Marriage With HIV-Positive Partner
HIV in majority patients affects in their most productive years of life, when they are working towards their education and careers. They are also looking for a life partner, their soul mate with whom they can navigate lows and highs of life. Many of them are already in a committed relationship. Diagnosis of HIV gives them a jolt and suddenly they are in extreme despair with no clue how to move forward. HIV infection carries so much of stigma, they fear being labeled as a person of low moral values and what not. Anybody in a relationship does not know what to tell his or her partner. Most of the time they end up breaking a relationship and decide not to get into a matrimonial alliance. The trauma of not being able to explain that what had gone awry is so much that they remain traumatized for whole of their life.
This was a typical scenario till sometime back but now with effective therapy and concept of U=U, HIV-infected person now lives a normal life. They can get married to their partner of choice. Yes, I say, it is possible to have a marriage with HIV-positive partner. So many patients came to our centre with this wish and we helped them to live a normal life. In most of the cases the partner was supportive and they had multiple sessions with us to understand how it works. We also encourage them to understand every aspect to ensure a successful outcome. I put an infected person on medicines and it makes viral load undetectable. Once virus is undetectable, we then discuss various options available to them for partner safety, having kids and complete their family.
We also have many couples who were already married and one of them was diagnosed with HIV later. They were so terrified and disturbed and were concerned about the safety of other partner and wanted to keep other partner negative. So I also supported them were also on similar lines.
So it is now possible to have a marriage with HIV-positive partner. We have many such stories but I will share one of them here, as it is something on which we can make a Bollywood movie.
Ajay, a 26-year-old boy, came to me in April 2015 from Delhi. He had Tuberculosis of lymph node in neck. I started his treatment for TB and after two months I put him on HIV therapy. He became perfectly well and joined his family business. In December 2016, Ajay told me he was in love with a girl named Neha in his college days prior to coming to me but parents of the Neha did not agree for marriage as he was from different caste and state and she was married to a boy of her caste later. Unfortunately, her husband used to trouble Neha a lot and used to beat her. She finally got divorced. He now wanted to get married to Neha. I told him it is possible, but he needs to tell her about his status. He got in touch with Neha and explained everything as I had told him. She discussed this entire situation with her family. Although Ajay had told them it is perfectly safe to have a marriage with HIV-positive partner but he insisted them to meet me for absolute clarity. So I fixed a time and explained to both families about all issues of this relation. Ajay and Neha had four more sessions with me and then got married with absolute confidence in June 2017. They were blessed with a son in December 2018 and then lived happily after with not the caption of The End but with title of life goes on.
So please reclaim your life and it is safe to have a marriage with HIV-positive partner. In next article I will talk about how to have a health negative baby with HIV infection.
Yours truly,
Alok
