Love Behind Bars

 My name is Bulldog, and I want to tell you a story about love — the kind you never expect, the kind that finds you in the most unlikely places.

I was thirty-two years old when it happened, locked up in prison. That was twenty years ago, but I remember it like yesterday. Back then, my world was small: grey walls, locked doors, the echo of keys in corridors, and the same faces every day. I thought love was something for other people — people who lived free lives on the outside. Me? I was just surviving my sentence.

Then she came along — my mate’s auntie. At first, it was casual, just someone who came to visit, someone kind enough to spend time with me when so many others forgot. She had this way of making the visiting room feel less like a cage and more like a meeting place between two worlds. The guards, the clatter of chairs, the clock on the wall ticking down our minutes — all of it faded when she smiled.

Those visits became my lifeline. She travelled all over the UK just to see me, no matter how far the prison was. Some days she’d show up tired from the journey, hair a little windswept, but her eyes were always bright, and that alone made the wait worth it.

When I wasn’t seeing her in person, I was hearing her voice. Two, sometimes three times a day, she’d pick up the phone. And you’ve got to understand, in a place where the hours drag heavy and every day feels the same, hearing her voice was like breathing fresh air. It reminded me I was still human, still capable of feeling something real.

Somewhere in those conversations, somewhere between the laughter, the comfort, and the little arguments about nothing at all, I realized I was in love with her. Not the kind of crush that fades, but the deep kind — the kind that grows even when you’re locked away.

But loving her came with guilt. More than once, I told her she should move on. I told her it wasn’t fair, that she deserved more than waiting around for someone like me. I didn’t want her trapped by my sentence, my mistakes.

Every time, though, she refused. She’d look me in the eye across that visiting room table, or say it steady and sure through the phone line:
“I’m in love with you.”

And she meant it.

I’ll never forget one of those visits. It was winter, cold enough that my breath fogged the glass as they led us into the visiting hall. The place smelled of disinfectant and cheap instant coffee. Chairs scraped on the floor as prisoners and visitors found each other, everyone trying to steal moments of normality in a place where nothing was normal.

And then she walked in.

She had this long coat on, buttoned up against the wind, and her hair was a little messy from the journey. But when her eyes found mine, everything else in that room disappeared. I swear, for a second, I didn’t feel like an inmate anymore. I just felt like a man seeing the woman he couldn’t wait to be near.

“Long trip?” I asked as she sat down across from me.

“Four hours on the train,” she said, shaking her head, then smiled. “Worth every minute.”

I laughed, even though my chest ached hearing that. I wanted to tell her not to keep doing it, not to waste her time. But I bit my tongue. Instead, we just talked — about life outside, about the little things I missed, like the taste of real food, the sound of music in a pub, the smell of rain when you’re not locked inside.

She’d lean forward when she talked, hands wrapped around a paper cup of tea, her voice soft but full of life. I drank in every word like it was freedom.

But then the officer’s voice would cut through: “Ten minutes left.”
That was always the hardest part. Her eyes would drop, mine too. I hated seeing her pack up her things, pulling her coat back on, bracing herself for the journey home while I stayed behind.

Once, as she stood up to leave, I said it out loud, what I’d been holding back:
“You should move on. Find someone who can actually be there for you. Not someone stuck in here.”

She turned, looked straight at me. And with a calmness that shook me, she said,
“Bulldog, I’m in love with you. Don’t you get it? I’m not trapped. I chose this.”

Her words hit me harder than any sentence ever could. For days after, I thought about them. About her. About us.

The hardest part of every visit wasn’t the waiting, or the guards watching us, or even the time ticking away on the clock. It was the ending.

I remember one visit in particular. She had come hours to see me, and the visit had been perfect. We’d laughed, we’d talked, even sat in silence, just looking at each other like that was enough. But when the officer’s voice broke the spell: “Time’s up. Visitors, please make your way out,” I felt my chest drop.

She stood slowly, pulling her coat tight, giving me that look — the one that always cut through me. Her eyes were wet, and though she tried to hide it with a quick smile, tears started to fall.

I wanted to reach out, to hold her, to wipe them away, but all I could do was sit there, trapped by rules and walls. My own eyes burned, and one tear slipped down my face, just enough to sting and remind me how much it hurt watching her walk away.

Twenty years have passed since then, and life hasn’t made things easy. In that time, she’s faced cancer — twice. The first time, I was broken. Trapped behind walls while the woman I loved fought for her life, I felt powerless and terrified. I cried in places where men don’t cry. I cursed the world for keeping me from her side.

But she fought. My God, she fought. Every call, every visit, she came back with that fire in her eyes. She beat it.

Then it returned. The second time, it hit harder. But once again, she rose up and fought, and once again, she won. Those battles showed me what real strength looks like, and it wasn’t in my fists or reputation — it was in her.

Through it all, our love didn’t just survive. It grew. Roots so deep that nothing — not walls, not years, not even cancer — could tear them out.

And now, looking back, I see it all clearly. From prison visits to phone calls, from the tears at the end of every visit to the battles with cancer, every struggle brought us closer. Every moment reminded me that love isn’t about the easy days — it’s about standing by each other when the world tries to pull you apart.

We’ve fought battles most people couldn’t imagine. And yet, here we are, stronger than ever. Every scar, every heartache, every fight has only made our bond deeper.

I see her now, and I feel that same rush I felt the first time I saw her walk into the visiting hall. But now it’s tempered with gratitude, with awe, with a quiet understanding that life is fragile, and love is rare. She’s not just the woman I fell for in prison — she’s my partner, my friend, my family, the person who has made the impossible feel ordinary, simply by being by my side.

We’ll face whatever comes next together. Life will continue to test us, but we’ve proven we can survive anything. Because love isn’t just what you feel — it’s what you survive.

And we survived. Together.