It would seem the key problem here is immaturity (both the LW's BF & poor Alex). I know that when I was 18 or 19 and found out that a girlfriend was much more experienced sexually than I was, I was flooded with emotions that I couldn't understand. Trying to organize those emotions, I put them in the convenient box lying next to me labeled "social norms" and thought she was an irredeemable slut. Luckily this woman (and Alex, honestly, what grad student actually calls grown women "girls" anymore?) pointed out the complete baselessness and knee-jerk hypocrisy of my view. I've never made the mistake again.

Finally, a word for benighted Alex, no one is impressed with your being a grad student. Having once been a grad student and now being a professor who trains grad students, I can attest that there are a tremendous number of grad students (and professors, doctors, professionals as well) who complete fucking morons. We credentialize ourselves with our ideas, not our affiliations or a bibliography.

So, the BF & Alex have to grow up. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. There seem to be plenty of people in this world who never manage.

Ha, ha. LW, whatever you do absolutely don't take life advice from the movie "Chasing Amy". And when you encounter someone who wants to sit you down and watch "Chasing Amy" together so you can learn why it's perfectly rational for him to call you and treat you like a slut, laugh. Laugh really hard. Point and laugh really hard. And throw in a cheap small penis joke too just for good measure.

"Chasing Amy" as a fully-formed sexual allegory for mature people. Ha. I'll be laughing the rest of the day, I think. The only bad thing is a perfectly lovely little movie has now been ruined for me.

Seems to me that the BF thinks of LW as his property instead of his partner. Why are men so easily threatened by women's sexuality? The less experience a woman has, the less likely she is to know that her current lover sucks (in a bad way). Maybe that's why some are turned on by teenagers and virgins. It really is not loving... it's owning.

I agree with Cary that LW needs to dump this guy. It's easier said than done, but consider this a serious red flag for worse scenarios to come.

It wasn't a foursome. The guy really would have gone bananas.

The guy is not nuts because he had a jealous and emotionally wrenching reaction to the threesome discovery (which he asked about, so obviously he feared it being true and just couldn't resist looking for that stain of wrong in her past). He IS nuts because he can't get over blaming her for something that is not blameworthy. She didn't cheat on him to have this threesome, she doesn't proclaim to be hankering after it and ruining her sex life with him. Rather, he is ruining their sex life (and relationship) by fixating on the threesome and the "dirty slut" image it has helped him conjure of her.

A big tip-off is that he won't go to couples therapy because he can't talk freely in front of her about the situation. It seems to me that 6 months after the revelation he can't discuss this without being judgmental and harsh towards her, and he doesn't want her to hear him unleash what he really says about it internally (or to the therapist). If he can't put it in terms of his own feelings and analyze it that way, then couples therapy won't work anyway. If the question is always "how do i get over the fact my gf is a terrible, dirty whore who did 2 other people at once?" rather than "how do i get over the fact that i've had a very strong and emotionally negative reaction to news about my gf's past, which doesn't match with what i consider to be right and which makes me judge her so harsly?", then there is no frigging hope. And if he wants a happy relationship he'll need to start asking these little test questions much earlier b/c many have done something that would probably fall on his list of wrongs. Spare him and them the trouble.

LW, don't let yourself be sucked into the place where you are apologizing to HIM for your past behavior -- apologize to the person you were then or are now if that conduct is something you are sorry you did or ashamed of or did under some internal coercion believing that it would make you "cool" or did it just to please the others, etc, -- these, for you personally, might be reasons to apologize to yourself. Other than that, you have nothing to be sorry for to yourself, and certainly nothing to be sorry for to him!

"I'm not asking for his approval of my past actions, just understanding and forgiveness. "

Why on Earth would he need to forgive you for something you did before you met him and which violated no trust you had with anyone? This is controlling nonsense and you should put it to him that if he loves you, he loves you for how you are now, and that past three-fer is part of what made you who you are now.

It's none of his business and if he can't see that, he should see his way ou the door.

LW, get out as soon as possible. This guy is controlling, manipulative, and even if he gets over this threesome thing somehow, he'll find other ways you don't measure up, and torment you for those.

Alex, you keep talking about how a world where people don't care about their partners' previous exploits, including threesomes, is an ideal world where people follow idealist "feminist" rules, and that world doesn't really exist.

(1) Maybe the problem is that you're a grad student at Brigham Young University or the like, and in your world, you may be absolutely right. But in a lot of other worlds, people genuinely don't care.

(2) You paint the scary image of imagining your girlfriend being penetrated by two men --- which just shows your insecurity and unmasks what's really going on here, which is jealousy and ... insecurity.

(3) You look for strength in numbers by trying to say that all "normal men" think like you, and if they claim otherwise, they're pretty much lying to please their feminist overlords. If that thought helps you cope with your world in which threesomes are not allowed, then godspeed. Just know that you're wrong. :)