138 Talking About Herpes With Your Partner, The 3 Things They Want To Know.

Life With Herpes

So glad you’re here today because we have a special guest, my husband. Ok, so you all have asked for Bill to share his side when it comes to me having herpes. So today I share how I disclosed to him and then we get his reaction to me disclosing.

Disclosing is one of the hardest things that people with herpes have to deal with. After the initial shock of finding out about your herpes diagnosis the next biggie to overcome is disclosing. If this is something that’s preventing you from dating please reach out to me. And seriously you should join our Secret Society, we talk about this all the time!

So today we get to hear from Bill about what went through his mind when I told him about my herpes diagnosis. He talks a ton about the stigma being the biggest part of having herpes. To be honest, he didn’t really know a ton about herpes so one of his biggest questions or concerns was, will he die early because of the herpes diagnosis. And that’s a pretty legit concern. There are so many people who are miss education on this and think that herpes shortens your life. Just so we’re clear...herpes does not kill you!

Bill talks about the stigma and how it was created from the drug companies to try and sell the antiviral. The assumptions that go along with having herpes are that you were sleeping around, or that you’ve had a lot of partners. But the truth is that these were stories that were all enhanced to make people feel bad so that they’d get the drug.

So here’s the good news, there is a solution to when you have outbreaks. The pharmaceutical companies came up with an awesome drug that’s an antiviral and it really works. It cut’s down your outbreaks from a week or more to a couple of days.

The most important thing to Bill was knowing that we can have sex and have a normal sex life. Having herpes hasn’t gotten in the way of our relationship nor out sex life. It truly is all the stigma.

Ok and then Bill being the math guy did a calculation to see how much time we spend having sex. Basically to see how much or little of an impact having herpes really plays a role in your relationship. So if you have sex 3 times a week for 20 minutes at a time the time periods you’re actually having sex is less than .5% of the time that you’re on this life. So basically what that means is it’s the relationship that’s the important part, not the herpes part.

The 3 major things Bill was worried about when I disclosed to him were:

• You’re not going to die
• There is an antiviral
• Yes you can still have sex

So as you can see, education about herpes is key. It’s also key to have the disclosure conversation with your partner. We talk a ton about this in other videos so you can check them out. And of course, we talk about them in the Secret Society.

Life With Herpes Details:

• Join the Secret Society
• HerpAlert (use promo code: lifewithherpes and get 10% off)
• Shop the LWH Essentials

Oh yea, remember to subscribe to the Life With Herpes newsletter and get The 5 things I wished she knew before I was diagnosed with herpes sent directly to your inbox + weekly updates.

Xoxo,

Alexandra

Just in case…

Learn about the Herpes Outbreak Toolkit:

Need to talk confidentially about herpes?

Oh Yea and in case you need Herpes Outbreak Essentials

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