This is far too classic not to share, archive and retain in every way possible. You just gotta love the old douchebag!

Q. I’m a 47-year-old man and my wife is 49. We got married four years ago. Two days ago, she came back from the doctor and told me she has genital herpes. I am floored. She said she just found out. She said she must have contracted it years ago and never had an outbreak until 10 days ago. She has been to the doctor countless times over the last 20 years. I don’t know what to think. Is it really possible she didn’t know? I know she needs me to be a loving husband now, but it’s hard when I can’t believe she just found out about this. If she knew about it and lied to me, my trust is destroyed. Also, how can our marriage survive when I can’t bring myself to have sex with her? What do you think? —MARRIAGE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE

A. I think you’re being a douche, MIST. But, hey, everyone’s entitled to a little douchebaggery now and then. The wife’s got a sexually transmitted infection—that’s upsetting and you’re freaked. Understandable. You’re also overreacting and misinformed, MIST, and continued douchebaggery on your part may end your marriage. So let’s set down the douchebag and start getting informed, OK? “His wife could have been exposed to the herpes virus decades ago,” says Karen J. Pataky, a nurse practitioner and clinician at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington. Which means it’s possible that your wife didn’t know, MIST—believe it. Why would she suddenly have an outbreak? “Her immune system could have kept it contained all this time,” says Pataky. “As we near 50, our immune systems become a little less competent to deal with certain things.” As for all those trips to the doctor? “None of the medical situations that MIST describes would lead a physician to check for herpes antibodies; she would not know through routine blood tests, either.” (MIST included some details about his wife’s medical history that I shared with Pataky.) And guess what, MIST? If your wife could have been infected for years without knowing, then you could have been infected for years without knowing. Pataky connects the suppurating dots: “It’s possible that he is the one who infected her and he has not had an outbreak. Or he had a small outbreak and it went away quickly and he didn’t think twice about it.”

If it turns out that you’re not already exposed, MIST, you can use condoms at all times to protect yourself—but condoms don’t provide 100 percent protection against herpes. So why not do the decent, loving thing and just assume you’re already infected and refuse to let a piddling thing like herpes destroy your marriage?

“Cancer, HIV, heart attacks—that’s horrible news,” says Pataky. “This is not horrible news. Herpes is not something to ruin a marriage over, medically speaking. It’s never life-threatening and it’s possible to go years without any outbreaks.”

So, MIST, do you love your wife more than you fear a relatively mild STI that you’ve probably already been exposed to and may have exposed your wife to in the first place? If the answer to that question isn’t “yes,” MIST, you’re a bigger douche than I thought.

 

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