chrisdutchess@verizon.net 


Did you know that we're queen among men, we give life to this world, we're creative, warm, beautiful, smart, loving intelligent, passionate, emotional, sexual, and the heart and soul of this crazy wild world.

Yes, we're all of that and then some. But it's up to us to bring out all these wonderful and special qualities that are inside of us. Believe me when I tell you this, it's there, just waiting and wanting to come out.

Perhaps some of you are saying; "This woman has no idea what she is talking about, she never has lived in my shoes, or felt the pain that I've felt. She has probably never been hit and feared for her life or feared for the life of her children or family members, yes, I even felt that he would possibly hurt my family. She probably has never thought or even attempted to commit suicide so she could escape the pain that was caused by the man she loved or by those she thought loved her. This woman has no idea what my life is about and how I pray each and every day just to make it through a day and into the next."  I realize that many have suffered much worse than I, but this was my life, and it was only through the wonderful Grace of God that I made it.

I speak from experience and I've felt many of those kinds of pain you have felt and yet I was able to survive. For most of those 24 years I endured the unthinkable, my life was one roller coaster ride after another. I found out that the man I loved with all my heart and soul that I was also sharing him with  many other women who felt as I did about him. I ended up living in a world that some of you could never understand or accept, a world where pain and suffering was a daily event.

I was an older White woman that fell in love with a younger Black man who had 30 years to life to do in prison. I disappointed many of my family, friends, and children for making this kind of choice to be with this man I loved. I just wanted all the hurt and pain to go away. So please don't pass judgment upon me for I'm not writing all of this to pass judgment upon you.

I'm writing this to let you know that in spite of all I have had to go through I have found peace, love, happiness, and most important, I found the key that opened the door and have my faith in God renewed and my self respect. Therefore, I've taken time to write my story and share it with all of you. Except this story is different because in this story I was able to receive back all that I had lost. I was able to learn from my mistakes and use them as a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block.

I went so low in my life to the point I had no other choice but to look up and there was my Heavenly Father. It was a difficult battle, but my husband and I made it. Yes, our marriage was mended with the help of God. My husband and I started working as a team to rebuild, not our past, for there was too much pain but we worked and rebuilt a new future, one that we're both happy and proud of.

My book wasn't written for others to judge our past mistakes, but it was written so we could share secrets that were a part of our marriage in hopes they will help and encouage someone else. Believe me, neither Chris or I are not proud of many things we've done, but we've been forgiven.

When I was going through those bad times, I felt I had no one to go to, no one who would understand my feelings and pain, I felt all alone in a world filled with nothing but pain and shame. I would have given my right arm to have been able to read a book such as this one that I've written. In this book you will feel pain, suffering and shame, but most important this book is also filled with hope, peace, forgiveness and true love. This book can help you to make the right decision to do the right things for yourself and for your family. By reading this book and looking at the bigger picture in your life, you will learn how to grow, you will better yourself, and you will love and be loved again. But the most important thing that God loves you with His unconditional love.  You're story won't be just like ours, but nevertheless whatever your story is, you can get through it.  We have a loving God that cares about everything in our lives.

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I found this article in my local newspaper back in 1985.  It also is the one that drew me to Chris.

"View From Inside A State Prison"

To anyone who is thinking of living a life of crime, allow me the opportunity to show you what can be expected, once you're convicted and confined to live behind these walls of broken dreams, called prison.  Some of you may see me as a square but in a greater sense I only wish I were; then maybe I wouldn't be sitting as I am now doing, looking over prison walls, seeing leaves lay gently upon the earth, yet not being free to touch them.  In my time of loneliness, I felt the desire to share thoughts with you about the real prison and hopefully through my eyes and through my words you may see and understand some of the pain and heartache which has become a part of our everyday life.

For it is now what many of you have been led to believe, it is quite to the contrary.  For not only do these walls hold our bodies in confinement, they extend to every fiber of our being, emotional and spiritual as well.  It is nothing like you might read in the newspaper, magazines, the story of loneliness, heartache and pain is never told truthfully through the media.

This prison feeds and breeds pimps and gangster mentalities, a system that makes mere living a worrissome task.  It is from conviction to con, to ex-con, from time served to time remembered.  It is a place where men pay a debt for years, a debt that can never be paid in full.  Society is always hovering over us like some five'n'dime preacher, giving us a worthless sermon while it kicks dirt in our faces and calls it rehabilitation.  Ours is a system that listens, unhearing and unheeding to the violence that's soon to erupt again.

The real prison is too many days without beauty, too many cold and sleepless nights, too many weeks without honest laughter, and too many months of emotional darkness without light.  It is a man like me who is always hoping and praying that God may grant my wish to be free once again, to love and know that there is more to life than living behind these walls of broken dreams.  The real prison is a worried mother's face sitting in the visiting room studying the face of her son who once was her pride and joy.  It is the tender voice and heart of a wife as she looks upon the man she truly loves and asks, "How Long?"  How much longer must she be a woman without her man to hold, touch and kiss and to share the gift of love with?  It is the tender tear from a child's eye rolling down his face as he walks sideways looking back at his daddy, waving his little finger in a sad motion to say goodbye.  For he neither knows nor understands why he must leave his daddy behind each time he and his mother would come to visit.  The real prison is waiting for letters that were never written and for visits that never arrived.  It is remembering a song that was once shared between a man and his woman, the beauty of that memory stabbing and torturing his will to live.  It is looking at merciless bars and praying for the night to fall so he may find escapism within his slumber, for he knows these walls hold no mercy for their captive.

For the story I just relayed to you may sound unreal, but believe me the facts of this story are very much real.  So real, that in the late hours of the night you can hear many grown men crying themselves to sleep or crying at the thougt of being without their loved ones, feeling of hurt, pain and shame that is so deep that many take their own lives in order to escape the reality of themselves and the harsh and cold world in which they live in, called "The Real Prison."  Written by Chris...

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If you really desire to find peace in your life then by all means read this book and learn how to take back the control of your life and learn how to be happy once again. 

There is much more in my book, so read about: "The Bad, Good and the Best."  "IT'S A MUST-READ BOOK"