I don't judge what someone does in order to survive. But not everybody is like that. Better to keep that information to yourself in the future.

You dodged a bullet then, I guess. Now you know that he's too judgmental and anti-sex work. Sucks, but you can't change people who are closed minded. Sorry you're hurting though.

Why would you even mention this at all? There's nothing wrong with keeping secrets.

Screw him then. If he can’t accept you doing what you had to to survive, he sure as heck doesn’t deserve you now.

When it comes down to it, most of us are willing to do what it takes to survive, and if your option is sex work then that’s what you may do. That doesn’t make you a bad person. If it happened more recently while you were with your ex, or you had other better choices at the time, then your ex might have been legitimately offended… There are things that we share about ourselves and a very few things not to share even with loved ones. While your ex responded inappropriately, he’s probably not the only person who might respond that way. You have two choices, either take that story with you to your grave or get it out earlier in a relationship before investing too much in what could be a doomed relationship. Unfortunately one person can keep a secret, two cannot. Your ex may spread that story within his friend group, especially when asked what happened with you and why you aren’t still a couple. Don’t beg or bargain with your ex to keep this a secret because that will give him a power over you and he may not keep the secret anyway. You are going to have to figure out how to hold your head up and deal with the fallout if you have common friends… At one point my ex worked at a fast food restaurant and some of her co-workers were desperately poor and a few were on work release from the local country jail. She had some interesting stories. One thing she told me was about a young woman who had a current boyfriend, but her ex was willing to pay her to have sex with him - She was desperately poor enough to consider the proposition, or maybe she had already done so. When you are in a survival situation, nearly all people will do whatever it takes to survive. You are not the only one who has ever been there. And on top of that, sex workers are still human beings deserving of respect, love, and compassion. Admittedly dating or being engaged to a sex worker is not on many people’s list of desired characteristics for their mate - But none of us are without our flaws and idiosyncrasies… OP I am very sorry this happened to you. You don’t deserve that. But you have to figure out how you’re going to handle this now.

I mean, I'm all for open communication, but there are some things that don't really need to be known by the other party. Some things are better left unsaid.

you dodged a huge bullet there. although many years too late.

Why tell him at all? It was before you were together. It is sad when people judge other people when they are literally trying to survive.