The Sims 4 romantic boundaries settings: What they mean and how to change them

Since the beginning of the series, Sims have never had a nuanced understanding of romantic boundaries, which can lead to lots of household drama. I'm talking about everything from accidentally flirting with your Sim's neighbor to intentionally getting caught cheating by your many spouses in the Black Widow Challenge. 

But if you've ever wanted your Sims to have multiple partners—or just let your flirtatious Sims be themselves without it ruining any relationship they get into—you've likely had to do some modding. Now, The Sims 4 finally has a shiny new Romantic Boundaries menu that lets you tailor your Sims' preferences regarding romantic and physical jealousy, making polyamory and other preferences possible for the first time.

Via a new tab that's similar to the game's Gender and Sexual Orientation tabs, you're able to make quite a few neat combinations, whether it's having a strictly monogamous Sim, a Sim who's fully down to be in open relationships, or even a Sim who's not okay with their partner flirting with other Sims but is okay with them WooHooing around—good luck figuring out how to make that happen without flirting though. Here's everything you'll want to know about Romantic Boundaries in The Sims 4, including how to set them and what the defaults are.

How to set romantic boundaries 

To change a Sim's romantic boundaries, you'll want to head to Create-A-Sim. Once you're in CAS, you can click the plumbob icon in the top left corner and then click the three dots to expand the "More Details" menu. To the right of the Sexual Orientation tab, you'll see a brand new Romantic Boundaries tab.

If you've already created your Sim and moved them into a lot, you can still access CAS by clicking "Change Sim" when interacting with a mirror, dresser, or closet. If you're planning on getting to CAS by turning cheats on and holding shift and clicking on your Sim to open the Modify in CAS menu, weirdly enough, this menu is greyed out. To unlock this option with cheats, you'll want to enter CAS full edit mode by using the cheats "testingcheats true" and then "cas.fulleditmode." We've got a handy explainer on bringing up the console in our full list of Sims 4 cheats.

Once you've accessed this menu, you'll be able to set your Sim's preferences with the four handy options explained below. The world is your oyster!

Default romantic boundaries 

By default, any Sims created before the update will be monogamous, meaning they'll want to stick with one partner (which was the norm before this update). However, they'll be open to changing these preferences depending on their conversations with other Sims. 

In the game's official terms, this means that they'll:

• Feel jealous if any romantic partner engages in non-physical romance with other Sims
• Feel jealous if any romantic partner engages in physical romance (excluding WooHoo) with other Sims
• Feel jealous if any romantic partner engages in WooHoo with other Sims
• Be able to change their jealousy triggers by talking about them with other Sims

If you create a new Sim after the update, these settings will also default to monogamy unless you change them. For townie Sims generated by the game, however, these default boundaries will be randomly generated, meaning you'll need to learn these things about them yourself or sneak into CAS to check this tab to make sure their preferences are tailored to your liking—unless you love a good surprise!

It's also worth noting that setting a Sim's boundary setting to no (for example, saying they won't feel jealous if a romantic partner WooHoos with another Sim) might still cause them to have a minor reaction depending on their selected Personality Traits such as the "Jealous" trait.