Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucla-cs!Sf.Mom@p0.f475.n10.z1.fidonet.org From: Sf.Mom@p0.f475.n10.z1.fidonet.org (Sf Mom) Newsgroups: sci.med.aids Subject: aids Message-ID: <40462@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Date: 21 Oct 90 15:49:34 GMT Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU Organization: FidoNet node 1:10/475.0 - Nightingale BBS, San Francisco CA Lines: 44 Approved: phil@wubios.wustl.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: squid.cs.ucla.edu Note: Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening. Permission granted for Note: non-commercial reproduction. Archive-number: 2667 Are there any others online in a situation similar to mine? I'm a middle-of-the -road, middle-class, middle aged married woma and an I'm married to a wonderful man I love dearly. He's sensitive, gentle, bright, generous , creative, the best companion of my life, and he's HIV+. He picked the virus up at the baths, probably almost a decade ago, and now he's beginning to have some symtoms and is on AZT. Aside from our docs, nobody knows, just as nobody else in our circle of family and freinds knowns about his bisexuality. Our kids don't know. we're scared to tell anyone, not only because of potential problems with insurance and job discrimination, but also because we wonder just how liberal, enlightened and accepting our freinds will be. We've tiptoed into a few services and support activities oriented for the gay men with HIV but those don't really feel like the place for either of us. I guess so many gay people with AIDS have suffered so much discrimination from the straight community they feel wary of us, or something. And anyway, my husband gets anxious that if he gets too visible with his HIV status, he'll lose his job and insurance, an occurance that seems to have happened to far too many others with HIV infection. SO, we feel very lonely. We practice safe sex. We buy black-market azt so it never shows up on the insurance forms. We behave like enlightened liberals and have been praised for our financial and emotional support of AIDS charities and service groups. But inside, for each of us, it's so frightening. I will lose the love of my life. Probably in not too many years. Our kids, who are all in the throes of adolescence and are sorting out their ownj sexual identities, will have to come to terms with their father's having a terminal sexually transmitted disease. The up side of all of this is that we do live every day to the fullest. We cherish every flower in the garden, every skyscape-filled sunset, and morning cuddle more than imaginable. But I just wonder if there is anyone else in similar situations. I wonder --given the high percentage of married men who have had gay sexual experiences--if there are other families dealing with this problem also--and also feeling scared and isolated. The church community is NOT the place for us. We come from the same religious roots that spawned ``the society of blind optometrists,'' as a local newspaper columnist dubbed the U.S. COnference of Bishops, following their anti-condom stance. I am sure that if we went to our parish priest, he'd tell me to quit having safe sex with my beloved spouse of 25 years because condoms frustrate the natural purpose of sex, etc. etc. -- Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!10!475.0!Sf.Mom Internet: Sf.Mom@p0.f475.n10.z1.fidonet.org