Pheobe

Sorry... have no idea why the text is so large in my response.

MM1987, First, I want to say that I think it is brave for you to make this post even as I understand HopefulHerpy’s concerns and sentiments. You’re right, there is a kind of contradiction in telling people that herpes is not a big deal and that you can have a completely normal happy life with it, and that it’s just a skin infection that has an unjust social stigma, and then on the other hand compare it to HIV. Personally, I feel like herpes testing should be part of the standard STD panel, because if more people tested then we’d all be aware of how common it is and the stigma would go away. I share some of your concerns and I’m in possibly a similar situation because I’m not looking for a serious relationship, although I don’t truly know my HSV-2 status because I have a low positive and I’m in the process of getting a western blot confirmatory test. Allow me to share a little bit of my story in the hopes that it might help in someway. I was married to a man for almost 30 years, which is most of my life since I’m 48 years old. When we got divorced last year I went through a period of dating casually a number of men and perhaps I went overboard, however, I generally use protection with a few exceptions. I regularly got tested with the standard STD panel, which does not include herpes, and then at my annual exam this past February I specifically asked for herpes testing since I’ve never been tested for it in my life, even though I had absolutely no symptoms and had no specific reason to think I had herpes. So began a difficult journey that’s still unfolding. First, my doctors office called me and told me that everything came back negative except for HSV-2 which was definitely positive. I was in shock. It’s not that it wasn’t possible for me to have it, I just couldn’t believe that after 30 years of monogamy, seven months of silliness could result in this. Right away I disclosed to the four different men I had most recently had sex with (in the past month). Three of them were totally cool about it, or so it seemed. (One of them even asked me out for that night right after we had the talk!) The fourth one freaked out, as he is a more traditional person and had been looking to have a serious relationship with me rather than a casual one. He did say some things that were very judgmental, however after giving him a couple of hours, he told me he cared about me and we were in it together and it didn’t matter to him if I had it or if I gave it to him. He did asked to see my actual results, which I did not have because they were given by phone. So I called my doctor and went and picked them up. To my shock, the result was not positive at all. It was an equivocal result, meaning neither negative nor positive and requiring a retest. So then I had to contact all four again and tell them that a mistake was made. The ignorance of my doctors office was astounding. I had to lobby to get a retest which I got in March and it returned a low positive results, which is why I’m getting Western blot. Anyway, none of the casual guys thought they had herpes first, although they weren’t sure if they’d ever been tested, and the serious fourth guy was absolutely certain that there was no way in the world he could have it. To date I don’t think any of the casual guys have been tested. They just didn’t really care about it that much. One of them told me that he did test negative, however I have my doubts. That guy told me he was fine with it but then disappeared for five weeks before I contacted him to ask why he disappeared, and now we’re hooking up again. Fast forward to early April. Fourth guy, the one who was supposedly in love with me and thought it was absolutely impossible for him to have herpes, tested unambiguously positive for HSV-1 and HSV-2. English is not his first language, so I helped him talk with the doctor about the results. During that conversation the doctor asked him if he had ever had any symptoms and he said yes he had had an irritation for most of his adult life that reappeared periodically in the genital area. He said the last time he had it was like two weeks ago! I was not upset about him having herpes, but him having symptoms that he never shared with me after I told him my results, was devastating and destroyed my trust in him. At first he was racked with guilt because he felt like he gave me herpes even though there’s no way to know who had it first and I don’t even know if I have it. He told me he wanted to be alone and didn’t want to be with me anymore because of that. I helped him get some information and then I left him alone. About a week later he contacted me ready to be together again, having decided that it was probably me who had it first and he was willing to forgive me. But, in that time, I’d felt completely abandoned and lied to. I felt like he should have disclosed to me those symptoms he had, even if he was certain they weren’t herpes, especially after I told him I had a positive test. Instead of making me feel bad for my sex life, and trying to make himself appear superior to me, he should have thought about the possibility that he gave it to me. I also had time to look at the many, many problems in our relationship having nothing to do with herpes, so I decided I was fine with him leaving and didn’t want to be with him anymore. I told him this and he freaked out and said I was a slut, that I was running around infecting men everywhere, and I was a bad person because I broke up with him due to his positive results. This proved that this was not a person I want to be with anyway. I do still feel guilty about breaking up with him during this time that is so difficult. I don’t know what my status is, and it would’ve been nice to be able to be in it together, but I can’t overlook the things that he said to me. What are the takeaways here in relation to your post? When I disclosed to four different men that I was HSV-2 positive, two of them were totally accepting of it and had no problem, one freaked out and then came around, and one said he was fine but then needed some time to deal with it before coming around. When the one guy found out he was positive too, he jumped to the conclusion that I gave it to him and did end up freaking out and making me feel terrible and all that, however this showed that he wasn’t a person I want to be with anyway. Finding out that someone had symptoms that could be related to herpes and didn’t tell me about it was a total dealbreaker for us building a relationship from there. I know you’re not necessarily looking for a relationship, but I’m just saying the fact that there was prior knowledge that wasn’t told to me so I could make my own decisions, was definitely a huge problem, one of the few things I find unforgivable. If my results end up being positive, I am afraid that my options will be limited, however I see that three out of the four people who were interested in me before on a casual basis are still interested in me now, and none of them were all that shocked about it even if they each have their own ways of dealing with it. Only two of them were even concerned enough to have themselves tested. One actually told me that it was silly for me to be so upset about it because millions of people have herpes and it’s just a rash. And with the exception of judgmental fourth guy, every one of those guys right away thanked me for disclosing to him and asked me first if I was OK rather than worrying about their own risk of infection. Most importantly, I feel good about disclosing right away even though it was awkward and I had to have the conversation more than once as it turned out, because I know that I’m being honest, but also because it showed me who I was dealing with. And even when it’s a casual thing, that ends up being important because with sex there are always risks for things going wrong and you want to be sure you’re dealing with someone who isn’t emotionally a toddler. I understand your reluctance to disclose and I have no judgments for that. In fact, I thought about it myself. I just think when you disclose you do yourself a service, and it’s worth it to know that you’re having sex with someone who is an adult.