coming from parents who are overly protective. But it was an idiotic mindset especially when I fought for prison and law reform. That activism was what led me to my love though. I decided to write six prisoners that either got harsh sentences for petty crimes or were innocent. Four wrote back; two men and two women. Out of the four only two were what they said they were. I read all of their court cases and the evidence presented. One was a very nice woman who was in the K-9 program, but after a couple of letters I stopped hearing from her. The other was a man fighting for freedom who has currently served twenty years in prison for a manslaughter case that received a life sentence. After reading his court documents and reading through all of his paperwork, I quickly realized he was telling the truth. This was the beginning of a friendship that neither of us realized we both needed.

We went from writing a couple of letters to writing on the apps that are out now to keep in touch with inmates. Soon after, it went to talking on the phone. Then he asked for a video visit. I am an introvert and get anxiety over social situations but I agreed. We were quickly becoming really good friends and shared a lot in common. I asked questions about his case and did what I could to help from the outside. I listened when he needed me to and he did the same for me. Our friendship was deepening by the day and I felt as if I had known him for years. Which, if you truly know me, you’ll know that I do not easily let people into my life. We continued on like this for a few months until we realized we were catching feelings for each other. I tried denying it, until one of my friends brought it up. She already didn’t particularly like that I had a friendship with someone I didn’t know before his sentencing, so she really didn’t like the fact that she saw all of the signs that I was falling. It wasn’t until a day came that I didn’t hear from him at all that I realized how deep my feelings were. I was a nervous wreck when I didn’t hear from him for a whole day. I was sad and moody and most of all I missed him so much. Not long after that, we talked about our feelings and decided to try a relationship. Mind you, he is in a completely different state and we have never seen each other in person so both of us were apprehensive especially because neither of us have had much luck in the romance department let alone the friendship department. We were both nervous but for different reasons. So far we have been official for 7 months and have known each other for almost a year. I love this man and know that I want to spend the rest of my life being loved by him. However, this year has not been quite so easy.

Most people do not realize the cost of keeping in touch with someone in prison. There are a few programs for the wives and children of inmates but I am not his wife. It can become very costly due to the fact that prisons are predatory on the families and loved ones of inmates. It costs twenty five cents to send a short text and another twenty five cents to try to send a picture that may or may not be approved through the apps. It’s eight dollars to do a video visit and phone calls are only fifteen minutes for a few dollars as well. He pays for our calls (and he calls me a lot) and I pay for our video visits. We each pay for the messages sent back and forth and I have no choice but to pay for the pictures that are, half the time, denied yet still charged for. Let me clarify that the pictures I send on the app are not naughty pictures. They are pictures of everyday things that I am doing. I will give you an example of some of the pictures that were denied: a burning candle, a ring on a white gloved jeweler’s hand, me at work, a collage picture of his family or of my family, my dogs, my backyard, and the list of everyday ordinary things I take pictures of that get denied go on and on. The cost to keep in contact is a lot and for some families it is too much. The videos are of poor quality and most times I either can’t hear him or he can’t hear me. And just recently they changed their letter and picture policy at his prison. I can no longer send letters and pictures directly to the prison, now I have to send them to a company in Las Vegas and they scan them and email them over to the prison. Now the inmates no longer get to smell the scent of their girls’ perfume that possibly lingers on the letter or maybe even laundry detergent. They no longer get a real picture to hold or hang up around their cell. You may be thinking that these things don’t matter, but humans are very social creatures and keeping people isolated and taking away the few things that remind them of their loved ones just breaks these people mentally and most times causes people to turn into repeat offenders because they do not know how to interact with the world once they get out. You cannot take away someone’s humanity and expect them to be able to assimilate back into society once released. Prison systems know this and this keeps the cycle going to forever keep the prisons filled so they can continue to profit off of inmates. He had a job in the prison where he made twenty five cents an hour. Could you imagine making twenty five cents an hour? It’s demeaning and absolutely horrendous. He did maintenance work which is not always easy and sometimes would have to work through the night or wake up extremely early for. That is worth more than twenty five cents an hour. And yes, inmates get charged taxes, room, board and court costs. Not to mention some prisons charge fifteen percent of the paycheck to go towards charities or foundations for victims’ families even if their crime was victimless. As you can see, if you don’t have a lot of money, staying in contact with your loved one becomes next to impossible.

