Incarceration puts enormous strain on every type of relationship, marriages, partnerships, parent-child bonds, friendships, and family connections of all kinds. The distance, the communication barriers, the financial stress, and the emotional weight of the situation test relationships in ways that most couples and families are not prepared for. This section covers how to maintain a healthy relationship during incarceration, how to navigate jealousy, suspicion, and communication breakdowns when contact is limited to calls and letters, what the research shows about relationships that survive incarceration versus those that do not, how to support a partner or family member emotionally from the outside, and how to approach the changes that both people go through during a long sentence. The guidance here is honest about the difficulty while being realistic about what is possible with consistent effort and genuine commitment. See also our sections on Family Services, Visitation, and Marriage in Prison.
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Subject: Relationship issues
Condoms are not on the Commissary List. But, condoms are somehow smuggled in and are available for purchase, but we have no idea what they might cost.
Subject: Relationship issues
Send it to them and see what happens. Doing nothing will yield... nothing
Subject: Relationship issues
The only way to find out is by asking your fiance. The inmate's privacy is protected. There is no disclosing how much money is on their books, how much phone time they've used, who is putting money on their books, who they are talking to, or who are visiting.
Subject: Relationship issues
It is true that an inmate may file for divorce if they someone on the outside handling the actual court filing. The petition can be notarized in prison, and then that document must be filed with the family court in your jurisdiction. There is nothing to this that makes it "faster", but if you are sitting in prison, time is not a factor as you have plenty of it.
Subject: Relationship issues
As an inmate, you treated like anyone else. What goes on the outside is the same as the inside. If you treat others with respect, you will, in turn, get respect. If you mouth off, you're gonna get your coconut cracked.
Subject: Relationship issues
Probably the hardest part is getting used to the fact that everyone you know on the outside (mostly wife and kids) are living their lives while you are locked up. You have absolutely no control over anything. It feels like you have died and are watching your loved ones live their life and you cannot participate. Your mind plays tricks with you, you lose faith in your relationship, etc.
Subject: Relationship issues
The simplest and most reliable first step is a letter. It requires nothing from him in advance, no approved list, no phone account, no prior arrangement. You write it, address it correctly, and it goes through the standard mailroom process and gets delivered at mail call.
OSCI refers to two well-known facilities depending on which state you are dealing with. Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon is one. Oshkosh Correctional Institution in Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the other. Knowing which one...
Read moreSubject: Relationship issues
Juvenile incarceration puts significant strain on family relationships, and in many cases that strain is both inevitable and by design. The juvenile justice system is built around the idea that the family unit is a core component of rehabilitation, which means the system actively involves family in ways that adult incarceration does not. That involvement can strengthen some relationships while exposing fractures in others.
For families where the home environment was stable and supportive before the detention, the separation is painful...
Read moreSubject: Relationship issues
Obviously, there are no statistics on the subject, but if it is like the other women's facilities, there are definitely relationships that turn sexual. It is more prevalent when the sentences are lengthy. Women with long sentences will look for a partner to ride their bid out with. If they have partners, than the sex would be often but it can't happen in the "light of day" as it is against the rules. And, this is not limited to women...
Read moreSubject: Relationship issues
This is not going to be easy on either of you. He is thinking you are seeing other people because he can't see what you are doing. The mind plays tricks and you feel desperate. Connecting, communicating, visiting, talking on the phone, writing... it's all you can do. Do as much as you can and hope for the best. You might do everything right, never run around and he still might not come around. Good luck!
Subject: Relationship issues
Inmates in a halfway house are permitted to leave for work, treatment meetings, church and short trips to the store. Obviously, if they are out getting employment, they are going to run into people on the street, women, too.
Subject: Relationship issues
Trust what you actually experience over what someone tells you secondhand, and your experience is that when you two talk, it goes well.
There are a few explanations for why this happens. The most common is that staff passing along messages about inmate preferences are often working from limited or outdated information. A case manager or unit officer who was asked at one moment whether an inmate wanted contact may have caught them at a low point, a bad day, a...
Read moreSubject: Relationship issues
unfortunately no. inmates have a right of privacy from anyone peering into their personal information while incarcerated. The inmates are afforded privacy as it relates to their visitation list, their phone list and who is putting money on their commissary. The only person that can tell you is the inmate themselves. Use your instinct and good sense.
Subject: Relationship issues
There is no way to access your husband's call logs, approved contact list, or correspondence from the outside. Inmates have privacy rights that extend to their personal communications while incarcerated, and that information is not available to family members, spouses, or anyone else outside the facility without a legal process.
The facility itself monitors all inmate communication for security purposes, but that monitoring is internal. It is not shared with outside parties on request.
What is worth sitting with is the reason...
Read moreSubject: Relationship issues
There is no way to know without asking, and the only way to ask is to reach out.
Five years is a long time in either direction. It is long enough for real hurt to have settled in, and it is also long enough for perspective to develop in ways that are hard to predict from the outside. People in long sentences do a lot of thinking, and that thinking does not always land where you might expect. Some people hold...
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