Friday, January 13, 2012

Prison.


So Anthony and I have recently become really into a television show on Netflix that only has 13 episodes. Yep, you guessed from the picture above, Prison Wives. The premise of the show is that each episode focuses on one family who has one spouse in the penitentiary. Generally it is a man in jail, therefore the show is called Prison WIVES. Each episode gets more ridiculous than the last in that there is a woman (usually) who is pining away for a man they started to write to as a pen-pal while he was incarcerated and "fell in love" with him. I won't say that there are not exceptions like the woman was married to a man before she found out he was a hit man for the mob and she stayed married to him despite his life sentence without the possibility of parole. Most of them, however, are women who got involved after the sentence was passed down and to be honest, most of these stories have been murder charges which is really troubling.

This show has me thinking about what we allow in our lives. Each of us allows a certain level of care and behavior showed toward us. We all have the choice to say "Enough is enough" but it seems to me that some of us, don't have the strength. I have pretty much always been someone who does not tolerate abuse or mistreatment. I can thank my mama for that as she ingrained in me that it was not my job to take other's abuse or tolerate mistreatment from anyone, although mostly she meant males.

As I watch this show, I get sad because I know women who do not date inmates or have conjugal visits, yet they still are living in prison with the men they love. They are prisoners to his emotions, moods, and deciding whether he is serious about them. I have a few things to say about this (as usual).

  • Only you can decide how you want to be treated. If you don't want to wait for someone to make up their mind, move on.
  • People are usually exactly who they are. If the person you are seeing is being rude or disrespectful...they are being honest. Believe THEM!
  • Marriage is incredibly hard even when you feel the same about each other, get along, and have mutual respect. Why add difficulty to it by being with someone who is half there, rude, disrespectful, combative and stupid!
The other thing that kept coming to my mind while I watched these women sleeping outside of the prison in their cars, moving their children after a few months in a place because their incarcerated husband has been transferred to a new prison, and sending all of their money to their prisoner husband was.....IDOL MUCH??

Having something that comes before your God is always a bad idea but these men also come before their children, their health, and their other family members. I mean, I could preach all day on why it would not be best to hook up with a man in prison with a life sentence but I am using that as an example to encourage women not to sign on to a life sentence with someone who does not treat you fairly and if you are putting them before really important things in your life already....perhaps you have already been infected.

There is more than one way to be incarcerated in life. You can commit a crime and be put away in a physical prison with bars, a publicly seen toilet, and very few rights or you can sign on to be "in love" or marry someone who is absolutely horrible for you and has no regard to your personal well-fare. Both seem to be a horrible place to be if you ask me. Please love you enough to ask the person you are with for life to love you back. If he (or she) doesn't...call it a dodged bullet as you RUN, not walk away!


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