Living Stories: Home page

Intimate relationships

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Amanda: Widow of Andrew, who died as a young adult.

We got married a bit sooner than we might have done otherwise, but we would've got married pretty soon anyway, we really did want to be together. There was an awareness that our time together might be really short, so when we were promising to love each other in sickness and in health, very aware that sickness was on the agenda. The bit about 'Until death do us part', feeling that might not be very far away. So there was that moment when it felt very sad. But that was only a moment in what otherwise, as I say, was a very happy day.

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Carol G: Wife of Pete who died as an adult.

My family panicked I would say. My dad didn't speak to me for about five years, which was really difficult. I wouldn't want to blame my dad, because, to see it from his point of view, he was afraid for me. I was his daughter, didn't want me to be infected, didn't want to see his daughter die possibly. It was nothing to do with Pete, because he hadn't met Pete at that point. He was in shock, and he had quite a strong reaction.

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Diane: Wife of Ian, who is living with haemophilia and HIV.

I was in my late twenties kind of talking with, with other partners, or having weekends away in effect having sex education lessons. So a group of women in their twenties, thirties, forties, having lessons on what was safe and what was not safe. It was excruciatingly horrible, because nobody was being particularly honest about what they were doing. Because it doesn't make any sense why would you take risks? Why would you do that? Why did I do it? Because I hated the thought of somebody telling me that I couldn't. I hated the thought that, that suddenly this disease meant that we just couldn't do what we wanted to do.

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Diane: Wife of Ian, who is living with haemophilia and HIV.

But it does alter the dynamic in relationships. If I don't feel that sometimes I'm the centre of attention, it won't work for me, because Ian's the centre of attention virtually all the time. And he is fantastic and everything, but it's just like, oh God! So, we have to make sure that I don't just feel that this is all about Ian.

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Heather: Wife of Michael.

I was absolutely gobsmacked to be negative. And that set up a whole new ball game, because then it was choices. And I really didn't want to know. At that stage, I was quite happy to be in the same box as him. We had the test done, and I found out that I wasn't positive, it was really difficult. So I had a choice to make. I chose to stay with him, and to go forward that way, because I would rather have been with him and be at risk than, it would have finished him off.

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Pam: Wife of Dennis who died as an adult. She is living with HIV.

We didn't have any sexual life at all after that, as soon as he was diagnosed. For me, it was a feeling of rejection. I was very hurt about it. It was like the door shutting. I would have liked it to have been the same, obviously taking precautions. But it just didn't, and that was the end of it. Until I was diagnosed, then things, they came back on an even keel again.