Prison Place

Does he write to other girls?

It’s a cold Friday morning here, which is fine by me. Great games on last night, if you read my previous blog, and if I am correct, there might be some wrestling in town. Every blue moon our town gets some wrestling federation coming through… and I am not talking about WWE or NWA. There are lots of other good federations you know.

Anyway, I was reading some of my emails and one person brought up a point worth talking about. This isn’t for every one, but it is a good question: does he write to other girls while he is in prison?

(hold on, let me put some coffee on….)

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Now, let’s talk about this.

Do guys write to other girls, even though they may have one? Some do. Certainly we can’t sit here and say that every inmate in jail or prison is honestly loyal to their loved one. Many are… and let me say that again, MANY ARE, but some aren’t.

During my time in prison, the only letters I got were from my family, my professor and of course all the DOC letters as well as government letters that were responses to my queries. Only once, near the end of my sentence…no wait, twice, did I get a letter from a person who wanted to be a pen pal. I found it kinda odd since I never asked for one, so I was cautious with it and never answered.

In hindsight, I might have done the same thing again, because like I said, I never asked for a pen pal, even though I love to write. I just kinda didn’t want anyone bothering me about my personal problems of being in prison… I was embarrassed enough without having another person know about me being in prison.

But it is a different story when guys are looking for “girlfriends” while in prison. And yeah, I put that term in quotations because there is a question about what he is really looking for. Is he looking for a friend to talk to, a lover, or someone he can get some canteen money out of, or maybe even a visit.

In terms of this conversation, I will try to keep it focused on guys that have a girlfriend (or wife) but still writes to others. Keep in mind, this does not apply to everyone, so don’t read this and suddenly question your loved one.

Now, let me first defend the inmate…

“WHAT???”

No, hear me out. I want to try to give you the sides of this situation so you might understand as much as I can share. By no means am I saying I have the answer, I am saying there are sides to this that we can all take into account. So hear me out.

Why would a guy in prison, with a girlfriend, write to other girls? Surely this seems to imply that he is being unfaithful, right? Well, maybe not, if we understand some of the reasons that he might do it.

To me, there are two major factors that might be the result of him writing to other girls…actually there are a few more, but I will get to those. The first is the “nature of the beast”, that being prison.

The foundation of incarceration is to separate the “menaces of society” from the regular population. Simply put, you take away his freedom and separate him from the rest of the world. That is the basic punishment for breaking the law, and I think we all agree on that.

But what happens to a human being when you take away the basic privilege to be around other people, what happens when you isolate a man from the rest of the world? Most people like, or want, dare I say, NEED, to be around others. When you are separated from others, there might become a desperate need to be loved, or to be needed.

Now, with that in mind, what are the two things in prison that inmates look forward to the most? If they are anything like the guys I knew, it was 1) Visitation and 2) mail call.

Both of these support the fact that guys in prison are aggressively looking for ways to be accepted, loved and belonged. Inmates are no different from other people in wanting attention, or maybe needing it. We’re not talking about toddlers who cry and scream so that mommy can pick them up or pay attention to them, we are talking about inmates who are cut off from the rest of the world, and maybe deep down, don’t want to be ignored or forgotten.

“But if all that is true, why does is he writing to others when I write to him”

There are basically 3 answers to that, the innocent, the neutral, and the chaotic.

The good: Is there any “good” reason to write to another female when you have a loved one on the outside? Actually, there can be. If that guy in prison KNOWS that you are his loved one, and loves you ONLY, then him writing to another person might just be friendly. If so, are you willing to accept that?

I mean, even in the real world, if I had a girlfriend, it should not be a sin for me to talk friendly to another female. Can’t I have a girl “friend”? That is not to imply anything negative, that just means a guy ought to have the trust of his girlfriend to talk to a female as a person, not as some contestant on “the next girlfriend”. What I am saying is that some guys CAN have a honest friendship with female pen pals, it has happened. In fact, I used to get emails from some who do write to inmates purely in friendship. Some pen pals out there really want to help inmates by letting them know that they don’t have to be alone, they can have someone to write to.

And like I said, many times inmates do need people to listen to them. Even if you send them a letter a week, or even two, how much more exciting would it be if the inmate had 2 or 3 others who wrote to him? Yeah, to you it might seem insincere, but in a hell like prison, every letter he gets is appreciated.. That does not mean yours is less appreciated, because he knows who REALLY loves him. But if it was me, and I had a girlfriend, I would let her know that she was my only love, but the other letters I get help me get through a tough day. Surely, there cannot be a sin in wanting to be helped.

The neutral: Sometimes inmates get letters from women that seem to have some infatuation with prison guys. This to me is why I DO NOT like the idea of these prison support sites with posts like, “show us your men”.

