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Marrying an inmate

by on February 8th, 2011

Canadian journalist Amy Friedman tells her story in today’s Salon about marrying a prison inmate — a convicted murderer — in Kingston, Ontario, just north of Watertown.

I don’t regret it, but being married to Will was hard and painful. Being a prisoner’s wife requires mighty resistance — to the mind-numbing, bureaucratic prison system itself, but even more, to those who so casually dismiss us as less than, those who see us not as people who deserve support and respect but who deserve contempt.

Read the full story here.

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4 Comments on “Marrying an inmate”

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  1. Pete Klein says:
    February 8, 2011 at 9:36 am

    Sorry, Amy, but you are waisting your time looking for support. It ain’t going to happen.

  2. James Bullard says:
    February 8, 2011 at 10:27 am

    To me marriage involves sharing life. There is no way you can share the life of an inmate. Provide emotional support yes, but you don’t need marriage to do that. I make a deliberate effort to be compassionate and understanding but there are some choices that others make which elude my ability to understand them. Marrying a person who is locked up for life is one such choice and I find it hard to be “supportive” of what I view is an irrational choice. She may view it as contempt but as the old saying goes “You made your bed. Now you have to lie in it”. It’s not contempt. It’s just the way it is. It is unrealistic to expect it to be otherwise.

  3. Mervel says:
    February 8, 2011 at 4:21 pm

    Well as a human being they are deserving of respect. I hope it helps them both. However it would be good if she could talk to all of the family members of the person this guy killed, see how they feel see how his actions have hurt them forever.

    Victims must always come first and foremost.

    From the article:

    “But I did want to learn. I had always been a sucker for the powerless. I grew up rooting for the Cleveland Indians, forever sided with my most awkward students, and on the sheep farm where I lived I fell hardest for the weakest lambs and craziest horses.”

    This is where she falls off for me. The powerless in this story was the person killed, the killer the murderer her husband; is the power freak the control freak the bully. The children of the person that was murdered by her husband are the powerless.

    She didn’t talk about his victims in the article.

  4. rockydog says:
    February 10, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    I think that people like Ms. Friedman have serious mental health issues. Sorry but it must be.

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