New relationship years after contracting virus.

[50Secondchance]

I have been married for 20 years and dated my husband five years prior. His previous girlfriend gave him genital heroes and unfortunate he passed it on years ago.  I have always had slight to know outbreaks over the years and wasn’t really sure I even had the virus until I took the blood test. Fast forward to now when I’m thinking about a divorce and entering to relationship with someone else. I know I need to be honest with this man and will also use condoms and asking the doctor about suppressive therapy. Can you pass on a virus or oral sex? How long does suppressive therapy take to really work, and how do I reassure This new man?  Thank you.

[auntiejessi]

I'm sorry you're thinking about divorce. That's always a tough time, even if the reasons for the divorce are good ones.

So suppressive therapy works to help prevent outbreaks and to help stop asymptomatic viral shedding (ASV). This is when the virus is active on your skin, but there are so signs or symptoms, so you don't know it, but you could transmit herpes at this time.

I'm assuming you have genital hsv2, and the blood test confirmed that. Make sure your test result was a type specific IgG blood test, and that you got separate results for hsv1 and hsv2. It should give you numbers for the results, like hsv1 7.9, and hsv2 11.4 (your numbers will be different).

Assuming you had the correct testing done, and you have genital hsv2, this is what we know.

Ghsv2 sheds about 25% of days evaluated. This means there are about 25% of days when you are shedding the virus on your skin and don't know it. The shedding rate is the same if you get no outbreaks, or have them frequently.

These are the transmission rates for ghsv2 from women to men for ghsv2:

Ghsv2 transmission, female to male, over the course of a year, assuming sex 2-3 times a week:

Only avoiding sex during an outbreak - 4-5%

Adding condoms OR daily suppression - 2-3%

Adding condoms AND daily suppression - 1-2%

So how do you tell a man? Just be honest. It should be part of your safer sex conversation, where you also talk about what he may have that could affect you, and his testing history, etc. Be honest, but don't make it horrible, because it isn't. If you tell him, "I have something to confess, and I know you'll be shocked and horrified, and will totally understand if you don't want to be with me," he's going to brace himself for bad news, and will then view herpes as horrible news.

If you tell him that you'd like to discuss safer sex and STDs, and that as part of that, you'd like to let him know that you have hsv2, but you have info to share with him, and you can discuss the different prevention methods and he can help decide what works best for you both, and hey, has he ever been tested, it may still surprise him, but it's not automatically horrifying news. Have the info handy to answer any questions he may have.

He may decline to be in a relationship with you. That's okay. We all have the right to decline that with anyone for any reason. He may have things that you decide won't work for you. That's what dating is for. Pay attention to his reactions. Even if he doesn't decline, how he responds reveals a lot about him. Is he respectful? Does he freak out? You still have the right to decline him if you don't like how he responds.

I've had hsv2 for almost 15 years-ish. I've never had anyone turn me down, and I'm no super model. I've even used it to get guys to leave me alone, and it doesn't work. Only once did a guy have close to a negative reaction, and he was very poorly educated on STDs, and thought you could get AIDS from a toilet seat, and things like that. I haven't had sex with most of them, for lots of reasons, but they were all my decisions, not theirs.

Read the Herpes Handbook, written by Terri Warren, who is one of the top experts on this. It's free, too. https://westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/