Living With HPV: An STD Ended My Relationship

She called me on the way back from her doctor's office. Although we were on the phone, I could see the look on her face. Her voice was slow, controlled and low, full of rage.

The interrogation began.

Was I now sleeping with someone else? No.

At any time in the last six years of our relationship, had I slept with anyone else? No.

Then how did she get diagnosed with HPV today? I don't know.

The thing about the human papillomatosis virus (HPV) is that you can have it, be a carrier, and never know. Other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have flare-ups, bumps or painful sensations to indicate that something's wrong. As I was about to learn, this isn't the case with HPV.

In a slicing tone, she began my crash education about HPV's effects: increased risk for genital warts, RRP (recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, where growths sometimes occur on the larynx and lungs), as well as cervical and other cancers. The virus could even be passed on during pregnancy to any children she may have.

But why did it show up suddenly, six years into our monogamous relationship? I went online and checked the website for the Centers for Disease Control, which estimates that in 90 percent of cases, the body's immune system clears HPV naturally within two years. It had been three times as long as that since I was sexually active with anyone else. I had trouble believing it myself, but 90 percent of cases isn't 100 percent of cases. We happened to be in that remaining 10 percent. My body still carried HPV. Uh-Oh: 50 Percent Of Men May Have HPV

We both assumed that her infection came via me. Though we could count the number of partners we'd both had on two hands, she could count hers on two fingers.

We had taken all the recommend precautions against STIs: using condoms, being monogamous, knowing your partner's previous sexual history. Had we been born 10 years later, we may have received a series of vaccinations against some, but not all, strains of HPV. But the only sure way to prevent getting HPV today is, like every other STI, to avoid any sexual activity or genital contact.

We reduced our risk as best as we could—or thought we needed to (which was not at all). But the risk and the infection remianed. What angered her most, though, was having the disease at all. She felt she took extra precautions to be healthy throughout her life, and by infecting her I doomed her to all those things she listed, and more. In her eyes, I, the man she'd loved for six years, had given her cancer.