Hi

My husband has now been released, about 3 weeks ago. I've not written before as I wanted to get a better idea of how we are adapting to life together again.

Various things have been quite tricky. The most difficult is that whilst he was inside I moved house so he didn't know where anything was! He gets very angry when he can't find things. I'd also changed the car whilst he was away and had to give him a driving lessons as he had never driven a car with a 6 speed gear box, this didn't go down very well. Also due to moving he didn't know his way around at all and didn't like the fact that he needed directions. Going through his clothes to see what still fitted him was traumatic but needed to be done. There were also some little jobs about the house that needed doing. I'd not done them as he was coming home (lazy)! Talking about anything other than prison was very hard, and still is to a certain extent, but it's still early days.

We've been visited by both probation and the PPU. Everything that has been posted on here about probation is true. Your life is not your own. Do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. I'm sure things will settle down at some point - we can only hope. His licence conditions are fairly standard (from what we know) for his offence. It's just they have insisted he does ANOTHER course (the value of these courses as has been posted in other threads). He had to start it this week with his probation officer KNOWING we are moving out of the area by the end of April. The new area does not run the same course. Also there is a question that no-one will answer. Doing this course is NOT a condition of his license. So does he really have to do it? or does it come under some 'catch all' condition?

He is getting better being on the 'outside' now but it is taking time. Neither of us can help it but keep referring to when he was in prison. There are things, OK trivial, that I do that makes him think he doesn't know me any more. I lot of reassurance has to be given to calm him down. Today he went out on his own for the first time (we'd run out of milk). I thought the short trip would be the best start for him. When he came back he was all twitchy and said he didn't like it at all. This is something we'll have to work on over time as we can't always be stuck like glue to each other.

The change from prison to home he found quite hard as he was indoctrinated into the prison regime. Up at this time, food at that time, bed at the other time. This is now slowly getting better. He is now enjoying 'real' food now that his stomach has settled. It was really bad for a few days due to change in diet and water (we think).

What hasn't helped is he'd barely been home a week when our landlord gave me a notice to quit and would not tell me why. So we have had to run around like headless chickens to find somewhere else to move to. We cannot be sure if he found out about his conviction as he had been very evasive earlier in the year when I had spoken to him about extending the contract. We've found somewhere now so am ploughing through the paperwork. This is another completely new area but at least we will both need directions (thank goodness for Sat Nav)!

We are just about getting to the end of tiptoeing around each other and being squeaky clean, nice and agreeing with what each of us says. We are used to arguing quite a lot and this seems to be returning.

Life is quite hard as we come to terms with life on the 'outside' and having to move as well. We could have done without that! Stress levels running even higher than they were.

From the last few weeks my view is that things have to be taken slowly and carefully. I have taken the stance 'at least he's home' the rest will come in time. I'm sure it will.