lingering thoughts

[innuendo26]

I wanted to post in here because maybe I could get some feedback/guidance. I was involved with someone for 6+ months that did not know my status. I know that it was wrong to conceal for that long and I’d planned on telling them sooner, I just kept waiting for the right time and I felt like I dug myself so deep I didn’t know what to do. An early conversation of our about them not liking that someone they had a negative experience with that was Undetectable was my main reasoning for not saying anything.

When I finally shared 2 1/2 weeks ago they took it hard but told me that we could work through it together and that we would be okay. Last night they randomly broke up with me and told me they couldn’t shake the fact that I waited so long. A part of me understands and knows that I did in fact break trust by waiting so long but I just thought with all the work that we put in and love for each other would help us see things through. I’m a complete wreck right now and feeling resentful because there are so many things early on that I shouldn’t have tolerated but I worked through with them only for this to be the end result. I’m not trying to establish blame or point the finger because I know that it was wrong of me to conceal it for so long. I just feel super crappy that a person I thought loved me & told me that we could work through anything... looked me in my eyes and made it so causal in letting me go.

I should’ve listened to my gut and ran when all the red flags started pouring in at the beginning. Dating while living with HIV has been so hard and exhausting. Has anyone found lasting romance? Besides the fact of telling them head on which I know I didn’t do... are there any tips someone could give me?

[Griffon]

Hi , I feel for you so much . Right at the start , when I got my diagnosis , I made the decision not to tell anyone because I knew that other people's reactions would not be what I wanted - good or bad . The only person I did tell was a doctor I went to see about an unrelated issue who asked if I had any other underlying conditions . I told him HIV , and he asked if I was on medication and undetectable so I assumed he had some knowledge , being a doctor and all - but when I left the consultation room I could hear him frantically scrubbing and cleaning the chair I had sat on ! If a supposedly informed doctor reacts like this it's a fair bet that most other people are going to do the same . I think it is only a really exceptional person who is going to take a disclosure in their stride .

This puts us sufferers in an impossible situation . Gay dating is hard enough , the number and quality of potential partners is limited to start with , and restricting it to other positive people narrows the field to pretty much nothing ! Finding someone of the caliber to spend ones life with seems impossible to me . The chances are your relationship was going to end anyway whether you made the disclosure or not .

[innuendo26 in reply to Griffon]

You’re absolutely right. It’s wild that even people who are educated on the matter still have prejudice views... the person knew what Undetectable meant before I even had the conversation with them. I went into further detail just to make sure they had the whole view but it still didn’t matter to them. It hurts to think about how slim my chances are at finding someone.

[Griffon in reply to innuendo26]

Try looking at it from the other persons point of view : It would take a very confident and well informed person to enter into a relationship with someone they knew had a potentially fatal disease . Look at the world wide panic a mild corona virus has caused ! If I were negative and discovered I was in a relationship with a positive , the first thing I would do is get a test , then appraise the risk and reevaluate the relationship - and that's knowing what I do . My solution has been to be totally emotionally independent of other people . In life the only person you can truly rely on is yourself - I consider myself lucky that I was born with the strength of character to make independence from other people possible , but also understand that this is very hard for most people to achieve .

[Galen70]

All I can do to reassure you is that from working in a HIV healthcare setting, many of the patients I have seen have formed lasting and loving relationships with negative partners over that period. It is difficult , and believe me you are not the only one to have struggled with how to disclose to a partner or potential partner . If you live in the UK, your clinic should have a health advisor team that may be able to support you around this . Its impossible to say, but I wonder whether there were other issues and he was using the initial non disclosure as an excuse to get out.

[Mads1975 in reply to Galen70]

YES! I contracted HIV from my first sexual partner when we were still teenagers. Whilst we later married we split after 13 years. I despaired of finding love with a woman again with my HIV status but with each of the relationships I’ve had since - I’ve not found it a problem. I’m due to marry my girlfriend this year.

The news that we can’t transmit HIV whilst on HIV medication makes the conversations easier now but even before this I told my partners within the first month. I did this to ensure I could trust them and also so that if they reacted negatively then I would know sooner that they weren’t the type of person I wanted in my life.

I told each person I was telling them because I had feelings for them and that they should feel honoured that I have trust in them. I told how I contracted it, the medication I take that means HIV is dormant in my body. I don’t apologise or sound sorry for myself - just be matter of fact about it. This should rub off on them so that they realise it’s not a big deal it was when I first contracted it in 1995. Good luck

[Mads1975 in reply to Mads1975]

If it helps, my fiancé told me that there was no need to have told her as she knew she couldn’t contract it from me and wished I’d never told her! Admittedly that was her immediate reaction but there is an element of truth in it.

I had already dropped in facts about HIV which I was able to do when talking about my HIV voluntary work. The more often you disclose to people the more confidence you’ll gain.

I had a chiropodist who when I disclosed my status told me he’d wear 2 pairs of gloves 🙄. I then gave him a 5 minute education on HIV and jokingly said if invoice him for the training as he could save several thousand pounds in disability discrimination cases

[innuendo26 in reply to Mads1975]

Thanks so much for the insight. It gives me hope for the future.

[Mads1975 in reply to innuendo26]

You’re welcome. Remember that if you say it and you come across as scared, then the person you’re telling will sense it and think there’s something to worry about. If you come across confident and positively when you talk about it, then they will have the same feeling that there’s nothing for them to worry about

[innuendo26 in reply to Mads1975]

I’ll keep that in mind! Thank you