When you know, you know.

And for Alex Cooper, that turning point came when she saw how now-husband Matt Kaplan reacted to her sharing she’d contracted HPV from a sexual encounter four years earlier.

“At this point, Matt and I were starting to get serious and we were dating, and for the first time—it just sucked, because I could really envision a future with a man,” she explained in an Aug. 21 episode of her Call Her Daddy podcast. “I think I was scared to vocalize one of my biggest fears, which was the possibility that this mistake I made years ago was going to impact my fertility. Matt was the first person I had dated that had me realize I even wanted to have kids.”

But after her doctor recommended Alex get what is called a LEEP procedure—which is done in an attempt to remove abnormal tissue from the cervix—she decided to share the information with Matt, after having kept the news entirely to herself in the years since being diagnosed.

“I knew I was going to have to be honest about it,” she explained. “And I told him everything. And he couldn’t have been more loving and understanding and supportive.”

The 30-year-old then recounted the ways in which Matt was by her side throughout the process, including driving her to undergo the leep procedure and waiting for her in the waiting room the entire time. Luckily, six months later, Alex learned the procedure had been successful, and she was now HPV negative.

“I’d had conversations with Matt like, ‘What if I still have it?’” Alex remembered. “And I will say, you know you have the right partner ladies, when they don’t give a f--k. And they are just there to support you and love you and it doesn’t matter.”

She continued, “Matt was so loving, and was like, ‘I already know you’re the love of my life, I want to marry you one day. I’m here, we are going to figure this out.’ And it made me feel so much better in the waiting process, knowing that he didn’t think less of me.”

And the couple did, indeed, more than figure it out and tied the knot in April at a beachside wedding. The day, she told Vogue at the time, was “everything we wanted it to be.”

But in recounting this experience, and noting the ways in which finally telling her friends and loved ones what had been going on helped her, Alex had a message for those who are attempting to carry their own burdens.

“I want to emphasize to every single person listening to this podcast,” she began. “If you are struggling with something, please for the love of God, do not struggle alone.”

And there was one group in particular for whom Alex wanted to drive the message home.

“I want to speak directly my single girls,” she added. “Because when you are single as a woman, there is a beautiful pride, and independence that you will hopefully form. And you get very, very, very scary good at relying on yourself. And while all these things are what I want for you, and I’m so proud of myself for being confident and for being secure with myself in those moments, it doesn’t make you weak to ask for help.”

As she put it, “We’re so hard on ourselves, and it’s almost impossible sometimes to zoom out and see the big picture when you’re in the middle of a difficult situation. But we need to give ourselves more grace.”

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