What the hell are they asking for pictures of OTHER guys for? So they can look at them and decide if they should write to them? I tell you, a heck of a lot of people on prison support sites are not there because they have a loved one in prison, they are there to chit chat about their “man” or look for another one. I mean, there is no problem in loving your man, but you have to know that when you post his pic, there is likely some eyeball that is going to look at him and think, “I wonder if I can find out where he is, and write to him”.

Keep that in mind when you share your pics…and the location of that person. It’s almost like spam, once they find your email address, then BAM, they start sending you crap mail.

But getting back on the discussion, there are actually a lot of people who look for inmates to write to, in some hope of a relationship. And let’s not fool ourselves, inmates can do the same thing, but I will touch on that in a sec. I said earlier that I myself got at least 2 letters from females while I was in prison. I had no idea who they were, and how they came to know that I was in prison, and where. So to me, I wasn’t comfortable with that.

But come on, inmates are human too. If I had a girlfriend while in prison, and some female got my address and wrote to me, I would be flattered. It goes back to what I said about inmates also needing to be loved, belonged and appreciated. Granted, you do that better than someone who does not know him, but I certainly would feel appreciated more if I got letters from females.

Does that make me unfaithful? No. Not if I see it for what it is. Being unfaithful is not turning your back on every other female in the universe, being unfaithful is forsaking the love on one for another. And many times guys don’t do that. And even if they do get a letter or two from a female, you’ve got to allow him to be human. Come on, if he gets a card or letter from another person, go easy on him, but let him know that YOU are the one that really supports him in his tough times.

I am not saying to turn your back as if it isn’t happening, and I am not saying to drop him like a bad habit, I am saying to allow him to work it out. He knows you love him, and he knows that the person writing him does not know him nearly enough to have a greater place in his heart. But allow him to at least to feel appreciated by other people, it can be pretty helpful when you are locked up.

Now, the chaotic: The guy you care about is in fact writing to other females, and it is more than just friendly chat. I won’t lie to you, there are some inmates who like playing the field, and they don’t care who they walk over.

I have seen inmates who have 2 or 3 girlfriends, and sometimes on visitation they arrive on the same day, and get in a fight. Then the guy comes back, laughing at how he had two girls fighting over him at the visit. Then he gets on the phone and tries to act gentle and humble in a fake apology to the one of those two girls.

Or, there are guys out there that try to make good friends with females, and give them a sad story about how they don’t have any money, and ask if you can put just a couple of dollars in their account. Not much, maybe about $10 or “whatever you feel is good”. But if they have like 3 or 4 other girls on the side, that adds up.

Or, there are some guys that use women to lean on during their tough days in prison, and falsely leading those women to think that they think the world of them. But when they get out, they shed all the prison clothing, as well as those devoted women, and go right back to world that got them in trouble in the first place.

I saw enough of those guys to make me mad, but it wasn’t my business to tell them off… besides, some of those guys were big!

I know I am not writing this with a halo around my head, but it really depresses me when I saw guys using women for what they could get out of them, usually money and visitation or favors. And some of those women are the ones that end up on Prison Talk Online talking about their “man” perhaps not knowing that this is all he is to them… just another man.

How do you deal with a situation if you really believe your loved one is romantically (even if it is fake) with another female? It can be very tough to deal with, because there is the dagger of betrayal that digs deep in your heart. You tried to love him and keep him encouraged, and all he was looking for was whatever you could give him.

How do you express your feelings, without also sounding too condemning? See, the problem is that this can be delusional too. A loving female might actually have a good man in prison, but she might not believe it because she has read too much about what other inmates do. So she might keep asking him to be honest, when he has been all the time.

I suppose all this gets to one simple idea…honesty. In order for you to know, and for him to know, that you are the only ones for each other, there has to be complete honesty. If I loved my girlfriend while I was in prison, but received letters from other females, I need to tell her. And if my girlfriend loved me, she wouldn’t go over the deep end over it… after all, I was honest to tell her I was getting them.

But at the same time, you have the right to know where he stands with you. If it’s ok that he does get other cards and letters, you need to know that even if he got 10 letters a week, YOU are the only one he cares about. And, if so, he should not mind telling you about some of those letters. That isn’t too much to ask for you, if he is supposed to love you, right?

He does not have to share every single bit of info, but he does have to at least conquer your concerns about other people. Look, I know this can be a difficult time, especially during the holidays, since as I write this, Thanksgiving is next week. But it does not have to be something that shatters your world.

If you ask me, I think inmates need letters and cards from anyone they can get it from, it helps them feel like they have not been forgotten. And yeah, I know you write to him, but if I had the choice of getting letters from one person, or 5, I would take as many as I could get. That is not being unfaithful, that is just needing something to offset the daily life of prison.

It turns unfaithful if I start to covet those other people MORE than my number one girl. So is it ok if he writes to other girls? In general, it should be ok, but if it is more than just a friendship, then that becomes a problem. Talk to your loved one about that and get his take on it. Don’t go in with a battle axe, talk to him like a good friend…or a best friend.

Inmates are human too, you know.