Prion Wife Struggles

Being a prison wife is not for the weak. It is an emotional roller coaster, a test of patience, love, and endurance. There are days when the weight of it all feels unbearable, when the walls of the prison aren't just around him but around me too. The waiting, the isolation, the judgment from those who will never understand—it's a constant battle. But the hardest part? Loving someone who has been broken beyond what most can comprehend.

I married an addict. Not just any addict, but a man whose entire life has been shaped by trauma, by abandonment, by a pain so deep that it has dictated every decision he's ever made. His mother walked away. His father fed his addiction instead of his soul. His family left him to fend for himself, failing to see the little boy crying out for love, for safety, for someone to care. And when the world has done nothing but turn its back on him, how could he possibly believe that I would stay?

Every day, I fight against his demons alongside him. Every day, I remind him that I am here, that I am not another name on the long list of people who have given up. But the trauma runs deep. It whispers lies to him in the quiet of the night, convincing him that I am just another person waiting for the moment to betray him. And so, the accusations come.

"You're a whore." "You're a liar." "You're unloyal."

Words cut deep, but I know where they come from. I know that this is his fear talking, his pain lashing out. He is an inmate, a man trapped not just behind bars but behind years of wounds left untreated. He is fighting against shadows that no one has ever helped him face. But I see the man behind those scars. I see the man who, despite it all, still has the capacity to love, to hope, to dream of something better. And that is why I stay.

But as if that isn’t enough, I also have to be the brunt end of his parents and what they did to him. His mother, who abandoned him and left him to drown, says things like, "I want nothing to do with him. I love him, I will pray for him, but you can tell him I said I want nothing to do with him." And then, with the same breath, she has the audacity to say, "How DARE you say I abandoned him? I never did that!" But yet, that’s exactly what she did, and that’s EXACTLY how he feels. Then there's his dad, the man who introduced him to his first hit of meth, telling him, "Tell 'your cousin' that I am not the monster your wife is making me out to be."

What the actual fuck?!

It is hard. It is painful. It is tremendously tiring. Some days, I wonder if I have anything left to give. But then I remember: this is not just his battle. This is our battle. With God's help, I will win over the demons that torment him. I will win over the fear, the pain, the trauma. Love is not just about the easy days. It is about standing in the storm, refusing to walk away when every force in the world tells you to run.

Many will never understand this life. They will never understand why I choose to stay, why I continue to love a man who has been consumed by so much pain. But they do not see what I see. They do not see the heart that still beats beneath the weight of his past. They do not see the man who, despite everything, still longs to be whole.

This life is not for the weak. But for those of us who choose it, for those of us who refuse to turn our backs—there is strength in the struggle. There is beauty in the brokenness. And most of all, there is love worth fighting for.