What Your Partner Is Thinking When You Tell Them You Have Herpes

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Life With Herpes

This is one of the big questions I hear when it comes to dating someone who does not have herpes. We are always worried what we should say or not say or wondering what they are going to need from us in order to process the information. Here are the top questions partners ask and how you should respond.

Tell The Truth  

Meaning, tell them you have herpes but you don’t have to go into your entire story. There's another day and place for this. Remember this is now about them processing it, not you reliving your diagnosis. What I mean by this, is you can touch on when you were diagnosed, if you want to disclose who it was from you can or you don’t have to, if you don’t know you can say you don’t know. But the most important thing is letting your new lover know you have herpes.

How It Affects Them

Naturally, when we are told some shocking news we go into our survival brain and worry about how it will affect us or change our lives. So this is what’s going on with your lover so try not to take it personally if they are not as consoling and more concerned about their health. They are going to want to know what the herpes virus is and such as what type you have, where you have it, how long you have had it. This is where you go int to the herpes 101 or highschool sexed.

Will They Get It

We are back to the survival brain and wondering if they either already have it or what the chances are they will get it. The key here is to let them know that is why you want to discuss this. There are 3 ways to prevent passing herpes and they are condoms, daily antiviral and communication. There are a lot of episodes on prevention and viral shedding, I’ll invite you to check those episodes out for more details. The key here is to discuss with them what methods you want to use to prevent passing it.

How Often Do You Get Outbreaks  

Your lover will ask you how often do you get outbreaks and do you take anything for it. This would be a good time to mention viral shedding and how herpes can be transmitted without signs or symptoms. You can refer to the FAQ document that I have for you to download to get the stats and the chances of transmission.

Do you know when you are getting an outbreak? What does it look like?

Once you let them know how often you get outbreaks they are probably going to ask you if you can tell when one is coming on. Maybe you can maybe you can’t. Everyone has different signs and symptoms of an outbreak. Talk about it. Oh and don’t be surprised if they ask what it looks like and if it hurts. Remember, if they have never been exposed to someone having herpes or never had a conversation about this they don’t know.

Some key things to remember when you are having this conversation is it’s not about you. It’s about your partner. So do your best to inform them even if you feel like it’s captain obvious, they don’t know. This is not a time to bash your ex and tell them how awful they were to you and the cheated on you etc. Save that for another time and another place. This is about making sure they feel comfortable with you having herpes and giving them the facts and answering questions.

If you want more guidance with this come over to Life With Herpes and find the support.

Here’s How I Can Help

Join our monthly live Herpes Support Group - www.lifewithherpes.com/supportgroup

Herpes Outbreak Toolkit - //herpes-outbreak-toolkit

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Join The Live With Herpes Community

If you are ready to join a community of people who are living with herpes also then you will want to join our slack group. It is FREE and it is a great way to find the support and comfort that you are looking for. Head on over to www.lifewithherpes.com and join our community. You will receive a slack invitation as soon as you sign up. See you in there.

Ways You Can Support The Life With Herpes Show

If you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it for you than  a subscribe would be a great idea.

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Are you a podcast listener? Please give the Life With Herpes show a review. It is a way to pay it forward to fellow friends who are living with herpes. You can Subscribe, Rate and Review the show through your iTunes app or on the desktop. Seriously, it helps out a lot more than it is a hassle for you. You see, iTunes has an algorithm that organically promotes the show, so the more ratings and reviews the Life With Herpes Show receives then the higher it gets ranked. This is your way of paying it forward and helping someone find the show who really needs it. Oh, and you can totally use a fake name, so don’t worry about a friend finding you in the iTunes review. Talking about herpes needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. You are totally a part of this movement so THANK YOU!   Subscribe, Rate and Review[podcast src="https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6728119/height/50/width/500/theme/standard-mini/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/" height="50" width="500" placement="bottom" theme="mini"]