herpes is contagious when it's active on someone's skin. as eatingmypsyche correctly said - you don't have herpes in the past. if you have it, you are infected with it and even if you don't think you are getting obvious genital symptoms regularly from it, you can still transmit it to a partner because it is active on the skin's surface periodically even without obvious genital lesions present.
does your partner have hsv1 or hsv2 genitally? have you ever been tested?
grace
Either you have herpes or you dont. You cant say that someone "have had herpes in the past". He or she has herpes from the moment they contract it to when they die.
You as a healthy person can get herpes even if you cant see anything on him/her and even if the person in question says the dont feel a thing.
Thats like, the same thing that grace said but I hope it is more "in english" for you.
um if you can say that in english that would be great lol.
so if i have sex with someone who has had it in the past but not when u have had sex at the time???
herpes is not a blood borne virus.
the virus does actively shed from the skin periodically in between obvious lesions. you can contract it without obvious symptoms present.
grace