I found out my boyfriend knew he had HSV-2 years before me and never told me. What would you do?
I’m honestly not sure how to handle this, so I’m looking for some outside opinions.
My boyfriend is also my son’s dad. We met in 2016 and had our son in 2018. I’ve always gotten tested regularly for STDs, including herpes.
In February 2020, I tested negative for HSV-2. We ended up getting back together after that. When we got back together, we used condoms every time. His reason for wanting to use condoms was that he said he didn’t want another baby at the time.
Something else that stands out to me now is that oral sex also stopped. His explanation was that I had complained about it in the past, so he said he didn’t want me doing it anymore. The thing is, I had complained because at the time we were living together but technically weren’t in a relationship. He wanted to have sex and do relationship-type things, but didn’t want to actually commit to being together. So yes, I had expressed frustration about that before.
In May 2024, I had a bump in my genital area, so I went to get tested and tested positive for HSV-2.
When I told my boyfriend, he was surprisingly supportive and calm about it. At the time, I thought maybe he was just handling it well, but looking back, his reaction feels different now.
Recently, I looked through his phone and emails and found emails from July 2020 showing that he had tested positive for HSV-2 and was reaching out to people about getting a “cure package.”
So he apparently knew he had HSV-2 years before I tested positive and never told me.
What really hurts is that when I found out I had HSV-2, I specifically told him he needed to get tested. He told me he didn’t need to because if I had it, then more than likely he had it too. I told him that’s not necessarily true and that he should get tested so that if he didn’t have it, we could take precautions to prevent him from getting it.
Now I find out he already knew he had it since 2020.
And the fact that we got back together after I tested negative, used condoms, and then he knew he had HSV-2 but never disclosed it makes me question everything. I keep thinking about whether he knew there was a possibility of passing it to me and whether some of the changes in our sex life were because he knew he had it.
I know I shouldn’t have gone through his phone, and I’m not trying to justify that. But now that I’ve seen the emails, I can’t unsee them.
I’m hurt, angry, betrayed, and honestly confused about what I’m supposed to do with this information.
What would you do if you were in my position? Would you consider this something you could forgive and move past, or would this be a dealbreaker? And how would you even approach him about it when you found out by going through his phone?