MIM Fan Recounts How She Narrowly Escaped Contracting HIV From Husband

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Before my husband and I started dating, we had been good friends for about 2 years. He never revealed anything to me about his HIV status.

Then we started seeing each other and one thing led to another and we started having sex. It was great and we were really in love with each other. Then he proposed to me, and of course, I said yes. This was in 2008. We got married that year.

My church requests to-be-couples is to do medical screening and pregnancy test before you can be married. We did this and everything was fine, or so I thought. And behold two months after marriage, hubby became very sick and had to be admitted for about 2 months. Diagnosis showed HIV positive. My whole world fell apart, I did my own testing but came out negative.

I went alone to the doctor to ask my troubling questions, and to tell him that we did the test together about 4 months back and we were negative. The doctor said either he just got infected or it was a false negative (maybe he was in his window period at the time). It was heartbreaking. We kept all this from family because believe me, the stigmatization of HIV is real.

My husband on the other hand didn’t believe it one bit, he said he is not HIV positive that something is wrong, that he is sure of himself. My husband is a very knowledgeable person and well read. We talked about it for many days and at the end of the day, a part of me believed that indeed maybe it is spiritual. Why am I then negative? Why 2 months after our successful wedding? Maybe it is just a temptation. What do I do now? Who do I talk to that will not laugh at me. Only God. I put everything in the hands of God, and started praying harder than before.

He became well and resumed work to the glory of God. He kept saying he didn’t cheat on me and he didn’t have HIV. I even begged him to tell me the truth, that I will stand with him no matter what. I was so hurt that I told myself I will never have sex with him again. He respected it, he respects me so much. He was a good man.

Then one day I was so horny, I couldn’t bear it anymore, I went to buy a pack of condoms after talking to my doctor. We started making love with condoms. But there were few times, body no be firewood, before I could can pick a condom from the bedside drawer, we would make love without it. This was our marriage for 3 years.

Then in 2011, hubby became sick again. He was adamant to go to the hospital, he said he was tired of doctors telling him he is +HIV when he knows he isn’t. I talked and talked. Hubby’s family thought I was a bad woman and I wasn’t taking good care of him. He went from cough, to rashes, to pneumonia and eventually to death.

I thought the pressure of running around prevented my period from showing for up to 4 months. I didn’t know I was pregnant. The last time we made love before he got sick was when I conceived. Hubby died when I was 6 months pregnant. He knew he was going to be a father. All my ante-natal screening was negative to HIV. I had our son vaginally 3 months after he died, a healthy baby in 2011.

I am telling this story to those women who think HIV (or any STD) is for some people or status, to marry God fearing men who would not jeopardize your future for few seconds of pleasure.

I have been there and have experienced it first hand. By God’s grace, I am working and can provide basic needs for my son and it is still hard to trust another man. Like my doctor said, I was one of the lucky ones, I came out unscathed.

Do not cheat or condone cheating. Staying with a cheat is like been in the war front, it’s only a matter of time. You deserve better. We all deserve better. God bless you