Hello everyone, I'm Jon. I've had HSV2 for 5 years now. I really wish I had found this site sooner because I spent a lot of time being angry, shameful, and very, very lonely. But two years ago I started seeing somebody and soon made my first disclosure. It went great. She was so supportive and fearless. We agreed to use protection and that I would take antivirals and pay attention to symptoms. We had a great sex life. But she wasn't right for me and it ended. That was hard. I really started to become fearful that she was a fluke and I'd never again meet anybody that would so willingly accept the whole me.
But I did. My current girlfriend and I have been together for seven months now and I see a long future together. The disclosure wasn't as easy as the first one, and she had more questions and fears, but she didn't dump me. She's got good reason to be fearful. She's much younger than me and a virgin. She's scared of having sex in general, not to mention sex with somebody with herpes. We've kept my guy under wraps except for hand jobs. We've had very good discussions about her fears, the statistics, protection, how herpes has affected my life, etc. I gave her the information available on the website along with some other articles I've found. I understand her fear and really want her to be ready to take our relationship to the next level, but every day I'm becoming less and less patient. I know she loves me and wants to be with me, but I just don't know how to get her to take that leap of faith. I've told her that once I learned to stop blaming myself, herpes doesn't really affect my life. So I take a pill every day...big deal. We've talked about how unlikely she is to get herpes by performing oral on me, but that hasn't happened yet. We've talked about the statistics of birth control failure versus herpes transmission to which she said she's always known pregnancy is a risk and has learned to accept that risk, but not with herpes. She has admitted that we already would have had sex if it weren't for the herpes. We have male and female condoms ready so there's no added pressure when the moment arrives. We've tried being creative in the bedroom, but creativity is not a strong suit for either of us.
Still I wait. I will continue to wait, because she's worth it. But I could really use some advice. Any advice. I don't want to pressure her, but I'm losing my patience. Thank you