A few months ago, my (now Ex) girlfriend tested positive for High-Risk HPV. From what her doctor has told her, this particular strain has no effect on men but has the potential to cause cervical cancer in women.
Hearing this I was upset, concerned, and confused as to how she could have an STD since we have been together for the past 6 years. She assured me that HPV can remain dormant in a person for years and that she’s most like carried it since at least 2014 and points to an abnormal pap smear from then to corroborate her belief.
Now, she and I have two sons, one ours and one from her Ex who was born in 2014. I also know of two guys she dated after her ex and before me: the brother of her former best friend and the fiancé of one of her friends.
Due to this virus’s ability to spread unknowingly and its the possibility to cause cancer, I believe she has a moral obligation to tell these people, but she had stated that she had no intention of telling anyone as her doctor said she was not obligated to by law.
After a LOT of arguing, I managed to convince her to tell her Ex by saying that if she didn’t tell him, she was potentially submitting his future child to the same fate she had suffered; that is, this child’s mother dying of cancer (my (now Ex) girlfriend’s mother died of cancer).
I know bringing her mother into this was messed up, but I felt out of anyone she should understand what that’s like. Her Ex’s girlfriend subsequently got tested and also tested positive for High-Risk HPV.
At this point the reality that it was no longer a possibility that it was spreading; but that it definitely was, set in.
I felt like more than ever she needed to let these people know but she made it clear she was not going to tell anyone else and shut the conversation down every time I tried to broach it. I couldn’t understand she could possibly sleep at night knowing she could have passed a potentially cancer-causing virus to people who were and are supposed to be her friends and be completely ok with letting them possibly find out thru a cancer screening test.
So, after weeks of fighting with myself over whether my intervening was the right thing to do, and asking a few close friends their thoughts on the matter (I phrased the question hypothetically), I found her former-best friend’s brother, her current friend, and the person her ex dated after her, but before his current girlfriend on Facebook and wrote them a message explaining the situation and that they or any of their partners since 2014 should get tested.
When I told her about this she became incredibly upset and said that I had no right to tell them and that that was personal information, but I stood by my actions saying it was the right thing to do.
Since then she has said that the people I wrote to have told her that I was in the wrong and it was not my place to tell them, which has me questioning whether or not did the right thing.
So, am I wrong for telling on her?