Is it me?

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Hello forum. So just had a slight incident with my GF. As I've posted before she is clearly on the spectrum (my diagnosis. hundreds of signs) and I am NT. She is great and we get along well. Every once and awhile she does something that makes no sense, is odd, makes me feel bad, or arouses my suspicion. This last one left me wondering how do deal with it and how to talk to her.

So we were sitting around the table last night after dinner. We were both on our tablets reading each other news headlines and articles for about 30 minutes. At one point, I got up and walked over to a small desk about 6 feet away. I checked my texts, texted someone quickly, and then said to her that I had a video of something I wanted to show her and was looking for it on my phone. I stood over at the desk for about 20 seconds while I searched for it and found it, during which time she was engrossed in something on her tablet.

I then turned around walked right up to her to show her the video on my phone. Once I got right up to her, instead of moving her attention to me and my phone first, I saw her immediately minimize an app that she was on as if to hide what she was doing. It seemed I caught her off guard. I surprised her and she was minimizing it to hide it from me, from my perspective. It made me feel really uncomfortable. She has done things like this in the past and we've talked about it and she's gotten a lot better (one time I walked into the kitchen and her tablet was open on the counter where I was pouring water. she walked over right in front of me and closed the cover over it).

So for this one last night, I really don't think it was anything bad. She may have been looking at her financial info for all I know. I wasn't accusing her of anything. But her behavior told me from my perspective it was clear she was hiding "something" from me and it made me anxious and sad and aroused my suspicion. I walked up to my room after a few minutes trying to forget about it. But it was really bothering me. So I went down to the kitchen to tell her that made me really uncomfortable. Big mistake. Instead of her talking it out with me and making me feel better, she made me feel worse. She kind of walked away from me and looked like I had just ruined her day.

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but I couldn't help it.

She does something that triggers my anxiety and then I am the one made to feel like I've done something wrong, not her.
she will paint it like omg, what are you talking about? I don't even know what I was doing. How dare you accuse me of anything. She doesn't say those words but her silence and things she does say are like that.
Then, shut down. walk away.
Everytime SHE does something to make me feel bad, arouse suspicion etc and I say something, then she acts like omg YOU are the problem.
i don't know how to communicate with her.
and then it makes me feel like I'm totally crazy and have ruined our relationship.

Any advice?

Hmm doesn't sound good.
If someone makes you feel anxious or suspicious it's usually for good reason.
If someone makes you act like a detective it's also a bad sign.

I don't know what you should do about it though. So when you ask about the minimising she just acts like you are the problem?

Apparently I do the same thing quite often. My (very) NT wife picks up on it all the time and thinks i am hiding something.

I'll tell why I do. Because I am usually closing something frivolous, something my wife not only has no interest in but would wonder why I waste my time on it. Or so I perceive.

I would do the same with my ex-wife and my father. The three of them have been significant sources of disapproval in my life.

Why don't you ask yourself is there something about the way I treat her?

Maybe her silence is because she recognizes you have a point, and she is embarassed and she doesn't know how to talk to you about it.

I close & minimize programs & windows alot on my phone & on my computer when my girlfriend comes by me or starts talking to me or when I get distracted by something. It's a habit for me that I've been doing for 20 years now. There's a couple reasons why I do it.

One is that I don't want to screw up what I have open by accidentally tapping or clicking something. My computer monitor goes to sleep after I'm inactive for a bit & then I have to press something or move my mouse to get the screen to come back on. It's easy for open things to get changed then, like I might accidentally move something out of my folder, or edit something, or delete something, or close a window that I wanted to keep open, or accidentally close my browser, or backspace, or forward, or click on a link I did not intend to. There's less chance of that happening when my windows are minimized or closed. I don't have the best fine motor-skills & I often accidentally press the wrong thing on my phone when I'm intending to press something else. I'm afraid that I may bump my phone or accidentally touch it while something is open & I'm distracted & then an action might get performed I did not intend or something gets messed up. I have ADD & am kinda absent minded & forgetful sometimes(OK LOTS of times) & my OCD kinda tries to compensate for that by having routines & habits for situations where I might accidentally f#ck up due to being distracted.

The other reason I do that is because I looked at porn quite aLOT when I lived with my parents & did not want them seeing it on my monitor when they would come in my room for something.

Closing & minimizing windows & apps seems very harmless to me. I'm not tying to be harsh here but it sounds to me like you have trust issues & you are blaming her for your anxiety problems. it's good to try & talk about it with her but it's important to try to not sound like your blaming her or accusing her & to let her know that you are trying to work on this & not take things personally that very likely were not meat to be. Some of us on the spectrum are very used to others criticizing us for our various quirks or blaming us for things. It can be hard not to take things personally & may take time to think things over to realize that. My girlfriend is probably on the spectrum as well as me being on it & she often shuts down when she feels criticized or blamed when I'm not trying to sound like that. It's like an instinct for her. I try to reassure her &/or give her her space & she's usually fine in a bit 1ce she's calmed down & thought about it. Whereas when I feel criticized or blamed, I become defensive & argumentative & can lash out or have a meltdown. I'm alot better about this than I used to be due to my psych meds & learning to figuratively bite my tongue alot more.

If I am hyper-focused on something and someone is all of a sudden way too close. I get nervous/angry/frightened too. I've knocked my laptop of the table, dropped my mouse onto the floor, even broken my phone because I'll drop or even fling in out of my hands. It doesn't have to be because I am doing anything secretive or trying to hide anything. Its just an automatic response.

Its worse when it happens with my partner or someone who should have known better ( I always ask that people not do that)

Sure, her doing that may have made you uncomfortable and suspicious, but have you considered how you made her feel?

Last edited by DanielW on 28 Feb 2023, 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't the only posts you've made here ones where you're questioning your gf and not trusting her behavior/actions? If you don't trust her, why are you with her?

Not trying to be a jerk here. You can come around all you want, ask some questions, hopefully get some solid answers. That's part of what this place is for, after all. But at the end of the day, if you have to ask random strangers about things to make yourself feel better in your relationship, that sounds problematic to me. Have you considered getting into therapy? A good counselor might be able to do you a lot more good than any of us can. They can teach you both some solid communication skills you could apply to day to day life. They would also be better equipped to help you both figure out if the issue is you lacking trust or her doing shady things. We're only getting your perspective here so we don't really have a solid handle on what's up.

^^^ very well said ^^^

Hi OP,

I can't really tell you if it's a you or her thing, but wanted to tell you that you are not alone. My ex (ASD, undiagnosed, also in his 40s) and I broke up almost a year ago now and he does these things similar to your GF's pre and post breakup. Just a few days ago I casually asked him what he has planned for (last) Sunday and if he can move it as we're coordinating our schedules for an activity. He pretty much became very defensive about it which turned into a full blown argument. I lived together with him briefly in the past for about a month and a half and he would do things like put his phone down whenever I come up to him for something. When I'm at his place and he's taking care of his personal stuff on his computer, he would not use his second monitor as I'm assuming he doesn't want me to see whatever that is (but when he's working it's not a problem). He doesn't like to face me sometimes when talking because I can see the reflection of his phone on his eyeglasses especially at night when we're in bed. Like you, I didn't pay much attention to these because he could be looking at his stock portfolio or his bank account for all I know.

I also realized eventually that depending on his mood, he can be very protective of his privacy or he can be more "loose" about it. Small things such as his comment on a news thread that blew up, he would tell me about but wouldn't want to show me... I'm like.. why?? what's the big deal?

Things between him and I are different now because we're just "friends" and there are other things at play, but in that whole process, I had to think carefully about what part of that was my insecurity/anxiety and what part of that was him. Because "talks" make him nervous/anxious, it was very challenging figure that out (and I actually just posted about it too) and so I had to just go with trust him and think that he's not doing anything mischievous/malicious/sus. Eventually he opened up more but it was a vvvveeerrrryyyy slow process. In the past, pre break up, he would take calls from his brother or his close guy friend for example and would leave the room so I wouldn't hear it. I have dated NTs when this was not a problem.
But I just chalked it up to them talking about personal things about the other person I shouldn't hear about. So I was surprised when a few months ago (we're already broken up) he took a call from his brother right next to me and they spoke for a bit including about private family matters. Learning about his behavior has also been difficult process on my end, because he doesn't like talks so it's almost like you have to stay patient, be observant, work through your anxiety, and accept that there are risks that there could actually something suspicious going on... or maybe there's none. And again, that protection to his privacy changes depending on his mood. It's almost akin to him not wanting to be touched depending on his mood.

I also saw your other post asking for advice which I've had to go through as well. A lot of the things you mentioned about your GF are similar to my ex. If you want to chat, you can PM me