Prison Brides’ Joseph has revealed that he plans to start a family, but it is unclear how he and Svea plan to make their long-distance relationship work.
Svea and Joseph were one of the very first couples to share their story on Lifetime’s Prison Brides documentary.
Like most of the long-distance, behind-bars relationships on the show, Svea met Jonathan through an inmate pen pal service and the two of them started dating about two months later.
Jonathan, like many of the other convicts featured on the show, began his Prison Brides story behind bars at the central correctional facility in Michigan.
However, if you have been keeping up with the new Prison Brides episodes, then you will already know that Joseph is one of the lucky few Prison Brides convicts who has been released on parole.
Thus, he has been able to start his life on the outside with Svea by his side (well, sort of.)
An update on Svea and Joseph’s relationship
If there is one hard truth that Prison Brides has brought home within its first few episodes, it is that working on a relationship does not necessarily get easier on the outside.
And we have already seen Joseph and Svea get into scuffles on the show about their basement living situation and the cultural differences between how Germans do things and how Americans do things, in the short time since Joseph’s release.
Now, in the fifth episode, the relationship between Svea and Joseph seems to have taken another step in the wrong direction, as Svea admitted that she had no immediate plans to get married to Joseph.
And while Joseph admitted that he had intended to start a family – it seems like they may be miles apart, both physically and in terms of their relationship goals.
Prison Brides season one so far
The first season of Prison Brides follows the stories of seven couples who are trying to make their relationships work around the American prison system.
Alongside Svea and Joseph, the show has also shared the stories of Erin and Michael; Jessica and Craig; Emma and Curtis; Andreea and Cage; Olivia and KJ; and Gabby and Jamal, in its first five episodes, as follows:
| Episode | Title | Initial air date |
| Episode 1 | A Strange Situation | January 10, 2024 |
| Episode 2 | Proposal on Parole | January 17, 2024 |
| Episode 3 | I’ve Seen Him Naked Now | January 24, 2024 |
| Episode 4 | Second-Degree Engagement | January 31, 2024 |
| Episode 5 | Collateral Damage | February 5, 2024 |
Joseph’s story
From what Joseph has shared about his past on Prison Brides, it seems like he has a fairly similar story to many of the other inmates profiled on the show.
He grew up in quite an unstable home and was frequently abandoned by his mother until his grandparents adopted him.
Joseph was arrested at the age of 19 after robbing someone at gunpoint and was eventually sentenced to 11 years behind bars as a result of armed robbery, assault and possession of a firearm charges.
By the time we saw Joseph get out on parole on the show, he was 30 years old, and had spent almost his entire adult life in the system.
Where Svea and Joseph are now
Joseph revealed in the most recent episode of Prison Brides that he managed to land a job at a factory, which certainly improves the chances of him not violating the terms of his parole.
However, this little bit of good news does not negate the fact that Svea is about 12 hours away in Germany.
Both Svea and Joseph like to keep their private lives off of public social media sites, but a private Instagram account dedicated to Svea’s horses does still list her current place of residence as Dusseldorf, Germany.
And with Joseph likely having a few months of parole still ahead of him, it seems like this couple will have to maintain their very long-distance relationship for quite a while.
Is there hope for Svea and Joseph?
There is no denying that the couples featured on the first season of Prison Brides seem to have all the odds against them. In fact, we have already seen Michael and Erin hit their first post-Prison Brides wobble with Michael’s newest arrest.
And while one Prison Brides relationship failing certainly does not mean that all of the others are doomed – it is difficult to follow exactly how Svea and Joseph plan to have a future together while living in separate continents and keeping things casual on the marriage front.
In the end, it seems like we will all just have to wait and see whether Svea and Joseph can make their relationship work against these seemingly overwhelming odds.
Also read:
