I think I lost my girlfriend because of my AS...

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That one fact, that she got somebody else so quickly, justifies your rage at losing her.....I don't say you dealt with the anger and pain in the best way, but the feelings you got were perfectly normal and justifiable.

That one fact also makes me wonder whether the problem in the relationship was only down to your behaviour. If I lose a relationship, for whatever reason, I wouldn't dream of running straight into anybody else's arms. That's a stupid thing to do IMHO, it's called a rebound, it confuses the one who does it because of the sudden change in sexual partners, the new emotional bonding happens before the mind has had time to clear the previous occupant out of its system.....sex causes very strong bonding.

So I suspect that she isn't operating on a sexually mature level yet, and that she isn't ready to settle with anybody. You on the other hand seem to want a very strong commitment....personally I don't think people should live with partners unless there is a strong commitment, like a marriage, where (e.g.) opposite-sex friends are generally sidelined and subjected to rules preventing frequent contact and privacy, where the partners don't act so much like individuals, they do things as a couple, and they choose social environments that both of them feel comfy with. Bohemian standards might be possible for some, but I think the bonds are always more precarious as a result, and that anybody wanting a reliable relationship should think very carefully before getting involved with somebody who doesn't need that.

What I'm saying is that I don't think it's enough to just label yourself as having acted too possessive. You'll be regretting your jealous outbursts now that you've lost all hope of stopping her from sleeping with another, and probably resolving to try extra hard next time you find a partner, but I think you'll find that if you get into another mismatched situation like the one you've talked about here, your feelings will eventually come back as strong as ever.

IMHO there's nothing weird, possessive or wrong about wanting security in a relationship. Your anxiety and jealous rage were probably caused by very real things that she did. I'm not saying she did wrong exactly, because from her outlook she has no obligation to surrender her individuality to anybody unless she agreed to. I'm just saying that judged by the "high-commitment" norm you seem to need, I'll bet she crossed a few lines.

So I'd say the best thing might be to discuss attitudes to commitment with potential partners in future, and keep away from people who seem too "young" in their attitudes to it. You probably think you're so possessive that nobody would ever be able to cope with the restrictions you would want to place on them, but there are people out there who don't even want to party or get involved in any kind of scary extravert revelry. Some people have been sexually betrayed a lot in the past and feel so insecure themselves that they are willing to give up a lot of freedom for somebody who won't insist on taking those freedoms themselves. Find a possessive person, and you'll be able to empathise with each other and maybe help each other to gradually relax and trust again.

My current partner has said the most wildly possessive things about exes of mine who aren't much of a threat to her. Thing is, I'm "possessive" myself, and I don't want any other guys near her if there's the slightest whiff of danger to me, so although her outbursts are hard to endure, they also make me feel secure, because I know that I can easily remind her of her own vulnerability if I have to ask her to protect me in a similar way, and because I get the chance to demonstrate to her how a decent person responds sensitively to a jealous mate's plight. I don't know if I'd have been able to cope with a problem she gave me about jealousy, if I hadn't known that she herself was deeply scared of my exes.

I'm not saying you don't need to work on the extremes of your anxieties. Just that if the other partner doesn't see the need to be very patient and reassuring with jealousy and paranoia problems, you probably won't be able to solve them on their own.

I'd also study anger management if I were you. There are much better ways of getting people to help you in your hour of need than losing your temper and attacking them. I think the anger management issue is more worrying than the underlying jealousy. I can be uncommonly jealous myself, but I try to get results by raising my eyebrows rather than the roof. In the past I've railed at partners and made them feel really stifled, and they've ended up thinking the only problem is my abusiveness and jealousy, when if I'd just stayed firm but fair, they might have ended up agreeing with me.

I'm also not at all convinced that my uncommon jealousy is such a wrong way to be. Aspies often have a lot of trouble reading body language etc., so they can't easily judge whether a situation their partner wants to get into is sexually safe or not. If you're scared of going to a party, it means you don't trust the people there. If yur partner goes, they are going to a scary place and so you're bound to worry about them. To them it makes no sense because to them it's not scary at all......they need to try empathising with you, then they would understand. Most of my life I felt hurt, angry and scared if my partner did this or that, but I never knew quite what it was that I felt so bad about, and I never told people how I felt, I thought I was just being stupid, but I couldn't let go of a need to stop it happening, even if it meant controlling the partner. These days I've read about emotional infidelity and I can see how my partners were in fact crossing lines, and that I had every right to call them out for it. It was my Aspie mind-blindness and my insecurity about the validity of my needs that did the damage.

You acted insane and terrible. I dont think its related to autism. You should get help, therapy, because if you dont work on these issues of yours you will never be able to have a healthy relationship. Being extremely controlling and jealous is something you really can work on, and have to.
Btw isnt this how really abusive relationships start out, with controlling the other person like that? NOT saying you're abusive, just a thought. Its clearly not healthy. Since you realise that you're behavior is wrong, you have good chance at being able to correct it. Good luck!

You have to realize that relationships aren't all about you and your feelings. They should be as much about the other person and their feelings and needs, as they are about you and your feelings and needs.

Thing is she was talking to this chick she is now with for months before we broke up, I never knew about it until after and though she swears they were just friends, I am not so sure there weren't more to it than that. Also...she has cheated on ALL her boy/girlfriends before me, she told me herself and she would sleep with anyone who even looked her way, again...she told me this.

She said I changed her, but I am having a really hard time believing that.

her family is nuts, they made threats against me even before things went bad between me and her, I think that is what destroyed us too, because once my family found out about them threathening to throw me off a bridge and knock my teeth out and drive me to suicide, they wanted nothing to do with them, making a future for her and me difficult.

So it was a lot more complicated than just my jealousy issues.

So she really was a dangerous choice of partner all the time, and your anxieties were rational.


It's very hard to trust somebody who has such a history, and very risky too, in my experience. Three of my partners betrayed me. The same three, and only those three, had a history of betraying their partners before I came along. I appreciated their honesty when they told me about it, but sadly it didn't mean that they had changed. When we went through rough patches, they preferred to get involved with other men behind my back rather than work through the problems with me.


If her family is so cruel and so hopeless at conflict resolution that they have to resort to death threats, she would have grown up with some bad personality flaws, I would imagine.


Yes I thought that might be the case. You seem to have a pretty accurate, balanced view of the situation.

One of my relationships was like that. I thought I could change her. I agree it's often hard to accept that somebody just isn't going to measure up.

Jealousy happens when you only consider your own thoughts and feelings.