What Do I Do Now?

 Hi my friend. Ok, firstly, breath. If you just did this or have been in a relationship with someone have not told them yet that you have herpes then just breath. Let me first start off by saying, I personally did not just sleep with someone and forget to tell them.  However, I know how hard it is to tell someone and in the heat of the moment we get scared and the convo just doesn’t happen. I hear it a lot in our one on one coaching sessions or its the reason why a lot of us end up with our diagnosis because our lover “forgot” to mention it. If you are a member of the Life With Herpes community you will know that integrity, honesty, and disclosure are very important to me. I always stress that we need to tell our partner, our past partner and anyone that we could infect. I believe that the truth always comes out and so that is the reason we need to tell the truth. Ok, if you're reading this and thinking, “thanks Alexandra I don’t need a guilt trip” or “yep, I know I need to tell them but I got scared” or “ I don’t want your judgment either.”  Please don’t feel that way and I’m not judging you. The reason why I explained my beliefs is because I wanted to make sure I explained my thoughts so that we can move through this and you can put your own thoughts together so you can tell your lover.

Breath

Just breath. If you are freaking out and hyperventilating stop what you are doing and breath. The more anxiety you create the better chance you will create an outbreak. Clearly, we don’t want or need that.

What Are The Reasons You Didn't Tell Them

It’s super easy to find all the reasons in the world why we shouldn’t do something. When I went to record my first episode for Life With Herpes it took me like a week. Then when I was ready to record it I came up with every excuse in the book like I have to go to the bathroom, or maybe I should wash my hair. I mean, not having clean hair was seriously holding me back from telling the world I have herpes...lol. Anyway, what are your reasons? Get clear with them. Be honest and know what was holding you back. Was it because it just got so hot and heavy and all of a sudden you were doing it or were you scared of the rejection or were you reconnecting with a past lover and scared to tell them you got it on while they were away?  Regardless, dig deep and keep asking yourself why until you get to the real reason. It’s important for you to understand and also to let your partner know why. It’s hard to forgive a bullshitter and we can have compassion when someone is talking from their heat. Remember...honesty is the key here.

Reasons Why It’s Important To Tell Your Lover

Since we just dug deep and went into reasons why we didn’t tell our partner we have herpes. I now want to discuss why it’s important to tell your lover. As you know, for me honesty is super important. Maybe this is the start of your relationship, starting off with a huge secret can be like waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Also, if you keep one secret then it’s easier to keep more secrets and then pretty soon it's a house of cards. I know I’m getting pretty deep here, but put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn’t you want to know? On a positive note, talking to your partner can help prevent passing it to him or her. This can be great news! The idea of out of sight out of mind doesn’t really help when it comes to preventing the transmission of herpes. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The more often the two of you can talk about it the better chance you have of protecting them from it. Again, put yourself in their shoes.

The Sooner The Better

There really is not an ideal time to tell someone that you have herpes. But, the longer it goes without telling them then a couple of things happen. Your guilt continues to fill up in your body and that guilt has to come out in some way. Just like if you keep filling up your glass of water, at some  point it will overflow. Most likely the way it will kindly remind you is by getting an outbreak. And secondly the best reason to tell your lover now is you are concerned, scared, worried, in shock and your emotions are real. Your partner will be able to see how important it is to you that you tell him or her. The longer you wait the harder it is to tell the truth. I mean think about when you were a kid did you ever do something wrong and then it got harder to come clean. In my case I was a kindergartner and I stole a card from a florist shop. You know the little card that comes with the flowers. Anyway, I took one not knowing that I was stealing but my mom made me go back to the florist shop, look the florist in the eye and apologize. It was so hard, I was crying and very scared. However, if my mom would have waited a couple of days the apology would not have been as meaningful nor would I have understood the importance of honesty. Or the other time when I was a second grader I “snuck” press-on nails into the grocery cart because I really really really wanted long nails. When we got to the car my mom looked at the receipt because she couldn't figure out why it was so expensive. Well, you guessed she marched me right back into the grocery store and return them and she even had the checker call the store manager up so that I could look him in the eye and apologize. My point is, the sooner the better and be you and be honest.