My Husband And I Both Have STDs And It's Fine
by Anonymous
The first time I saw one of my husband’s herpes outbreaks I thought, “That’s it?” That’s what all the life-long panic has been about? You could barely even call it an “outbreak.” More like a few flesh-colored bumps. Of course, those bumps were on the base of his penis. But still.
When I was 11, they showed us pictures of herpes outbreaks on a projector screen in Sex Ed to terrify us. They made us feel that herpes would ruin our lives. A cartoon depicted a teen boy and girl, hunched over in shame, itching their presumably herpes-riddled privates, ostracized from society.
I don’t completely judge the way my elementary school teachers dealt with sex. They had to do something to get us to use condoms. The problem is that it sets up the near 70% of adults under the age of 50 who will get herpes to feel like they’re actually a part of a very small, very shame-filled population, when they’re in fact in the majority.
That shame is what keeps us in the shadows.
Because we do wind up figuratively hunched over in shame, just like the kids in the sex ED cartoons. That one “friend” makes a tasteless joke about some woman who rejected him “probably having herpes,” and everyone laughs, not because he’s funny, but because if they don’t laugh, the STD-accusing finger could be pointed at them next. Finding out who has herpes can feel like a witch hunt—everyone worries they’ll be called out next.
And, like witches, people with herpes did nothing wrong.
But…they were irresponsible, some of you with flawless genitals are thinking. And I’ll get to that in a minute.
The STD stigma.
“This guy is hot. But he doesn’t act like it,” is what I thought when I first met my husband. He’s the kind of adorable that can get women flirting with him right in front of me. I was surprised he didn’t have more game. But that was also why I liked him. He put me at ease. He was the first guy I’d met in a while who said he wanted to be friends, and who truly didn’t seem like was trying to get me into bed.
We became friends.
Over our third round of beers he said, “I kinda have this STD so, I haven’t had sex in two years.” He said he’d met girls he liked. He went on dates. But he didn’t know what to do about the whole bringing up he had herpes thing, so he’d politely bow out before things got physical with anyone.
And that’s when I knew I really liked him.
“I could never be with a guy who had that. I’m sorry, but no.”
My friend Hannah was horrified that I liked a guy with herpes.
“I could never take that on.”
My other friend Corinne made a face like she’d just tasted something rancid.
“that shame is what keeps us in the shadows.”
I loved these girls. These were my closest friends. But Hannah’s boyfriend at the time “didn’t like to talk about feelings” and was a little homophobic. And Corinne’s boyfriend was intensely controlling and didn’t let her spend time with male friends without him there to “chaperone.” And there is no cream or over-the-counter pill to fix those issues.
I also knew that Hannah and Corinne had made plenty of choices in their lives that could have landed them with an STD. I know because, I had too. We all had. So the reason we were STD-free (at the time anyway) was certainly not because of some merit or moral superiority.
That night after drinks with Hannah and Corrine, I had sex with my future husband for the first time. We had become good friends, and after many months of getting to know each other, in the middle of eating breakfast for dinner on my living room floor, I asked him to stay the night.
The reality of herpes.
I’ve been with my husband for nearly eight years now.
I do not have herpes.
It turns out, those terrifying images they show you in sex ED are incredibly rare. I’ve spoken to several gynecologists about this, and they’ve all agreed we’ve made way too big a deal out of herpes, and that most people, so long as they manage their stress and take care of their immune systems, very rarely have outbreaks. You only see the images of the worst outbreaks when you Google them for the same reason you only see the images of the worst car wrecks when you Google those: the Internet knows what we find interesting.
But those pictures aren’t a true representation of most cases. As for those who do have bad outbreaks? There are medications for that.
When it came time for my husband and I to start discussing ditching the condoms, he offered to take a pill that prevents breakouts. But the potential side effects included depression and severe headaches, and I wasn’t going to make my partner live in misery to prevent the single outbreak he had a year. So, yes, when we stopped using condoms, I understood that I was taking on a risk.
“What if you get it and then you guys break up and then nobody wants to…” asked Hannah. I knew how she wanted to finish that question, but she stopped herself just short of saying it.
At this point when we were debating quitting condoms, we’d been dating for just shy of four years. We’d been living together for one and a half. We had a dog together. He was the beneficiary of my life insurance plan. I felt certain that we would be together forever. But I understood that Hannah’s concern was valid. So I asked my gynecologist what my real risks were.
“Your partner knows when he’s having an outbreak, yes?” she asked. I said yes. “And he has one outbreak a year, give or take?” she asked. I said yes. “Okay. So just don’t have sex when he’s having an outbreak.”
I asked, “Well what if he is having one and we don’t know it?”
She told me that that’s uncommon. Not impossible, of course. But after hearing her measured response it was a calculated risk I was willing to take.
To give you some idea of how unlikely it is that I will contract herpes from my husband, know that research that followed couples in which one person had herpes, and the other didn’t, found that transmission only occurred in between 5-10% of the couples.
So in order for this doomsday scenario of my being suddenly single, with herpes, and no man wanting me, several unlikely things would have to happen. 1) I’d have to get herpes from a rare ‘invisible’ outbreak from my partner, then, 2) we’d have to break up and then 3) I’d have to fail to find any man on the planet who wanted to ever have sex with me again because I had herpes. Due to a combination of reasons that are both rooted in facts and gut-feeling, I knew that exact series of events was highly unlikely. And I was not about to go on using condoms forever with my hopeful-life-partner, all out of fear of a highly unlikely scenario.
After talking to my gynecologist, I went home, and had condom-less sex with my partner of four years.
When there are two STDs in a marriage.
In December of 2020, advanced precancerous lesions caused by high-risk HPV were found on my cervix. Two weeks later, I underwent surgery to have that small affected area of my cervix removed.
When I told my husband about my irregular Pap smear that detected high-risk HPV (high-risk means it’s a strain associated with cervical cancer), he sat next to me on the couch, took my hand, and said, “It’ll be okay.”
He didn’t ask, “Well do I have it now?!” or “Who gave this to you?!” Because we both had lives before we met each other. Though I low-key thought about murdering every ex who could have given this to me. So now we’re working with a couple of STDs in this marriage.
At this point in our relationship, my husband had helped me off the bathroom floor after I’d passed out while having diarrhea – twice. And I’d examined quite a few weird rashes on his body. We were a married couple, and we were adults, so we’d learned that our bodies were going to be messy sometimes.
“when we talk of STDs, we think of just the STD, but don’t assign it to a real human being who might be amazing. ”
When you’re single, and talk of STDs, you think of just the STD, but don’t assign it to a real human being who might be amazing. Being eight years into a relationship, I can tell you that, our infrequent sexual activity and my husband’s infrequent herpes outbreaks almost never overlap. In fact, it has happened exactly once in our entire relationship. Only once did we happen to feel like having sex on a day he was having an outbreak.
The other reality is, for most individuals, symptoms of outbreaks are mild, get even milder over time, and sometimes eventually stop entirely. So, all the judgment and fear from friend, all the whispering behind my back that I knew went on, this is what it was all about? The insinuation that I should have given up a lifetime with someone I adore all because, at some point, we might have to abstain from sex because of an outbreak? Uh, no.
I’m actually glad we have STDs. I really am. They’re the physical flaws that quickly reveal the character flaws of others – the same way being a bit overweight or having acne revealed the bullies in high school.
When I tell people about our STDs, they show me who they really are.
