Truth, Consent, and Betrayal

Today I'm not responding to anyone else's work, instead I'm working on understanding pieces of the non-monogamous relationship I've been part of.

Not every aspect of our relationship was fully consensual. My husband and I agreed that unless we were in an otherwise exclusive relationship, a barrier method was necessary in order ensure that sex was as safe as possible. After all, not everyone who has an STD knows it, and it would be terrible to pass along an STD to the other.

My husband kept to that agreement. I didn't.

Early on, my lover asked that we forgo condoms, and despite my husband's protests to the both of us, I agreed. I could try to justify myself, but really I betrayed his trust and our agreement, and that is that.

There have been some pretty dire consequences to that decision. I switched birth control a couple of times, settled on the pill because I knew my husband and I would be trying for a baby soon, and, after several abrupt schedule changes/holidays, was unable to be as consistent as necessary to prevent pregnancy. I got pregnant at roughly the time my lover left town for an extended time, a couple of weeks before my husband and I planned trying.

I was pregnant, and paternity was in question. That was NOT supposed to happen. I felt like a whore.

Because of the uncertainty and because I had drank heavily the first few weeks of pregnancy, before we officially started trying, my husband and I discussed abortion. We quickly rejected that option.

The uncertainty took a toll on our relationship, and the baby's birth did not answer the paternity question with absolute certainty. The baby was slightly overdue, which we kind of expected, and was darker than previous babies. Of course the person the baby most resembles is me. Blood type was no help either, as my husband and my lover share the same one.

Eventually, because the uncertainty continued taking a toll on our relationship, we got a paternity test. It was unable to exclude my husband as the father, which in DNA test parameters meant that unless my lover shared the same genetic markers as my husband, then my husband was indeed the father.

A couple of years later, a routine PAP smear came back irregular, revealing that at some point in my life I contracted HPV. I felt incredibly dirty.

Because HPV can take years to result in an abnormal PAP and can be passed without symptoms, I will never know for certain when I contracted it, or from whom.

A simple apology is not enough in cases like these.

I fully accepted the blame for my part in betraying my husband. My lover and I did not have his consent for forgoing condoms.

My counselor has revealed that I have a pattern of taking on too much responsibility, and that I should trust others to take on their share too. So now the question remains: how much responsibility for this betrayal has my lover taken? I'm not the only one who did wrong.