Taking care is key to dealing with herpes

Q. My new girlfriend (she’s 31) has just told me that she has herpes.

We haven’t slept together yet, but I have really fallen for her. Can you catch it even if you use a condom? I really want to carry on seeing her, but need the facts — and want to know how it could change our future together.

A. Disclosing the fact that she has herpes can’t have been easy for your girlfriend, but failure to do so might have been equally deleterious. In 2011, David Golding, 31, spent three months in jail because he knowingly infected his girlfriend, Cara Scott, with herpes.