Box 4.

Anxieties about male partners' attitudes to diagnosis

• Informing a current partner
• It wasn't a very pleasant experience . . . that I think what hurt him more was the fact that I hadn't told him [about a previous partner], [he was] just very shocked. I don't know, he didn't like the idea of me having slept with too many people. But I tried to explain what happened and he understood . . . I felt bad, I still feel bad about it but I felt really bad that night and the following day I just couldn't think of anything else. I felt just guilt more than anything else, regret. I regretted it [previous partner] at the time and then the fact I've harmed him [current partner] as well just made it worse. (Respondent 1, family planning clinic)
• Informing a former partner
• Em . . . I don't really know how to put it because we had been on bad terms he [former partner] had made life hell, you know and I had just been trying to extricate myself from it. So I hadn't really had any contact with him, but I just said I had been told I had this and like how long I have had it for and it was possible that it would cause infertility, and he shouted and bawled saying are you trying to say that I gave it to you . . . So it was very tough to tell him but he was fine. (Respondent 4, family planning clinic)
• Feeling unable to inform a former partner
• . . . things had ended very badly . . . and no, I couldn't have approached him on anything—for a cup of tea—never mind something like that, you know . . . under the circumstances I did want to go back to previous partners and say, because I think that it's important that you do. And I had dreadful guilt, oh my goodness what if I've passed this on to somebody else and some other poor woman can't have children because I've not had the guts to go and say. (Respondent 7, family planning clinic)