Divorce Source: Should I ask about protection?

Forget pregnancy. Forget being grossed out. They're both irrelevant, in my opinion, compared to what SHOULD be motivating you.

When I discovered my wife had had sex with another man, one of my first thoughts was "did that lying @#$% even bother to use a condom?! Why would she? I'm obviously NOTHING to her if she could do this behind my back, why would she care if she picked up some disease and passed it on to me?"

I hung up the phone (after a mutual friend told me she knew my wife had had sex with this other man) and I immediately went to the hospital to get myself checked for STD's. I mean IMMEDIATELY. I was out the door 10 seconds after I got off the phone. It was a humiliating experience, sitting in a waiting room for three hours to be checked for STD's after 11 years of marriage. The indignity of it all, the grand cosmic insult of it all, the irrational feeling that everyone there knew my wife had played me for a fool and now I might be dirty and diseased because I was too stupid to see it coming... but it had to be done. You should ask if he used protection, but remember this: You have to assume he DID NOT use protection, no matter what he tells you, and you have to go get yourself checked out for every common STD: At least for chlamydia, herpes, gonnorhea and HIV.

I'll tell you why I thought I had to do it:

(1) I needed to know I was safe. The only thing that could have been worse than the emotional trauma she put me through was to end up dying or with some sort of permanent physical damage because of her actions.

(2) If there was to be any hope of my forgiving her and salvaging what I could of our marriage, or even being civil toward her the next time I saw her, I had to know that at least a few answers were coming in just a few days.

(3) She had just proven herself to be an untrustworthy, despicable liar, how could I possibly trust her if she were to tell me they always used a condom? Along those lines, I was allowing the possibility that once my shock and grief wore off, I would want to save our marriage. I would want to one day grow to trust her again, and having empirical evidence (or as much as was possible) to back up her claim was necessary.

(4) It gave me back a little bit of power. When the person you thought would always protect you instead betrays you, you feel powerless. Rudderless. Helpless. At least that's how I felt. Making the appointment, walking to the hospital and telling them to test me for STD's because my wife acted like a complete ass gave me the sense that I was taking control of my own life and taking the first step toward standing up for myself. I wasn't leaving my fate in someone else's hands or relying on her suddenly-worthless word. I was relying on science and on the one person I knew I could trust: me.

I asked her if they used protection, she told me they did, I said "I don't believe you, so I got tested. They'll give me the results in a few days. I'll believe THEM." That gave me yet another opportunity to reassert control over my life, by being able to say to her, in effect, "I'm not a fool and I won't let you mistake me for one anymore." Whether she was telling the truth or not, I'll never know. The results came back negative, but that doesn't mean they used a condom, it just means that if they didn't, he must've been clean.

You can't believe your husband, no matter what he tells you about that. He's proven himself to be a liar. Do not forget that. Even if you forgive him and stay with him and you two grow close and happy again, NEVER forget he's capable of lying to you about the most important matters and never leave your physical health or even your emotional well-being in his hands. You may come to trust him again, but only to an extent. You will never trust him the way you did before. Ever. That's gone. He's just proven to you that YOU are the only one in this world in whom you can or should place absolute trust. Never forget that.

I don't think you'll realize how valuable #4 is until you do it, and I really hope you do it today.