Oh my god, I laughed and laughed and laughed all the way through Cary's answer! Loved it! The boyfriend is "obviously a tool and a douchebag."

Right on!

I can see where the guy would be uncomfortable. Or think it's wierd. Or whatever. But geez, it didn't leave some sort of mark on her, a stain or scarlett letter. It was a moment in time, forever gone.

The problem isn't his reaction to that moment, a bit of revulsion or jealousy or discomfort. The problem is his obsessive thoughts about it, his complete refusal to do the work to get over it (not "forgive" her - there's nothing to forgive, she didn't do it "to" him and she didn't commit a crime).

My god, the man is an insensitive and immature jerk. If you love someone you try to work through inconsequential stuff that bugs you due to your own insecurities or wiring. Mom told you mushrooms were like "mold" and now you hate that your fiance eats them. Get over it.

Somehow you got it into your head that the threesome you dreamt of having with two girls was dirty and slutty if it happened to the girl you now love.

Get over it.

It's not her problem, it's his.

This is not about feminism. I've had to "get over" the past of the men I've dated more than they've had to get over mine. And now that I'm in my 40's and single, I certainly have no fricken business (let alone time or a huge selection) to go rejecting anyone for having engaged IN THE PAST in harmless behavior that sets off my prudishness alarm.

There are many women who get all pissy about their man's exes (and excess) and I'd say the same thing. Get over it. He's here now and he's committed to you now and the one who's making them an issue is YOU, not him.

She's not inviting those two other people into the relationship - she was done with them long ago. He's made them permanent guests.

Can you imagine, after these two got married, and he flipped out continuously until she couldn't take it any more - and then here he is 10 years older, and divorced, and meeting women who are 10 years older, and divorced, and him being completely unable to be with anyone? I mean, all those divorced women with their sexual histories, their commitment to one man above all others BEFORE he came into the picture? Or the fact that children fathered by someone else emerged from their wombs, their vaginas indelibly marred by the fruits of foreign sperm?

He'd obsess himself into perpetual loneliness, for no woman will be chaste and pure and unmarked enough for him.

The man is a fool.

If the guy can't handle it, he can't handle it. But he has no right to torment his girlfriend and hold it over her head. And the two other people in her past don't qualify as competition. They're IN THE PAST. The only person standing in the way of the LW and her BF is...the BF.

I'm not a good person to ask, though, as I must not be insecure enough. When my sister-in-law asked me why I allowed (!) my husband to keep some pix of his old girlfriends in HIS photo albums, I told her "What difference does it make to me? He married ME". On the other hand, a student who wrote for a local college paper stressed EVERY WEEK that it was best to be a virgin when you married because you wouldn't compare the guy/girl to someone else and that the hottest sex ever was between two virgins because there was none of that icky comparison business going on. It was obvious to every one but him that he had some serious performance anxiety. The LW's BF sounds like that guy's kid brother.

In my over-two-decades' worth of relationship experience, I've never seen any good come out of revealing details of one's sexual past. The Madonna/Whore Syndrome is alive and well. For many guys, even one past lover is one too many. And as for non-traditional sex, e.g., threesomes, fetishes, etc., fuggedaboutit. Like Megan said, lots of guys have their egos wrapped up in the fantasy of being The One and Only for their girlfriends. Destroy that fantasy and you put your whole relationshp at risk.

As a woman, it's a real pain to negotiate the minefield that is modern sexuality. Act too aggressive and/or experienced, risk being treated like a slut. Act too prim and proper, risk being sexually unfulfilled. I envy guys for their ability to go out and get some anytime they feel like it, with no social fallout whatsoever! I have no idea what that feels like...

The only thing about which the BF has a right to ask is the possibility of STDs. I find it interesting, and telling, that LW's BF's harangue apparently never touches on that subject. BF has no concern about LW's physical or emotional well-being; he's just into pouting like the big baby he is. I agree with Cary; DTMFA, and next time, when your lover asks you how many men you slept with, smile sweetly and say, "Why, Sugarbuns, what other men? Being with you, I've completely forgotten."

But wait....am I the only who noticed this is not at all Cary's usual tone? Did a ghost-writer write that or something? Just strikes me as odd, the tone and content.

But why all the bashing on the boyfriend? I'm a guy, and I can relate, totally. Granted, he's being immature. What he really should do is drop the relationship immediately. She is not his type at all. If his original un-forced-by-therapy reaction was to be cool with it, then they've got a future. But he reacted as I would, and needs to find a different woman to raise children and spend his life with. It's all rooted in jealousy. Because you want to be your wife's first and only male in a threesome. You don't want to consider the fact that your wife lived out a powerful fantasy with just some dude. Or worse, some dude she really loved at the time. The only man that will not react this way is either so beaten down and depressed that he thinks he is lucky to have her, and could do no better than her, or a man who has had so much sex with so many women and possibly men that he really gives a rats ass what the woman has done in her own past. They could talk about their exploits and laugh about it. Now there would be a good match for her.