How To Develop A Healthy Relationship With An Inmate

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A Look At Dr. Chapman's "Five Love Languages"


My sister Michele has a guilty pleasure. She is addicted to the reality TV show, "Love After Lockup," and while I've never personally seen a single episode I feel as though I've met the shows many characters myself. Romantic relationships are a reality in life, even prison life. Your "person," your loved one (LO), has a place in your heart and it may not make sense to your family or closest friends, but you know you're meant to be in your LOs life. Several years ago someone introduced me to a book by Dr. Gary Chapman that explains the different ways people express and receive love. If we can identify our primary love language, and discover the primary love language of those we care most about we are able to communicate love in a healthy, a relationship building manner. While most of us appreciate all five of the love languages, we all have one or two that we value more.

1. Words of Affirmation

You're an amazing person. You bring life and hope to the world around you. I know that your energy and efforts are helping make progress in your life and in the lives of those around you. Those words are true, and are also simple examples of words of affirmation. For someone who has this as their primary love language, those words carry a much greater weight. Affirm your LO, and ask them to affirm you.

2. Gifts

A few weeks back a friend gave me a small peacock feather. I'm not sure where he found it, but I noticed that this small gift has meant so much to me. Maybe my current love language is gifts? Suffice it to say, gifts don't have to be extravagant to have significance.

3. Acts of Service

One of my closest friends I've met in prison has such a servants heart. Cristian is consistently unconsciously getting others water, hanging up others jackets, and making sure everyone has a chair for meetings and classes. He is far from a "slave," he serves those around him because it's one way he expresses love for others. People who express love with this language often know they are loved when someone serves them this way back.

4. Physical Touch

Every time I share the love languages people make a gigantic leap to sex when we mention physical touch, and while sex is a form of physical touch, so is a pat on the back. In prison it's easy to see who expressed love with physical touch because these individuals are rough housing a lot. They bump into each other, they lightly punch others shoulders, and they don't just shake hands, they hug. This is the only difficult love language to express from the outside world into prison and I'm extremely interested in feedback on how you can show your incarcerated physical touch LO this.

5. Quality Time

There's a significant difference between time around someone and time with someone. I spend every hour of my life around others, but there are only a handful of people I spend time with. Quality time is intentional and focused time with someone and those who speak this love language need quality, focused time with the ones they love. The event itself is less important than togetherness. In order to deepen the roots of our relationships we must learn to speak each others language. Practice showing love in each of these five ways to your LO and share how your relationship grows. To dig deeper, and to identify which is your primary love language there are countless online tests to help you discover your language. I encourage you, have your LO take the test too and take your relationship to the next level. How have you been able to creatively show love to your LO? Even when it gets rough, remember to declare, "I Choose Hope!"


Like Trent's blog? Subscribe to his monthly newsletter at ichoosehope.substack.com.

Contact Trent directly by creating a Securus e-messaging account at SecurusTech.net or on the Securus App. You'll need his full name, State, and facility (Trenton Blythe, Texas, Texas Department of Criminal Justice). He'd love to hear from you!

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