Madeline Hunt revealed her story on what happens with patience, acceptance and communication in a loving relationship. Madeline currently works in the Dorrill Dining Hall as one of the people who will greet students and staff while swiping their Lancer ID cards or accept another form of payment.
When asked what attracted her to her husband the first time, Madeline replied, “I just though he was so cute.”
Hunt met her husband, Ralph Hunt, when she was 14 years old. Mr. Hunt is five years older than her.
After he left her for 22 years when she was 17, Madeline married someone else and had a child with him. His name was Ronnie Jackson.
For those 22 years Madeline and Ralph remained friends, Hunt never stopped loving him, marrying Jackson after Ralph approved of him.
“I’ve waited seven years, it has been seven years and nine months of me waiting for him to come home, said Hunt. “I would never leave him, I couldn’t, I love him.”
In November, Hunt’s husband will be released from jail, after serving his time for nearly eight years. Hunt explained they are married but not under the law. Though the papers haven’t been filed, to Madeline and Ralph, the marriage is real.
In October 2014, they conducted the ceremony, when Ralph is released the papers will be documented and the marriage will be legal.
“I’m waiting for him, and waiting means waiting, and I can wait,” said Hunt. “I know this because I’m grown.”
Communication, acceptance, and being kind to one another are a few of things to a successful relationship according to Hunt. She explained she writes a letter to him every day, and visits on weekends. Ralph told Madeline that she could just be herself with him.
Hunt said it’s important to love and respect oneself before finding someone to love. This is how she was raised and how she took every relationship.
“I told Ralph, ‘I don’t need you, I want you,’” said Hunt.
Hunt has been asked why she stays, for her there isn’t a reason to leave. When she visits him, she said she looks forward to sitting across the table from his when he says, “I love you.”
Hunt has been in love with her husband since they started dating when she was 16. She said she never thought about how her life would’ve been different without him. Neither Madeline or Ralph considers their relationship to be long distance; Hunt said she went to see him even in the middle of a snow storm because it was important.
“He makes me feel great, and he says that I make him feel great too,” said Hunt. “People ask why am I waiting, why do I wait; because he was good to me before he got locked up. He isn’t mean to me, he doesn’t say mean things to me.”
Madeline and Ralph were separated for 22 years, they both married and had children with different people, they lived their life as close friends after their relationship in high school.
Now they’ve been married for three years and together for eight years. When Ralph is released on Nov. 27 at 9 a.m., Madeline said she looks forward to being his wife and that he better not go back.
“I had no idea I would be so in love with this man,” said Hunt.
