My boyfriend is a kinky bisexual who has had many varied sexual experiences. I am a vanilla woman who is that way because it was all I was ever exposed to. He tells me he has had a hard time talking to me about kinky desires of his because past girlfriends have been put-off by them. I have tried telling him that I am open to trying new things but he needs to start slow. I've always been concerned that if he wasn't getting these needs met from me, where would he be getting them met? It was hard to know that he's had such wide-ranging sexual experiences given that we don't have sex as often as I would like and I'm under the impression that standard penis-in-vagina doesn't do much for him.

Cue to three months ago and on our shared computer (we live together) I find a secret email account with racy emails between him and other women/men/non-gendered individuals he finds on Craigslist. He would talk about having a mid-afternoon blow job session "while my girlfriend is at work." I confront him, he says those things never actually happened (he never gave out our address, but did receive an address once to meet in a parking lot and I have only his word that he didn't actually go) and that this is "his porn." I called bullshit and said that, to me, this is at least e-cheating since he was purposefully hiding it from me and it was a lie of omission. I felt like I handled it pretty well, all things considered. He deleted everything from the account and an old cell phone which he treated as an old "trophy case" filled with old explicit texts/photos and which I had previously found but which I had left alone until all of this came to a head.

Now I feel like I'm having some kind of regression. I am anxious all the time about him not getting what he wants from me, even though I try so hard to tell him that I'm open. I've been hurt badly by partners in the past and I know that hurt comes primarily from the lies involved in their actions. The regression went into full-swing when two weekends ago he went out with his friend and flirted with a girl—he told me about it—and drunkenly gave her his phone number. She texts him the next day and they chit chat (not in a weird way) but he never mentions me and was perplexed when I got so upset about it. I feel like I'm crazy for being so anxious. I have an anxiety disorder (fairly under control) so it's hard for me to tell if what I'm feeling is legitimate or if it's "just my anxiety talking." I desperately want to give my otherwise loving, supportive boyfriend what he needs to be satisfied sexually (he says we don't have the kind of sexual chemistry that he might prefer in what is our otherwise really satisfying relationship, which breaks my heart a little), but I don't know how to get over this anxiety. I feel like if he doesn't break us up with his flirtations/inappropriate actions, then I am going to destroy us with my brain's inability to let this go. What do you think?

Mind Over Body

Your boyfriend is probably cheating on you, MOB, but he's definitely making you miserable. And my gut is telling me... well, my gut is telling me a lot of things right now. (Bad clams for dinner last night.) Among the things my gut is telling me is that your boyfriend's "make the girlfriend" miserable routine is intentional—subconsciously, if you want to look at it/him charitably, or consciously, if you want to look at it/him realistically.

Plenty of people settle for partners who "don't have the kind of sexual chemistry [they] might prefer." Settling down requires some settling for, no two people are perfect matches chemically, sexually, aspirationally, blah blah blah. "Less-than-ideal sexual chemistry" is one of the prices of admission that some have paid—and paid willingly—to be with their partners. But here's the thing: Only an asshole tells their BF/GF/NBF that they're paying this particular price of admission to be with them. Only an asshole constantly reminds his BF/GF/NBF girlfriend that they're deficient in this particular way and always will be.

This isn't not an absolute rule, of course; no rules are absolute. But the exceptions are few. Person A may be able to be honest with Person B about deficient sexual chemistry if...

1. They're in a purely companionate relationship that meets the emotional and social needs of both parties.

2. Neither are particularly sexual.

3. They're in a relationship that's emotionally satisfying and somewhat sexually satisfying but the relationship isn't sexually exclusive and both partners are free to get their other/outré sexual needs met elsewhere.

Your relationship doesn't meet the criteria for an exception: it's not companionate, you're both sexual, it is (or it is supposed to be) sexually exclusive. And again, and most importantly, it's making you miserable. By which I mean to say, he's making you miserable.

DTMFA.