Here is a suggestion that I hope might work. Yes, by all means have your boyfriend move out. (Do not worry about the cats. You can always get joint custody for the time being. In terms of furniture, if you cannot decide then sell it and split the money.) But,you do want to save the relationship, right? So, here is the suggestion. First, you ask you boyfriend to read this suggestion. Second, you two break up. Then your boyfriend has some fun (threesome sex or more-let him try things out). Now that he has tried what you have tried and obviously it has no meaning in your new relationship, you two can get together and talk about it. You already know that your past sex life does not matter and I am sure that you will understand his past sex life and you will be more than able to forgive him. After all, his threesome happened before your second relationship. And, if he is still a stick in the mud, then he is not worth it. Good luck!

Assuming he hasn't done the same things and isn't being a hypocrite, this boyfriend has *every right* to be upset about this. If the LW's sexual mores differ significantly from his, it doesn't make him a self-righteous inhibited prig to realize someone he thought was compatible with him in this regard, isn't. But he should have been a man, stood up, acknowledged this as a deal-breaker, and dumped her, so that both parties could go out and find more compatible partners.

Someone who sleeps around has no right to be picky about the sexual past of partners, and no woman should tolerate hypocritical judgments from a man who has himself been sexually promiscuous prior to their relationship. But everyone also has to acknowledge that other people are going to judge them for their pasts, and if those people haven't slept around, it's their prerogative to do so. My attitudes toward sex sound similar to the boyfriend's - I assign a sort of secular sacredness to it and haven't slept around in my life (I'm 27, with three partners to date). I have zero interest in dating a woman who's slept around, and it has nothing to do with some patriarchal concept of ownership. It's about compatability - it's exactly the same as not wanting to date a fundamentalist Christian or an Ayn Rand idealizer or a Communist for me. I consider sexual/emotional values a large part of compatibility. I suppose some women would think me sexually backward or judgmental or whatever for my stance and refuse to date me because of it, but since I'm likely to have no interest in those women in any case, so what? Virgins can marry other virgins, and sluts can marry other sluts. Everybody's happy.

whore

Not in every case, likely not in this one, but it does. Be honest with yourselves, men and women both: if you started dating someone, and a fair way into the relationship, they told you they'd cheated on every single one of their previous partners, would you assume you're the one who'll break the pattern, or would you do the sensible thing and bail? Being judgmental in a relationship, in the sense of forming judgments about other people, is inevitable. It's not only inevitable, it's healthy. Sometimes, actions speak louder than words, and somebody telling you how they've changed and things are different now is just the first step down the primrose path to hell. If you've slutted it up, (some) people are going to judge you harshly for it. Deal. If you're so sexually liberated and indifferent to Puritannical societal norms, you ought to be able to put up with a little opprobrium.

A bit of youthful sexual adventurism, like this, is a different animal. It doesn't necessarily presage future activity. But if the BF has a problem with it, that's ok. He needs to be a mature adult and end the relationship. But this situation, as with most human interactions, is complicated and has more than one side. It literally blows my mind to see people patting themselves on the back on how tolerant, open-minded, fair, etc. they are, then going on in the next paragraph to denounce someone they've never met and have only a few slim words of description about as a hypocritical, possessive, abusive, vile, mean-spirited, knuckle-dragging brute. He's not acting wonderfully, but people make mistakes - maybe he deserves a little of your liberal compassion too.

This has been said before, but here goes again for the benefit of those who don't realize this.

Women theoretically could go to a bar and go home with some stranger, or go on Adult Friend Finder, or proposition the guy down the street who seems nice enough and not psycho, or call up an ex and establish a FWB relationship with no strings attached--you see I've fantasized about it enough to come up with a few scenarios--and yet I never have acted on these ideas, even at my absolute horniest (when I was younger.) Why not?

1) Many women--not all, but I would say the vast majority--are more emotionally vulnerable than "anon" probably realizes--to the feeling of having been "only wanted for one thing." Now this is not all women. I personally couldn't handle it emotionally. A one-night stand would not boost my ego the way I hear it would boost many men's ego--just the opposite. I would be much too emotionally vulnerable if the guy didn't want to at least listen when my stupid cat died or something, no strings attached for the 10 minutes of sympathy when my stupid cat died...but after a one-night stand, many people never want to see or talk to the person again. Emotionally I have a hard time with that. Sex with an ex who cares about me as a person is more emotionally "safe" in this regard, but I might be leading the ex on. For this reason, I have never called up an ex for sex either--though I have wanted to very much.

2) I am not homely but I am not a "10." Guys are not shy to let average women know that they are average. Again, emotionally, it is not worth it to me to get sex and the "not pretty enough" treatment. The emotional fallout is not worth the hypothetical "scoring." If I thought I would get treated like a beautiful woman for that one night, maybe the deal would be more attractive, but with the "not up to my usual standards" treatment, which guys aren't shy to let that show...

it's not worth it. any guys want to use this as a hint, to have better success out there, have at it.

3) One of the biggest reasons, he could be Mr. Goodbar and go psycho and kill me. It happens all the time. OK not all the time but about every 5 years or so in a town of 200,000 where I live.

4) Impact on my reputation. It is unfortunate that this remains a factor but with the way things are, it remains not worth the risk. Part of the risk is the thought not just that I would be thought to have loose "morals," but that I wasn't considered worth more than that, socially.

It's just not worth it to most women, if I may speak for most women.

I know this will not put to rest the notion that women can "get laid anytime they want," but for the vast majority, "getting laid" for the sake of getting laid is just not something women value or pursue.