Thirteen years after getting married, he got infected with HIV. He had gone to the hospital to donate blood for his younger brother who had an accident on his way back to Lagos from the village. Due to hospital policy, his blood was screened and then the bombshell dropped. He was HIV positive. His heart literally stopped for minutes. He was gasping for air. He couldn’t sit, he couldn’t stand.
He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. He asked the doctor if he saw the result well and he responded in the affirmative. He slumped in his chair. His eyes were flooded with tears. He was dazed and confused at the same time.
Memories of his sexual escapades flooded his mind. He recalled the many times he lied to his loving, cheerful and loyal wife that he was travelling for business but ended up in different hotels for sexual rendezvous with different ladies.
He felt powerful and invincible because his wife never found out about his double life. He felt bad when his whole flashed before his eyes. He asked the doctor if he was going to die soon, and he said no.
He was told to tell his wife the truth and bring her to the hospital on his next visit so that she can be tested and both of them can commence treatment together so that they can still live normal lives irrespective of their HIVC status. They were to come for counseling too.
He promised to do that, but never did. He was afraid of his wife’s reaction to this latest development. He felt there was no need to rattle their happy marriage. He was placed on anti-retro viral drugs, but he didn’t tell his wife the truth for years.
He continued to play a good husband and father while hiding such a life-changing secret from his wife. He lived with his family as though nothing happened and his wife had no reasons to suspect him. For years, this woman didn’t know her loving husband was killing her gradually.
He continued living his life until her incessant ill-health led to HIV test and it was too late, her health had deteriorated because it was full blown AIDS already. That was when he told her the truth. He confessed to her on her sick bed that he infected her with HIV and begged for her forgiveness.
She was stunned. She felt betrayed. She grabbed a glass cup and threw it at him. He dodged and the glass shattered on the wall behind him. She threatened to kill him too before she dies. She screamed so much, the hospital security had to escort him out of the hospital. She felt so bad when she learnt that he kept his HIV secret from her knowing that it would kill her.
She couldn’t believe that the same man she could lay down her life for would betray her in this manner. He should have told her at least instead of allowing her health get worse. She was crying all the time. She kept asking people who came to visit her who will take care of her four children. She was devastated.
She felt that knowing about her status and helping herself would have been better than dying of AIDS. She was enraged that he rather she died a painful and horrifying death, looking like a skeleton and a shadow of her once beautiful self instead of disclosing his status to her earlier.
She never stopped cursing him on her sick bed while waiting for death. At that time, she resented him. She later died an avoidable death, of a sickness that shouldn’t have killed her in the first place.
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This man is just wicked. Only heartless and selfish men keep quiet about their HIV positive status when they know the lives of their partners depend on their full disclosure.
If you truly love someone, you will do whatever it takes to keep them alive. Not disclosing that you are HIV positive to your spouse or partner while on anti-retro viral medication yourself is not cowardice but sheer cruelty and wickedness. It is a betrayal of trust.
It is estimated that half of the people living with HIV still do not know that they are infected while many in relationships and marriage do not know their partner’s status.
It is funny that many women who have cheating spouses believe covering themselves with the blood of Jesus before having unprotected sex with these men will ward of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. Funny females.
In this clime, most men do not disclose their HIV status to their spouses or partners. They would rather take their medications in secret. They believe that it is better to keep quiet than destroy their marriages. Such selfish, heartless beings deserve to be hanged.
It is unfortunate that many people are suffering this fate today. There are many unreported cases of spouses keeping their status to themselves, only for family and friends to preach forgiveness to the other party when their secret is exposed.
I believe that when it is proven that someone intentionally withheld information of their HIV status from their partners, they should be punished. Such men and women should be prosecuted for being so mean and heartless to their partners.
It should be a criminal and punishable offence to know you are infected and keep it a secret or recklessly infecting another person with the HIV. There should provision in our laws that such persons be sent to jail instead of treating it as a family matter.
You don’t intentionally withhold such life altering information about your health status from your spouse and start preaching forgive and forget to them later when it is too late for them to get the necessary help they need to live long and better lives.
Denying your spouse sex for months or years, insisting on introducing condoms all of a sudden in your marriage, divorce or breaking up with them all in a bid to evade telling them the truth about your status are all acts of cowardice and cruelty.
Telling your partner about your status may be the hardest thing to do, but it is the best and only option. Brace up and face your partner. Hurt them honestly than mislead them with a lie. They will resent you or even leave you, but it is best they know about it and get all the available help they need to stay alive.
HIV virus attacks the immune system and weakens its ability to fight diseases. Though there is no known cure for now, those living positive can live long and healthy lives while on anti retro-viral medication.
Without these medications, HIV develops into Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), which is the final stage when bodies can no longer fight infections.
Speak to your partner today, save yourself from eternal burden and guilt. Don’t allow your spouse or partner to die a needless death because you want to keep your HIV a secret. Be bold and say the truth.
