What's the big secret!!!

So my affair with the Traveler, whom we will now refer to as "R" because it's easier to write was the affair that made me spoiled!  It was very different than any other.  He made me feel amazing.  He was a friend, a lover, and he brought things out of me that I really liked.  We saw each other for almost a year very regularly.  We met through Ashley Madison, he traveled for work so whenever he would come into the area we would set up to meet, I would leave work early, we would usually have lunch or a few drinks and then head to his room.  It was never just a quickie.  It was hours of kissing, talking, fucking, touching and more fucking.  It was GREAT!  During this time he was going through a divorce and started dating.  I knew it would happen and that was fine.  I guess I didn't prepare myself for feeling sad though.  When he met someone he really liked I guess I realized that it wouldn't be me he would be making feel so special anymore.  It seems men don't know how to focus their attention on more than one woman at a time.  I didn't want to place second fiddle to another girlfriend.  I would to a wife (cause I'm the girlfriend), but to a girlfriend, NO.  New girlfriends are much more high maintenance and men need to impress them, and all that shit.  So like a grown up I said, Hey your great, you deserve to be happy, I will back off and you can fall in love like normal people do.  I knew he cared about me but he wanted to date, go out on dates, spend quality time together, etc and we both knew I would never be able to do that.  It was hard, I was sad, I cried but that was that... or so I thought.
Then about a month later I had a GYN appt. While I was there I told her that I had what I assumed was an ingrown hair that was really bothering me.  I have either shaved or waxed my pussy for most of my adult life and have cut myself, and had a few skin tags, and things of the sort but nothing quite like this (I think)!  So the OB takes a look and says well I don't think this is an ingrown hair it actually looks like Herpes.  I jumped up and said.  "I'm sorry did you just say Herpes"... she of course said yes... and in that moment my entire life changed!  She did the swap test and said she would call me with the results ASAP, we talked she told me a few things blah, blah and then I went out to my car and cried.  Cried hard cause I just knew the results would not be in my favor... I'm just not that lucky.  I immediately called my best friend, who is really the only person who knows pretty much everything about my life, and told her.  Together we started researching everything we could find on the Internet.  The pics online were no help at all because looked nothing like that.  It was just one little sore... one horribly painful, miserable little sore.  I decided that wouldn't say or do anything until I heard back from the OB.  In the meantime, coming from my religious upbringing, I went back to the basics.  I prayed long and hard.  I would never cheat again, I would quit smoking, doing anything sinful, I would be the best mom, wife, woman in the world just let it not be herpes!  I tried to write a blog post about it but couldn't bring myself to post it.  I had followers, friends, how shameful! 
So early the next week, while at work, the doctor called.  She said the HPV came back negative but I'm sorry the HSV came back positive.  You have HSV-2.  We talked, she told me all kinds of statistics, how it sheds when you don't even have an outbreak which is how most people get it, how to treat it, medications, blah, blah.  It was like I had an out of body experience... I could see myself sitting there listening to her talking to me but I couldn't speak.  Finally, we hung up, again I called the best friend, we cried together and then I knew I had to tell both the hubby and the boyfriend, well x. 
I decided to tell the boyfriend first, so I texted him that I needed to talk with him but would call him on my way home from work.  So I pulled into a parking lot, called him, and said that I had been to the OB last week, had what I thought was an ingrown hair, they did a swab test and called me today and told me I have herpes.  It probably was not that smooth and I'm pretty sure I was balling my eyes out as I told him.  He didn't say anything right away and then he said... well I don't have herpes.  I said are you sure?  He of course was sure but said he would get a blood test done right away.  I reminded him that I had not been with anyone since we stopped seeing each other and that other than him and the hubby hadn't been with anyone else in quite a long time.  Well, he was sweet and kind about it, but you could tell he felt bad for me.. I didn't like that at all.  I felt alone, and scared, and totally confused!!!!

I know it started with the herpes, then the first affair, then the second, then the last one.  I never quite gave him all of the information, but just enough.  He asked a lot of questions... some of them strange questions.  He was sad, then angry, then strangely turned on, then mad again, then confused.  He didn't understand with everything that we had done and gone though together why I didn't tell him I wanted to have sex with another man because he probably would have allowed me to as long as he could have been a part of it... but you see that isn't what I wanted.. I wanted to selfishly have a man to myself, to make me feel a way that he didn't make me feel... okay sorry, that's another post... anyway, we talked and cried for hours.  Then the next day we talked a little more but I could see he was just full of questions, and emotions and feelings I didn't know how to interpret.  The weird thing is that after I told him, he wanted to have sex with me all the time.  For like a week almost everyday.. and it was different, more passionate, connected... different.  So I went with it.  We talked everyday but mostly I assumed he would eventually retaliate.   So.. after all that he said he didn't have herpes, or at least to his knowledge... great so now what!
So the following week "R" gets in touch with me to tell me that his blood work came back and it doesn't look like he has herpes.  Of course he is totally relieved... feels bad for me, but is happy as he is sooo in love with his new girlfriend and would hate to have to explain that!  So I tell him about telling the hubby, he offers more condolences and tells me to keep in touch and keep him posted on everything and he will do the same (we pretty much stopped talking after that).  So now I am utterly alone... no boyfriend, my husband can hardly look at me, I have herpes but no idea how or why I have it.... then the depression starts to sink in.
I again tried to write a blog post but couldn't so instead I just delete the entire blog.. everything gone... I send a cryptic email to any and all friends/lovers that I had ever emailed with telling them I will be shutting down this email and to please stop emailing, texting, etc.  I decided that even though my prayers were not answered I would still shut that part of my world down and make the fantasy part of my world and life become dormant deep inside me where it belonged!  That was that... I spent all my free time doing research on my sickness, trying to understand, to make sense of it... I was trying, everyday to make my husband like me again, kissing his ass, trying to just focus all my attention on him and the kids, and work...
You know what I was completely miserable.  In every way!!! I was a mess... not a better mom, or wife, or friend or anything!  It just totally sucked and honestly I have no idea who that girl was!!!
So guess what..... I got an email in late July or early August from "R" saying he needed to talk with me.  So I called him... since we had last talked he and his other girlfriend had broke up but he was dating a new girl and they had gone away for the weekend... he had what he assumed was a cut from shaving on his penis but when he and the girlfriend came back from a weekend trip she had a nasty break out, they both went to the doctor and guess what, they both have herpes!  Well at this point I am a fucking expert so I tell him what I know.   That he could have had it all along and not known it, that some people have it for years and never have outbreaks, etc, etc.  We talk about it,  He wants to know what's happening with me, if my husband has it.  I tell him that he still hasn't been tested but has never had an outbreak (OB) to his knowledge and that there is a small percentage of people who are actually immune to it.  I will tell you that I am not happy he has it, but it made me feel a little bit better.  So here's the deal.  There is no blame going on here. I cannot help but assume he gave it to me... I'm pretty sure he assumes I gave it to him... neither of us know for sure and we are both adults that chose to have unprotected sex with one another and guess what folks... these are the consequences that you can face when you do those things!  So we move on.  I will delve more into what has happened since then but let me just say this for now.  I now know it's not a death sentence.  It really doesn't change who I am, or want to be.  It doesn't make me a bed person, or a dirty person.  1 out of 4 Americans have HSV, most don't know it because they either don't have very many OB's if at all, or they think it's something like an ingrown hair or something else.  It is what it is, I have it, it's mine forever.  I control it, I educate myself, and I do my best to keep it under control, which has not been easy but is getting easier.  So that is it, my big secret, my sabbatical.  Now I can go on, talk about everything that has happened, that is happening and just simply keep moving forward!