Reply to I’m 20w pregnant. My fiance told me he has herpes.

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "I’m 20w pregnant. My fiance told me he has herpes."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm very sorry you are going thru this.  Unfortunately, I have a family member who went through something similar (i.e. a partner who had herpes) and I myself ended up with someone who had undisclosed herpes.

My view of this through my family member's experience shaped my own decision years later.  My family member was pregnant, her husband had herpes.  I don't know what the discussion was about that - whether he disclosed - prior to pregnancy, but I do know that she [b]discovered that her baby was anencephalic (meaning developed without a brain)[/b] in the 8th month, as a consequence of herpes infection during pregnancy.  She went through the trauma of deciding whether to have an abortion or birth the baby, the latter of which also involved thinking about whether the baby would be provided life saving supports like intubation, resuscitation, etc. if necessary.  She decided to have an abortion, and when she went to the hospital for the procedure, she was informed that the baby was already without a heartbeat, and she ended up having a stillbirth.  Because I worked in reproductive health policy at the time, the couple turned to me to ask questions about abortion, where to get one, how to handle the stillbirth, whether they should see the baby after birth, etc.  The whole situation was heartbreaking.

More than 2 decades later, I came to find out that my partner, father of my child, also had herpes and actively hid the infection from me.  I won't get into how I found out.  He tried to convince me of what many are saying on this thread -- "it's only oral herpes, everyone has that and it's not dangerous".  Except his oral herpes can be transmitted to my genitals through oral sex, so IMO he should have disclosed to me and let me make my own decision about whether to continue to have sex with him.  He also tried to say he had it before we met, and it wasn't through any cheating, but that, OFC, turned out to be false.

TBH, I was never able to get past the lies.  Sex with him started to feel very rapey to me - he was not giving me full informed consent to our sex.  He lied about the herpes deliberately because he was afraid I would make a choice he didn't like, so he chose to control the information I had so that I would continue to sleep with him.  I had no idea what was going on and exposed myself and a child (because I was pregnant after he knew he had herpes but before I knew he had herpes).  Having had my family experience with pregnancy and herpes, I just could not accept the level of risk he was willing to place on me without my knowledge.

I asked him to move out.  I kept full custody of our 2 children, who were only toddlers at the time, and he had visitation. Was it hard? Frightfully, but staying and raising children with a partner who was fundamentally a danger to me and the kids would have been way worse.  The kind of person who would be so reckless and manipulative, also presented similar character problems as our children grew into adults. I was never going to be able to change him into the kind of person who would care about others, protect them and do the thing that would be hard for him but better for others.

There is not a day I have looked back and wished I stayed with him.  I only wish I had left immediately, instead of taking a year to try and hear his side of the story (a story that he gaslight and trickle-truther about), get couples therapy, etc.

OFC, YMMV.  What you decide to do is your choice.

I just wanted to share that it is OK to take this situation seriously and to end a relationship over it.  I chose safety for myself, and that is OK.  [/quote]

Sorry this all happened to you PP. I also have a friend who lost a baby to a similar situation-late term baby developed without a brain. Not sure if she also has herpes but I have noticed her with a cold sore before so that could have been why.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics