The latest update for The Sims 4 now has a new customization option for Sims, which changes what their romantic boundaries are and how they work. This is mostly for players who want as many options open for them as possible with the romantic relationships between their Sims. Players will be able to fine-tune exactly how their Sims behave around their partners and how that affects their emotions and other relationships.

The Lovestruck expansion for the Sims 4 brought a fair number of updates and changes, but this particular change is not just limited to expansion owners. No matter if you have bought every DLC or none of them, the romantic boundaries feature is now a part of the base game as of the latest update. This will allow you to dive even deeper into every Sim’s psyche and truly analyze how they would feel about their relationships with others.

All Four Romantic Boundaries In The Sims 4 Explained

Attitudes Toward Others

The Create-A-Sim feature should be well familiar to players by now, as it is where you do most of your customizing of any Sims you create. This is also where the new romantic boundaries of each Sim can be modified and changed. The basic application of these boundaries is that they affect your Sims’ reactions to their romantic partners when they interact romantically with other Sims. Being able to modify this means players can now put their Sims in polyamorous relationships.

There are four total settings that can be altered or changed at any time. How they are set determines how jealous - or not - your Sims will be toward others.

The last setting is not about how jealous they become but rather whether they can be persuaded to change their minds through gameplay options like dialogue. However, even with this item selected, it does not guarantee that they will change their mind and the persuasion can fail. This all depends on how good their relationship is, which can be determined by things like the new attraction scale in The Sims 4: Lovestruck.

How To Select Romantic Boundaries

Create-A-Sim

You will want to go into the Create-A-Sim page and select the Sim whose boundaries you want to adjust. From there, go all the way to the left under the two gender icons and click on the drop-down menu. It looks like three dots before you click on it. After that, there will be three tabs: Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Romantic Boundaries. Click on the third to make the changes you want.

All Sims will have all items checked “yes” to begin with, meaning they will be jealous if those scenarios occur.

If you select yes, that means your Sims will be jealous if the scenarios listed next to them occur. If you select no, they will not become jealous. Sims will have less chance of becoming jealous the more answers that are selected as no. You can go back to Create-A-Sim and change these boundaries at any time, so you do not have to be bound by what you select first.

If you want to test the waters, you can change the romantic boundaries in the dialogue options. You will want to select the current Sim’s romantic partner and then choose “Relationship” - “Change Relationship” - “Ask To Reconsider Romantic Boundaries” to make your case to persuade them otherwise. However, they can say no, and if you did not select their Romantic Boundaries yourself, you will not know what their default answer is to being persuaded toward change, and there may be a fairly high chance of failure.

How Romantic Boundaries Function In-Game

Polyamory & Jealousy

The main dichotomy for this particular trait will be how open to polyamory your Sim is and how jealous they will get. The more open and the more options you select no to, the more your Sim will be able to have additional romantic partners without their current partner becoming jealous or upset. These options determine which actions each Sim can take without becoming too jealous. This might come into if your Sim ends up on a dating show, as you can see in lilsimise's YouTube video.

For instance, Option 1 means that Sims can see their romantic partner flirt and converse with other Sims without getting jealous. Option 2 means that Sims can see their partner perform physical acts of affection with someone else (except WooHoo) without feeling jealous. Lastly, Option 3 means Sims can WooHoo without their partner getting jealous. Sims that have all of these traits set to "no" will have a very hard time getting the jealous trait at all and may never.

If you get or create a Sim with the Jealous trait without selecting “yes” you should be aware that they can still get tense if they catch their partner having a romance with another Sim.

Despite the new system for polyamory and open relationships, there is no way in the game currently to marry more than one Sim. You can still only have one marriage partner and, if you want to change the spouse of your current Sim, you will have to completely divorce one partner to marry the other. There are mods for the Sims 4 that would allow this, but without those, you will have to settle for having open relationships and only one spouse.

This is true even with the paid Lovestruck DLC, but the bright side is that you fully customize your relationships apart from that. This will help you achieve the best romantic aspirations in the game and find a good balance between the various types of relationships. And, now that you know how relationship boundaries work, you can choose the spouse you want in The Sims 4.

Video Credit: lilsimsie | YouTube