Lately I've seen a lot of posts where women (or the men in their lives) won't communicate with their SO. So I thought I'd share my experience about how communication is so important. In advance I'm going to let you know it's long. So I started dating my boyfriend in July and we instantly hit it off. Fell in love almost immediately. Everything was great. I do have a past though and that past included HPV. I was given the go ahead from my doctor that I was ok and my test results had come back negative after a few times of testing so she told me it wouldn't ruin the rest of my life and I wouldn't have to tell anyone. So I didn't tell my boyfriend because I wanted to put it all behind me and thought it was over and I'd never have to think about it again. Till November when he asked me if I'd ever had an STD because I had given him HPV and he found a wart. It was a huge fight. One he asked me not to tell anyone. But I did. I told my best friend who works with him. I needed to work out my emotions and I've always done that by talking to a friend. He forgave me but I never told him I told my friend. Later they had a work conflict and I talked to my friend about that as well. Another huge fight. Then he asked me if I had told my friend about the HPV fight as well. I didn't lie and I told him yes. He felt like he couldn't trust me and I don't blame him. Yes I had reasons for talking to my friend but ultimately I was betraying my boyfriend and that was so awful of me to do. We've worked hard over the last few months and have tried to talk about everything but we weren't connecting. Well last week we had three very emotional talks. We hadn't been having sex because he was so off put by the thought of HPV. I felt so unwanted and unloved. There was so much crying but honestly that's what it took. We put in the work. He's made mistakes too that have caused fights and we continued to work because we know that what we have is worth fighting for. After all of the emotions got out it was like a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders. We're laughing again. We're playing again. We're sickeningly in love again. Not to say that those things won't be a factor in our relationship anymore but the level of communication we used to get through the them made us stronger. I want everyone to be able to learn from their mistakes and grow with the people they love. It has made my relationship so much better and it has made me a better person.