Hi just to make you feel a little better. They haven’t always checked for hpv routinely in smears. It’s relatively new- not sure on dates. But my last 2 showed hpv the previous before that didn’t- I have mine more often too due to abnormal cells that have been removed a few times. So maybe the last time you had a smear they wasn’t routinely screening for hpv. Many people can have this and never even know. :) 

Hi Sarah,

You’d be amazed how often this issue gets raised. We have partners threatening to leave their partners all the time because of it. 

Did you come across this article when you were googling? It attempts to bust some of the myths about HPV - which is about as common and as easy to catch as the common cold! If either of you has been intimate with someone just once in the past 20 or 30 years (just touching is enough) that would be enough to become infected with HPV. Why didn’t it come up 3 years ago? Who knows, perhaps one of you was carrying it in its dormant undetectable form? 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-45498024

I hope you sort this out soon.

Best wishes

Dave

Either both of you or one of you could have been carrying HPV since you were first sexually active, there was no test for the virus and it wasn't passed about like gonnorea or any of the many different types of std, we all have it, we all carry it, there are no symptoms and no treatments, because it's a virus just like the common cold, no one knows why in some people the cells in the throat react to the hpv and cause cancer, your partner can't catch  this and the main thing to remember is that it dosent mean one of you have been unfaithful to your partner,  my advice is for you both to see your Macmillan nurse or your named nurse dealing with your care, be honest and tell her your fears, she will help you both to understand.