Betrayed

Barry has blown it big time now- he may be dying - if not right now I doubt he will survive for more than a couple of years if he gets though this crisis .

And he has given me HIV and has the possibility his daughter ( who he does really love ) could have HIV too.

The thing is Barry lied??

He lied to me and has probably been lying about his life at sea for the 25 years I have been with him .
He has made a total mug out of me and I thought I was not that stupid .

He got HIV from sex with a pretty young Brazilian woman at a party in Rio!!

And I guess he had to bloody know his from the moment he was diagnosed but to the bitter end he kept lying to me
And I am very sure that was not the first time or the last although even now he says it was!!!!!
But how can I ever believe him now!! I feel he can not bear to be found out even when he is this ill so it seems even now he can not tell the complete truth.

This HIV did come from him having sex in Brazil with an attractive young woman, who sat on his lap at a party!! he said he felt flattered!!
A bloody good reason to risk HIV and bringing it home to your family that is - he was bloody flattered.

I told a few good friends about this late last night - why not I do not feel I owe Barry secrecy anymore and I need support - and at least 3 said 'are you sure it was a Brazilian girl and not a Brazilian boy'

At the time when this was said I instantly said
'Oh no, it was a girl not a boy, Barry is not gay at all'

But now I realise I don't know? I thought I knew but now all I know is I do not know anything for certain. If he can lie about where he got HIV, when there is no point as the chips are down and he is very ill, and when there may be a point in telling me as it may help my treatment to know where it came from ......................

Then I can not guarantee I know anything really about Barry now!
There are lots of 'closet queens' who have children and are 'good' family men but cruse toilets and Barry's job is ideal for being able to lead this sort of double life.

I really am not homophobic, I have had lesbian relationships myself though a very long time ago and have gay friends. It is the lack of honesty that is getting to me.
I do feel that in fact there is not chance that he has every had any gay contact, I think or used to think that I knew him well enough to know that he is as orientated to hetero as it is possible to be.

But it is this feeling that I can not trust anything he has told me about himself

I asked him how old this girl was she was he said at least 22. But the fact he called her a girl does make me doubt that as he calls women, women not girls. I am not saying he knowingly had sex with someone too young but the fact he called her a girl means that subconsciously he had a sense that she was not that old.

And I said if she looked 22 this means she was probably about 16 or even younger!! Women use make up to look older up until about 30 , after that they use it to look younger. So if she looked 22 she/he was probably the same age as his daughter is now!!

I never believed that he would be so stupid

I thought my life was shattered anyway - but it truly is now!!
And what makes it worse at a time I was very unwell myself due to the horse riding accident.

The other thing that makes it awful is I am not unattractive - Maybe I am unattractive now at nearly 55 and after an accident but certainly when I came to live here with Barry I was only 32 and pretty much still OK to look at and desired still by some. Over the years I have lived with Barry going away to sea I have had many invites to be unfaithful and at times I have been tempted - but I have always said NO!

While of course I wanted to be faithful to him and would not go out of my way not to be, but we are apart for months at a time when I then get no cuddles, sex or intimacy and I find this very hard.
A big factor in why I always said NO if the offer came around by accident was I thought he would always say NO too!!!

Over the years I have refused both men and women, as I have and still do have women friends who are lesbian and in terms of risk to have sex with a woman would not have been that risky, well not as much as with a man, but I did not want to betray his trust!!!!!!!!

I understand why he would be tempted as we are apart for 7 months a year due to his job as a marine engineer. We are all human. And at the time of this encounter with a Brazilian girl/boy I was in a wheelchair with a fixator on my leg.

Not very attractive to anyone I guess?
As you can see from a picture at the time - I do not think I have ever looked worse!!!!

This is an insult that he strayed when I was so ill, but I am mostly disgusted that he did not tell me as I have always made it VERY clear that he could tell me anything without risk to our relationship - I just felt I needed to know given where he worked, and one of the reasons I felt I needed to know was the risk of HIV!!
Which I have always been aware of.

But I am angry with him even more for not telling me when he was confirmed HIV positive and then found I was . He could have told me then , he had every opportunity but he did not!! He owed it to me to be honest then!!

He let me rabbit on in the HIV consultation to the consultant and Gina the HIV nurse and on here and to anyone who asked about what a 'faithful ' man he was and how there was no possibility of his HIV being picked up through sex !!???????
And let me tell everyone he got HIV completely innocently.

I believed this and he let me think it. Let the consultant think it - but in retrospect I can see she and the nurse was not buying it!!!!
What a complete mug he has made of me.

He told me also today that the man who took him to this party in Brazil has since died!!
I wonder what from - it could not be HIV/AIDs could it??? Bet it fucking was!!!

It was only when I put things together i.e that he had a horrible flue like thing that was really bad just after he came back from Brazil that time and then 4 weeks later I got it and the consultants and my niece asked me if we had ever had anything like this as this can be an acute HIV stage.

So yesterday I asked him to think about what had happened in Brazil on that trip away.

I was thinking it may be a medical or dentist thing, but then I started to realise that this was just so unlikely - so it had to be sex.

So I told him today I knew he had to have sex with someone HIV positive at around that time that he came clean - and he told me from a hospital bed that he may well never leave - three have died in his ward/bay since he has been there on Wednesday.

If I had not challenged him today in hospital , even as ill as he is he would not have told me.

I think now he has always led a 'double life' when at sea and it is this that has led/contributed to my being so unhappy over the years and having to have various counselling over the years and to find ways of coping with the situation.

As you sense it don't you ?

If you are told one thing and your instinct /awareness says it is different - yet you do know?- but if you love them and they have given you no reason to think that your instinct is right ??

All you can assume is that it is your problem that you do not feel 'right' about your situation or your relationship - so you try to solve it on your own - you take 'responsibility' for your own feelings, you try to live your life despite your fears and your 'gut' feeling, you get counseling - you try to get help

Barry is still in hospital acutely ill - he has PCP pneumonia which is what terminally ill AIDs patients can die of see: http://www.aidsmap.com/en/docs/D239B440-65DF-44B2-B957-1E94A8943AC2.asp

I am hoping with modern medicines they can sort it out and he can have some time home with us to help us sort out our situation

But time will tell - he is not very well at the moment
But right now I both love him and hate him