Love and Marriage Across Prison Walls
“He who has a why can endure almost any how.”
— Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
I never wanted to get married in prison. Even if I were blessed enough to meet my person during my incarceration, I didn’t want the rings on our fingers to carry an irremovable tarnish of prison.
This is a place inside a system rife with obstacles to connection, a place that causes pain and suffering to anyone on the outside who dares to love, care deeply for, or support someone on the inside. The layers of physical, technological and relational barriers are many and are often insurmountable. Even when enough love, determination and mutual commitment exist between two people to make an attempt at building a life together across the walls, a healthy question persists in this unhealthy system: Is the power of love worth the pain of survival?
My recent marriage to my partner Deborah is my answer: Yes.
Deborah and I enjoyed a few short months of ease at the beginning of our relationship. We met three years ago as fellow Ph.D. students focused on reducing conflict and building peace in the world. Despite having lived wildly different lives before this, we shared a calling in life and a commitment to practicing our respective faiths. Although I had not yet stepped beyond being a growing follower of Jesus of Nazareth, I did observe the Jewish High Holidays. So when I had a transformative experience on Yom Kippur in 2023, I spoke in class about the importance of these Holy Days for me and how my faith sustains me in peace work.
Our common beliefs and vocations soon led Deborah and I to think deeply together about how to translate our academic learning into real-world practice. Neither of us was looking for a romantic partner; both of us were actually closed off to the idea. But eventually something in the way we connected, collaborated, worked and thought together told us in no uncertain terms that we had been made for each other. As Deborah puts it, there was a sense of inevitability to us. To deny it would be to deprive both of us of the person with whom we were meant to spend our lives.
Deborah and I spent a few months deepening our bond through story-sharing and asking one another intentional questions. We had to know who we were to each other and why the pull was so strong as to make our union feel inevitable. But soon after we resolved to do this, it seemed the world started to conspire against us.
For the next two years, Deborah and I faced a steady stream of adversity that should have destroyed any budding romance, especially one already divided by barbed wire. Against the odds, we would reground in each other and press forward. We prayed together, sang to each other, spoke words of comfort and care to each other. We challenged each other to look at a bigger picture and think through various future scenarios (the good, the bad, and the ugly). We stayed real about how hard this life is going to be, both during and after my incarceration.
Rather than drive us apart, the hardship further forged our connection. We would lean into each other’s strengths and allow ourselves to be vulnerable by sharing our thoughts when we were at our breaking points. For a full year before we took the next step in our commitment, Deborah and I walked through premarital preparation questions curated by a rabbi to ensure we left no stone unturned.
None of this guarantees a successful marriage, but it does give us a chance. As someone who has been incarcerated my entire adult life, and who’d grown up being conditioned to operate in less-than-healthy ways in relationship, I have grown and learned a lot about being a good husband to my wife.
I am grateful and honored to call Deborah my partner in life. With her, and from her, I’ve found new grounding for my belief that love is stronger than any force in transforming the human heart.
Leo Hylton is a PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison. His education and work are focused on Social Justice Advocacy and Activism, with a vision toward an abolitionist future. You can reach him at: Leo Hylton #70199, 807 Cushing Rd., Warren, ME 04864, or leoshininglightonhumanity@gmail.com.
