Negotiating “Sero-Imbalances” Within HIV Serodiscordant Relationships in Canada: A Pilot Inquiry

In this chapter, we report on a pilot study conducted in Canada in 2013 with six individuals (four HIV-positive and two HIV-negative partners) currently or recently engaged in HIV-serodiscordant relationships. Qualitative data, gathered in preparation for a larger national study, were used to examine individual and socio-structural issues that enabled or constrained relationship quality and wellbeing among serodiscordant couples. Our interpretations were grounded in participant narratives and built on existing understandings of HIV disclosure, “HIV talk”, “sero-silencing”, and the invisibility of an HIV-negative identity. We found that serodiscordance shaped key interrelated events in the lifecourse of relationships in relation to how and when HIV was disclosed, shared or silenced by serodiscordant partners. Serodiscordance also introduced perceived imbalances into relationships with regards to partners’ disparate needs, access to resources, and capacity to control or shape their relationships. Partners managed these “sero-imbalances” in overt and covert ways that reflected a shared desire to distance themselves from the notion of sero-difference, while embodying narratives of normalcy and balance. The dynamics of HIV serodiscordant relationships are in need of longitudinal, biographical inquiry to better understand couples’ processes of “normalization” through the lifecourse of such relationships.