How much can mental abuse and stress effect your HIV

[justxliving96]

I'm currently in a relationship with someone who's HIV negative. I found out I was poz about a year ago, & things were going fine when we found out. Fast forward to now, things have completely changed. You would think getting news like this would bring you closer(which it did), but it's also made us drift apart. We haven't been intimate in a while & it has been getting to both of us, but mostly him. He constantly says things that are shallow & makes me feel like I'm not good enough. Some of the things he says to me really hurts, like, he would risk our relationship JUST to have sex with his ex. (If he got the chance). & the impact it's having on me mentally & emotionally is major. I feel like I'm not good enough to have him love me the same way I love him. I'm at my very end with this man, because I need someone who's going to love me, & be there for me because they want to. NOT because they feel like have to. So my question is, can all this stress cause my health to decline?

[Jim Allen]

Hi

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear that your having relationship problems, ill be honest if i loved somebody but it made me feel bad about my self I would choose myself and I have done that before, your have to do what is right for you long term and being with someone who hurts you emotionally is not healthy as far as I am concerned.

As for the stress look I believe that continued and ongoing stress is bad for anyone, HIV does not even come into play. Stress without relief is bad. That's what I think.

Have you spoke to anyone regarding this issue ? 

Anyhow wishing you well.

Jim

[harleymc]

What you have described is domestic abuse. Make your plans quietly then get out of the relationship quickly and without giving your abuser a clue beforehand.

[Jim Allen]

What you have described is domestic abuse. Make your plans quietly then get out of the relationship quickly and without giving your abuser a clue beforehand.

Indeed this is good advice.

[mecch]

justxliving96 - do me a favour. Before you abandon this as a lost cause, try a couple times to have honest and direct communication about this state of the relationship. Or even try couples therapy if either of you would go for that.

It does sound like its possible he might have fear of HIV and transmission.

I was in a sero-discordant relation as the HIV- partner, in the noughts (2000-2009), there was a lot of confusing information around when my partner got HIV. 

In fact I wasn't up to date on safesex guidelines. Plus I was around for the disaster plague years, and had a lot of weight that didn't apply to the situation in 2005, for example. I figured my bf would inevitably be sick for years, and probably die young. I knew in 2005 there was treatment, but I buried lovers before hand so didn't emotionally know that. 

Dumb of me. And he didn't spend time educating me.  He said he was a special case and wouldn't need treatment, and anyway treatment was great and blah blah blah... as I heard it. 


10 years later he told me he had locked down and researched the true situations for himself, as newly HIV+, but had dropped the ball educating me, had been unable to do that.

I dunno. Just a thought. Clear the air and know the the real situation before you trash the relation.  It's worth a shot and could benefit both of you, even if you finally agree its best to split.

[bocker3]

If everything was good before you Dx and this behavior has only surfaced since, then it might actually be time for some couples counseling.  If you hadn't experienced this sort of thing from him before, I would not instantly call it domestic abuse -- I'd call it very bad coping skills.  Relationships take effort and work to maintain -- throw in something as "big" as this Dx and it isn't that surprising to see things come up like this.
Now -- if he won't go to counseling and having an open and frank discussion doesn't help - well, it may be time to think about moving on.  It may simply be that he doesn't want to be in a serodiscordant relationship.  Don't worry about that, unless and until you must.  If you want this relationship -- fight for it.

If I had just thrown in the towel everytime my husband and I had started to drift apart, we never would have hit 5 yrs, but we did fight for us(and counseling was a part of it on 4 occasions).  Now we are closing in on 26 yrs.

Good luck,
Mike