How would you feel if she admitted to having diabetes?
It is estimated that about 1 in 6 young adults in the continental USA have herpes. It is for life, true, and is incredibly easy to get, with something like a 90% transmission rate, but is also easily enough controlled that it shouldn't make a huge difference to you either way.
I can understand how you might find it a dealbreaker, but it isn't her fault she hooked up with a guy that couldn't keep it in his pants before she found you.
She has been mature and responsible in telling you beforehand. You owe her a similar level of maturity and responsibility in your response.
Personally, I'd wrap up well and carry on.
If you have feelings for her, and truly care it wouldn't matter . Of course you have to exercise extreme caution ( protection, and I am sure she's on some sort of drug therapy for it) .. But the way I look at disease is this, it has the persons body. Not their mind, soul or heart. So be kind, don't make her feel ashamed about it.. I'm sure her finding out she had it in the first place was hard enough
Well done, MM. Perfect answer.
Yeah..., what he said.
Well clearly love is an overstatement. I dated a man with herpes for a year and he was very responsible with his disease. We always used condoms and when he had an outbreak he would let me know and we would not have sex during that time. I never contracted herpes.
If you really love a person you'll find ways to make this work.
That's really a tough one. Honestly, totally honestly, if I knew someone had herpes, I just wouldn't have sex with them until I were engaged to them and knew I was going to be with them for life. But then again, I am young so that factors in. Its not a deal breaker, I just wouldnt get intimate unless I decided they were the last that I'd be with. We could find other ways to physically pleasure one another, people waiting for marriage do this anyway.
Besides, Im sure there'll be a cure for herpes in the next couple of years, or at least a vaccine for those who dont have it to not get it from those who do so it would be a non-issue.
It's really not that big of a deal. At least for me. I got it from oral when I was a teenager and only had one outbreak (that was itchy insanity!). And I have not had a flare up since. Maybe it just went dormant or something. My mother and sisters have herpes 1 and get really bad cold sores. I have never gotten a cold sore and I know I had to have contacted it from them on so many occasions.
Maybe I'm immune. I don't know.
But it's not like it's chlamydia or gonorrhea or HIV or HPV.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea rank so much lower than herpes on the badness scale. You can get those things cured in like a week on meds and then they're out of your life.
Even if you only got a flare up once its still possible to transmit it without a flareup and it must suck having to discuss that with each new partner so they know what they;re getting into.
Um, just FYI, herpes 1 (the one that causes cold sores) and herpes 2 (the one that causes genital herpes) are COMPLETELY different things. Your mother's cold sores really aren't comparable to this.
Actually, hsv1 and hsv2 differ only in where they usually show up. They are both the same kind of herpes. HSV1 usually shows up orally, but can cause genital outbreaks, and HSV2 usually shows up genitally, but can cause oral outbreaks. The ONLY way to know which one you have is through a blood test. There is simply a greater stigma associated with someone who has genital outbreaks than someone who "just" has cold sores. Newsflash: if you get cold sores, you have herpes. Bet I just rocked your world, huh?
WOA there. I would just like to point out that diabetes is not a transmittable disease. I am not sure it is a good analogy for herpes. Sorry, I had to throw that in there because some people are stupid and might get the wrong idea.
Nay, his question was "how should HE feel." Was not her fault, so he should feel the same as any illness.