Just diagnosed with herpes ... need direction thru disclosure

johnna · April 18, 2014

Thank you.

WCSDancer2010 · April 18, 2014

Johanna

First ...Welcome! Glad you found us..

so this catches my eye first...

By Saturday, I had received a letter with an excellent notice of all negative results. I moved on thinking "awesome! we can be intimate!". We had our 6th date on Monday. It was wonderful. We made out and I told him I went to the doc and all was well. We had unprotected sex twice.

The next morning, I make my way home and fumble through a pile of mail that had delivered (4 days after the receipt of my negative result letter). I find another letter from the lab. It was a letter telling me I tested positive for types I & II.

I would be raising Holy Hell with them...... That is entirely unprofessional and possibly illegal. *If* you passed anything to your partner (and the odds are small BTW), I would certainly seek legal counsel for his medical costs...if for no other reason than to make the lab change the way it does business. You may want to write them a letter right now and let them know that they screwed up and that if your partner got it from you, you will be contacting them via your lawyer.

He gave me all the confidence that he's clean, and I believe him.

Honey... 80% of the population has Herpes and 80% of them don't know it. I know 2 people who had their first OB after 30 years of marriage. When you do disclose I would strongly suggest you tell him to get a FULL STD panel as a baseline anyway and tell him he has to ASK for Herpes and Chlamydia. Now, if he *is* H+ for either, that's good news for you as it means you can't pass that one on to him.... he'll already have the antibodies to it.

He confided in me that he was hesitant to wear a condom because he didn't want to fail (go limp) in the process of being physical (with me being his first since divorce).

For future reference.... don't buy into that unless you see their STD test results. Viagara is a wonderful thing..... yes, condoms have a horrid effect on men over 45 or so, but the little blue pill is great for counteracting that. And to be honest, if he has not had sex post divorce, how does he know he would lose his erection with them??? Nowadays they make condoms that are thinner and fit better so that helps a whole lot. OR, you can use the FC2 Female condom that doesn't affect them at all AND it covers even more area so it protects them better.

My world has changed drastically the past 3 days. In my attempt to be responsible with things, I still failed. I feel so awful. I keep kicking myself thinking if I had just waited through one more date to be physical, I wouldn't have put him in harm's way. I would have seen the letter and would have done a proper disclosure BEFORE our first sexual experience.

Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda. gets you nowhere my friend. YOU did all the right things. The Lab screwed up. Don't beat yourself up over this.

I don't intend to tell him how strongly I feel about him because I don't want him thinking I'm trying to manipulate him into making a decision based on my feelings.

There is nothing wrong with telling him you care very deeply for him and you want to keep his best interests at heart and give him the choice to carry on or not.

How do I go about disclosing to someone who just this past monday, I told I was clean and we could move forward?? Any suggestions on how to disclose, given the circumstances would be a tremendous help. I have the literature printed and intend to hand it to him as we talk. It's a wealth of information and my hope is that he doesn't panic or freak out

I would show him the dates on the letters and if you have them, the envelopes to show him that the Herpes diagnosis letter came AFTER you were given the all clear. Also have the Handouts from on here for him, and direct him here if he wants more info. AND, make sure to get him tested... if he *did* get anything from you it won't show up in the bloodwork yet so that would tell you he already carried it asymptomatically like you.... odds are pretty good he will at least have H1.

The good news is that if you have not been having OB's, chances are, your body is controlling it well ... so you can offer to him that you would go on the anti-virals if that makes him feel better. Without them, his risk of getting it is 4%... with them, 2%. Add condoms and you have a better chance of getting pregnant than giving him herpes.

I would read as many disclosures as you can and watch Adrails Youtube blog ... I'll include all the links. Then just be honest with him ... I'm sure he will see how upset you are with the Lab and how they handled it....

(((HUGS))) my friend. So sorry the medical "professionals" let you down like this.

Handouts:

http://bit.lyh-opp-diagnosis-handout/

http://bit.ly/h-opp-disclosure-handout

Disclosure e-book:

http://eepurl.com/b4IPP