My partner is afraid of transmitting GHSV-1 to me

I want to start this off by saying how much I love my partner. When they disclosed this information to me, I knew it was an incredibly hard thing to do for them. They contracted this 5 years ago from someone who ended up blocking them after my partner confronted them about not disclosing, and they ended up feeling deeply depressed and broken for a long time.

I am someone who LOVES physical touch, and sex is important for me to experience with my partner regularly (that may be why they ended up disclosing to me so early on). Anyways, as soon as I heard that I sent them my recent STD results and reassured them that this does not end us in the slightest - we just need to adjust.

Now that we're more official and in love, I still think they're even more afraid, and they joke about just "being abstinent" a lot (they thought they'd never have sex again after that happened). I don't want them to feel like we need to abstain just to protect me.

Is there anything we can do other than just having them take antivirals regularly and using protection? Will we just have to assume this risk? Because I'm not leaving and I want us to make it more than anything.

Posted Apr 24, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

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