Can an Ex-Wife Block Me From Writing to an Inmate?

This is a painful situation, and the uncertainty is made worse by getting information filtered through someone who has her own interests in how this plays out. The ex-wife is not a neutral party, and anything she tells you about what he wants, what his paperwork says, or who he has chosen to communicate with should be treated as exactly what it is -- one person's version of events from someone who benefits from you stepping back.

Here is what is actually true. No mechanism inside a correctional facility allows an inmate, an ex-spouse, or anyone else to block incoming mail from a specific person. Mail arrives, it gets screened by the mailroom, and if it passes content review, it is delivered. The only way your letter does not reach him is if you do not send it.

What he does with that letter once he receives it is the information you actually need. If he writes back, you have your answer. If he does not, that is also an answer, and it comes directly from him rather than through someone with a stake in the outcome.

The broader situation, the claims about paperwork, the marriage status question, the staff interactions his ex described, may or may not reflect reality. Reception is a disorienting period for inmates and decisions made in those first weeks are not always clear-headed ones. What you deserve is to hear directly from him, not to make decisions based on a secondhand account from someone who may not want this relationship to survive his incarceration.

Write the letter. Everything else follows from what happens next.