is it wrong to stick by your spouse when they are in jail?

[1924]

My wife, who is also mother of my thirteen year old is in jail for one year for forgery charges. I am willing to stick by her and not leave her because I feel She made some stupid mistakes but it was out of character so I think she just got herself into a bad situation and make some poor decisions, She also never did anything bad at all before this And I am not defending her or saying she should not serve her punishment.. Also, her mother is showing regret and no defense at what she did . I also will allow my child to visit and have her still be involved with her child because she was never an absent or abusive parent or anything. However, some people might feel it is wrong for me to do so and I am irresponsible for doing this,

 

 

My daughter seems to be taking it fine , she said it is kind of cool that her mother is locked up and is now the one being ordered around by others. This is weird because she never had a bad relationship with her mother. I asked what she meant and she said she was just joking. I think that is OK to try to crack a joke to make the situation feel less bad and that a better way of handing the situation instead of being hysterical about it. But I think she is also definitely thinking "since my mom went to jail I never have to listen to her and she has no right to tell me what to do". I can understand that line of thinking but I don't know if it is really good for her to have.

[carhill]

It's normal to stick by your family when such challenges intervene. I happen to live not too far from a prison and drive through the prison 'town' and it's grown markedly since the 6-7K male prisoners showed up outside. Some is the prison staff, but most commute, some is local support for the economy the prison brought to the area but most is housing for families of prisoners. People make mistakes, get in trouble with the law and go to jail. Happens every day. Families deal with it and move on.

 

As far as your daughter is concerned, IMO the job is to reinforce her mother's role as a parent and to disallow any disrespect for that role, even though mom is incarcerated for now. Humor is valuable in life but this isn't funny and neither are such comments. There's a time to be funny and a time to be serious and this is the latter IMO.

[1924]

Some say it is wrong to stick by her and allow her to still be a parent to her daughter but I can't ignore that she has been a good wife and mother other than this misdeed.

[eleanorrigby]

If you love her and want to tough it out, then I'm happy for you to give it a shot. Especially because it's just one year you will have to wait and the crime is not something violent.

 

Thank god it's not a 10 year bid for manslaughter. If that were the case, I'd have very different advice and hope for your situation.

 

I do think you should be concerned about what your daughter said and bring that up in counseling, or if you don't do counseling, just keep bringing it up yourself and getting her to talk about it with you. I think this issue is something it would be good if you two could hash out before mom gets home.

 

Some people are going to have a problem with your choice, but if they are taking a really hard line in the sand against you sticking by her, I would really wonder why and wonder if they just have something against your wife and don't like her.

 

Good luck.

[hppr]

Some say it is wrong to stick by her and allow her to still be a parent to her daughter but I can't ignore that she has been a good wife and mother other than this misdeed.

 

I have family who have been in jail for various things, my brother, couple cousins, uncles.

 

Eventually it comes down to blood being thicker than water. Unless there are extreme circumstances you can't walk away from family. However I'm not sure that I'd want to stay married to someone who was locked up either.

 

If she's just in there for 6mos then so what but if a year and will be a felon afterwards that is a big life change. Not to mention the years of supervised probation (means allowing PO's into your life and some are POS's), not being able to get a job because of record, if you have firearms around the home they have to be locked where she can't get to them etc.

[1924]

Don't think she has probation after her sentence