But it isn’t just the cost of contact that has been hard this year. It’s the lack of support from people that I know. The few friends I have, have all come around and have accepted this relationship. However, they don’t understand the ins and outs and struggles so they can’t really have long conversations with me about it. It’s hard trying to find people who are in similar situations as you and can relate to you. Not having a support system while navigating a relationship with an inmate is extremely lonely. It does take a mental toll on you when you already do not get to really see or touch the person you love but then to not be able to talk to someone who understands what you are going through makes it ten times harder. I have not yet found a support group for people with an incarcerated loved one. I think the worst situations are when you are talking to someone and they ask about your partner and you inform them they are in prison. Their reactions are almost always the same. It’s either a look of disgust or of fear. Then they talk about you behind your back. This causes more isolation but this time for the loved one. Both the incarcerated and the loved one are isolated in different ways and both have mental and emotional hardships that cause more issues. I never imagined how hard it was going to be to date someone in prison. I have coworkers that treat me differently because of it and even though I will never be ashamed of my man, it is still hurtful when you know you are the topic of the office gossip or worse when it is your loved one who is the topic. I know, you are probably thinking that I should just not tell them that he’s in prison, right? It sounds logical until you realize that it makes you seem ashamed of who you are with. As much as I would love to tell my parents about my partner, that is out of the question. I am thirty nine years old and still get lectured as if I am thirteen. They would not understand in the least bit and assume the worst. I mean, I am not faulting them because I can see their standpoint but it makes me feel like a horrible person when I know that he talks about me to his family. In fact I have spoken to some of his brothers which makes me feel even worse. I feel guilty as if I am hiding him or as if he is not good enough for me to tell my parents. In all actuality, it has nothing at all to do with him and everything to do with my relationship with them. The way being in a relationship with an inmate makes you feel isolated is too much for some people and this breaks the hearts of the inmates. My partner tells me all of the time how there is a guy on his tier that is so distraught over their partner leaving them. Or he will tell me how another inmate has just given up on everything because they can no longer get in contact with their partner and how the person just stopped all communication without so much as a goodbye. When we are on the phone I can hear the inmates in the background talking to their loved ones but there are some days I don’t hear anything at all and I know another inmate has been ditched. It is very emotionally taxing being both the prisoner and the loved one.

I believe the worst part of all is how you don’t always get to see them in person or touch them. In the prison that my partner is in, they had stopped in person visits due to covid. They were just beginning to allow honor visits again and then my partner was put in solitary. That means he lost all of his privileges, his job and his honor visit (an in-person visit where you get to have lunch with your inmate and are able to sit with them and touch them). But had he not lost his visit he still might not have gotten his visit due to them tightening up again because of yet another round of covid and now monkeypox. There are days that I am just going through it and all I need is a hug or to be able to have dinner with my partner and sadly I cannot. It is very hard for couples when there is no physical contact. It is why a lot of long distance relationships do not work out. I have a double whammy as I am in a long distance relationship with an inmate. I can’t even do weekend visits where I see him behind the plexiglass. What I wouldn’t give just to be able to hold him in my arms and breathe him in. It is hard on the inmates as well because if you’re going through tough times and are crying on the phone it kills them knowing that there is nothing they can do to comfort you. Most times you end up just keeping things to yourself as you don’t want to cause them any more unnecessary stress but that can wear on a person heavily. Keeping inmates away from their families not only hurts the inmate but it breaks families up. If a family has no means to get to the prison then they don’t get to see their inmate too often which means there is not a really good bond between parent and child or spouse to spouse. The infrastructure of that family has the potential to crumble. Like I have previously stated, humans are social creatures, we need interaction to stay sane. All of this is just a means to keep prisoners from rehabilitating and being a successful member of society.

I know that by now you are probably thinking, “Well you chose this. No one told you to have a relationship with an inmate.” And you would be absolutely correct in thinking that. But we cannot choose who we fall in love with. We cannot determine the future and know what is the outcome of our decisions. I chose to try to help someone out that proved they were worthy of my time and attention and in turn I fell hard in love. He is everything I have always wanted in a partner. He is everything I have asked the universe or God or whatever is out there for. They always say, be careful what you ask for, that you might just get it and boy are they right! I never would have imagined that I would find my best friend and the person I want to spend the rest of my life with in a prison. I never thought that the best thing to ever happen to me would be a result of my activism. Yes, there are very difficult circumstances that come with dating an inmate but honestly I believe that my partner is worth it. He is worth waiting for, worth the lonely times, the isolation from friends and coworkers and the cost of contact. He is worth it because I know one day he will get a chance in court to prove once and for all that he does not need to spend another minute in prison. Then, he will come home and we can start our lives together. I don’t mind if you think that I am crazy or stupid for choosing this. I don’t mind because I know there are other people out there that are like me who are looking for someone that understands what they are going through. There are people out there that are looking for others like them so that they are not alone anymore. The point of me writing this was to not only vent a little but to let others know that there are people out there that know what you are going through, that understand your struggles and your decision to stick by your loved one. I am hoping that this piece gives someone a little bit of comfort in a tough time. Or, if you were just curious about what it is like to date someone in prison, that you learned something that you might not have already known. And who knows, if enough people like this piece enough, maybe I will write more about our experiences and I will include his perspectives as well. Hopefully, we can shed some light on the inhumane way that inmates and their loved ones are treated by a system that profits off of their mistakes and misfortunes. Please do not get me wrong though. I do believe there are some really bad people out there that completely deserve what they get in prison. They are the ones that I fear will one day hurt my partner. But, that is a whole other topic for discussion.

If you enjoyed this piece and would like more please feel free to let me know.