If I analyse what you've been telling us @
max92, it would seem that your boyfriend went to be tested behind your back, which I find a little suspicious. Is it his way of coping with the fact that you had sex bareback and that he may feel that this was the occasion when he was infected and the bareback sex may have felt like a good idea at the time but it has been niggling at him all the time since then, and having him wracking himself with later guilt? Regretting having the bareback session-s? Maybe he hasn't felt he could confide in you that he feared being contaminated.
What I don't quite understand is why you had the bareback sex in the first place if he is worried about becoming HIV positive. But then people don't always act rationally. Did you manage to convince him that, because the traces are undetectable in your bloodstream, it was safe? Did he have that bareback sex with you fully understanding that there was a risk of infection however small it may have been?
The other thing that makes me reflect is that he may be preparing you for a scenario that he knew was coming, maybe you did not infect him, and maybe he contracted the virus (if he is indeed infected) from somewhere else, but it's easy to put the blame on you since you are the HIV positive partner at the start. Are you confident that your partner has been totally faithful to you, and that you are the only one who could possibly have infected him? I'm not trying to cause dissention here, but I'm just saying it is a possibility that may need looking into if you want to understand his frame of mind. Is he punishing
himself, for something he shouldn't have done?
As it happens I don't think it's really important who infected who and how it happened, nor is it important to set the blame on anyone. How it happened to you is not your fault either. Shit happens. If it has happened and your partner is now HIV+, then it would be much wiser to get on with it and start managing the condition by taking the medication. I speak here as a person who lost his brother to AIDS. It was not a pretty sight and it was a devastating event for the whole family, not to mention the pain that my poor brother must have endured as he saw his body slowly decline. Unfortunately, this happened to him before the tri-therapy existed and also he didn't really want to take the meds that were available then. I will deplore what he had to live through till the day I die.
So maybe your boyfriend is healthy and will stay in shape despite being infected (there are others out there who have been HIV positive for years and haven't seen their bodies decline in any way, but they've also led pretty healthy lives since knowing their positive status ie not indulging in drugs, or alcohol, or tobacco, and eating proper food etc., and presumably also leading safer sex lives. So regardless of who infected who and how, which are no longer important at this stage, he really should see the sense of making the most of what modern medicine and technology can do for people living with the condition. You are proof that it is possible to manage a less favourable situation.
Maybe he doesn't like the idea of becoming like you, a person who has to pop pills every day like clockwork, but on the other hand what other option does he have (if he has become HIV positive)?
I feel there could be something else at stake here, which you are either not mentioning, or concerns that he has not aired yet either. Maybe some counselling would be necessary, because I'm wondering if he's not trying to blame you, somehow, for being the cause of his newfound condition. At the same time, this would be undignified, and he knows it, which might explain why he went to be tested secretly. I still find that strange, however. Does he not trust you?
Or else ... -- and this happens too sometimes -- he loves you to the point of also wanting to have the same HIV status, so he can share what you're going through, but then again, his attitude to taking the meds doesn't make sense. Maybe he realises that chasing the bug is something you wouldn't have wanted him to do, and he's trying to cope with this knowing you would be mortified that it has happened to him?
I hope you manage to get through this crisis together, assuaging his fears and getting him on the right track of medication, even if it means taking the bloody things for a lifetime. Ask him this : if he had any other illness or condition, would he stills
not be taking the meds?
Take care.