'DEAR
T&A HARASSED BY MY EMBITTERED EX'Send letters to:
Post: Tokunbo and Alfred, Positive Nation, UKC, 250 Kennington Lane, London
SE11 5RD
Email: editor@positivenation.co.uk, with 'Tokunbo and Alfred' in the subject
heading
Online: Log on to the UKC 'Positive Voices' discussion board at www.ukcoalition.org/discus/ and look for the 'Tokunbo and Alfred' thread
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Dear Tokunbo and Alfred, I met someone in November of 2002 while I was going through a rough time with my husband of 10 years. I was very straight and frank to this guy. I told him about my HIV status and gave him time to think about it. A month later, he came back and said he loved me so much he didn’t care as long as I could help to protect him. The relationship started in January 2003. We made sure that we had protected sex. By July, he started threatening me that if I dumped him he was going to tell everybody about my status. In December I finished with him as he was becoming impossible and demanding. By then my husband and I had sorted out our differences. I told this guy, and boy! wasn’t he spiteful. He phoned my husband and told him that he had been going out with me for one year. He texted me to say that he is going to expose me; that I’m a danger to the public and he is going to make sure that everybody knows. He made sure that all my friends know that I’m HIV positive and he started telling people that I never told him, he just found out. He went to one of the police stations to ask them to come and arrest me. I hear he went to a different hospital to have a test and they both came out negative. But, even so he is still harassing me through friends and says he wants justice. I have changed all my phone numbers but he is still out there plotting. Thank God most of my friends have been understanding, unlike my husband who has gone from bad to worse. What can I do? Emelia |
Dear Emelia,
Life and relationships are complex enough without the added HIV dimension! You have really been through a terrible time. I am so glad that you have friends to support you through all this.
Friends are so important - ones that you can rely on to be there for you. I have a strong feeling that now they know your status and are fine about it you will probably feel closer to them.
You have nothing to chide yourself with in terms of the way you openly disclosed your status. Harassment is totally unacceptable.
Things with your husband sound pretty bad right now. I hope they will improve,
but of course ‘couples work’ needs both people willing to do some
work on the relationship.
Relationships are usually complex and there is no protection from being hurt.
However, what you have been through is not permissible. Don’t give up.
There are good people out there, both HIV positive and negative. Just take
care and don’t lose those friends.
Alfred
Dear Emelia,
Thank you so much for a very frank letter.
Emilia, what did you want out of the relationship? What were you willing to put into it? Were you clear from the outset as to what it was - both to yourself and the other person?
You say he was impossible and demanding. What was he demanding? And if you look at yourself honestly, was there anything demanding and impossible about you?
Were you just looking for someone to ‘help me make it through the night’? Did he know he might be thrust aside once you and your husband had dealt with your differences? How was it for him ‘loving you’ and being told that you were no longer accessible to him?
How did you manage the relationship between July and December? Sometimes we stay in situations hoping they will turn out to be as we hope. We also stay in situations out of fear, because we undervalue ourselves and believe that this is as good as it will get. I feel there are bits of Emilia that require nurturing and that it’s your relationship with yourself that needs the best input.
As for your marriage, remember illusions disappear after a while, and then you are left with the real thing. This is when you call upon your inner and outer resources to work at things; when to love means to stay when every piece of your being wants to flee.
To dream of a ‘relationship’ is easy. To work at a relationship, any relationship, requires patience, communication, trust, clarity. And even then there can be so many endings: painful ones and joyous ones. Peace on your journey.
Tokunbo
