Misunderstandings and arguing

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As in every other relationship, misunderstandings just happen. Nevertheless, sometimes it makes me crazy and I have no idea what should I do with it.

My girlfriend is going to buy a flat. It's a very good deal and I'm very happy for this. Nevertheless she had to ask for a loan. She was happy that she got the loan and it made me happy too. Of course I asked her until when is she supposed to repay the loan. She told me that she got 7 years to repay it and it's far enough time. Quick calculation revealed that if she will pay all the money she paid for rent before as monthly installment now, she repays the loan in slightly more than 2 years. This made me even more happy. I told her that in order to share this feeling with her...

However, she got angry instead. She told me that I am completely mad and I have no idea about these things. I was confused. I didn't do anything wrong. My calculation was correct and the result is very positive. Of course, it was only an estimate and I did some non-realistic assumptions. Therefore, I included realistic yearly increase and estimated monthly expenses for resources (water/electricity/gas) in the new flat. More precise calculation revealed that she repays the loan in 3 years - still very positive result, not too distinct from the preliminary estimate...

After that she told me that she had no idea where did I get that she pays €600 for rent. Well, she told me that about half a year ago and after that we never talked about the amount. Of course, maybe I didn't hear her well at that time... maybe we were in bus or we were walking on noisy street... I have no idea, it's already half a year ago. Nevertheless, I was shocked, because all the time I was convinced that she pays €600 per month and I had already accepted this number as a fact.

I said that I'm very sorry, but the number had been really saved in my memory like this. It's not a product of my actual imagination. I expected that she will just correct me and life will go on. However, she told me that this drives her nuts. She told me that I'm shaping reality with imaginary assumption to make it as it ought to be... and it's not the first time I did this. She told me that I should never do this again. Then she stopped to communicate.

Same day in the morning I had a chat at breakfast with my colleague about importance of 'ad hoc' method in science. The method is basically constructing a model based on imaginary assumption. If the model fits reality, the assumption ought to be correct. Nevertheless, we have to always consider that there may be completely different assumption leading to the same results and therefore it may not be the only solution.

My girlfriend basically forbade me to do my science. This made me really upset, because she was always telling me how she supports my work. I told her that if she really doesn't like it, I could quit and do more "reasonable" job. As an aspie, I would never do that. I would rather break-up with my girlfriend than quit my job. It was meant as psychological mirror that makes her realize that she is essentially wrong. Then she argued that she didn't mean my work and she is sorry, if it looked like that, but she added that maybe it's OK for science, but not for the real life...

The last sentence drove me completely nuts. She basically told me, that the world of science is somehow isolated from the real world and it has its own rules. I hate people who are doing this. They use cars, trains, airplanes and computers, that were invented by scientists and engineers; but they say that those scientists and engineers are not part of the real world. They basically depends on science and technology but at the same time they say that principles of science and technology cannot be applied in the real world. This insincere behavior is the main reason why some of my projects lost funding.

I felt deeply touched and I started to explain her that she is completely wrong, because this is not a matter of science at all. It's natural property of creative mind in general. It's responsible for many aspects in human life including religion. Basically, she instructed me to do not behave like creative human being anymore... She didn't let me finish my explanation. She told me that that's the reason why men like me have a problem to find a girlfriend... and she stopped to communicate again.

I asked myself that it's possible that I did something wrong. I talked about this with my NT friend, who is already happily engaged with my colleague. I expected that she tells me something like: "You fool, you completely messed it up. You don't understand woman's mind at all." But she told me something completely different. She told me that she is really disappointed because she had expected that I'll find a girlfriend with a little bit higher IQ and EQ... She told me that behavior of my girlfriend is not OK at all...

Despite of the fact that my girlfriend is an NT, I already know that her behavior would be awful even for an NT guy. Instead of silence, I was in the position to say: "...and that's the reason why you still don't have a stable partner in your age..." (I guess this would be the sentence that would any NT guy with my intelligence told her being in the same position). I'm starting to think that she is just exploiting my aspie nature to cover-up her bad personality.

At the very end I had no idea how much she pays for her rent... that was the primary source of that conflict. Instead, I had really bad feelings about the personality of my girlfriend. It's clear that she has to dramatically change in her opinions, if we are supposed to stay together. Or maybe it's the right time for break-up. I'm already really confused about what should I do...

I hate to say it but you do sound pretty incompatible. She finds it infuriating that you want to apply scientific principles to how she conducts her life. You find it infuriating (or at least annoying) that she doesn't- or that she at least doesn't want you to do so with her. This difference is not going to go away. It doesn't mean she has a bad personality. But it does look like the two of you are incompatible. Sometimes two people can approach life in different yet complementary ways and can be compatible while being so different. But the two of you have approaches to life which are causing friction because of their incompatibility. So, maybe this won't work out and it's time to move on.

It seems a bit odd to freak out over a miscalculation alright, but I can understand why she might be irritated if you make a habit of confidently making proclamations without getting your facts right to begin with.

By any chance, when you told her your initial figure (the 2 year repayment), did she try to tell you you were wrong (because she already knew it would take longer), and then you started arguing her down because according to your own calculations you were perfectly correct? That's the most plausible situation I can think of that would lead to her reaction.

There may also have been other issues around the time of the argument that you did not know about that left her in a bad mood to begin with

"It's clear that she has to dramatically change in her opinions, if we are supposed to stay together. ".

I disagree with this; it takes two to argue, so why should she alone change her opinions? They are not incorrect, they are just at odds with your own, so both of you will have to modify your opinions for the relationship to work out.

I do see where you're coming from with regards to the ad hoc calculations, and even if the answer was off, you were only trying to be helpful, but if you want to avoid arguments like this one, maybe asking her for the data at the start and explaining things as you go along would diffuse the tension.

That somewhat reminds me with what happened with my last girlfriend, Jennifer. I might make some comment about something I don't truly care about (like you don't truly care about her decision on how to pay off the loan) and accidentally I made some assumption that offended Jennifer, and she would be mad. Then I would justify myself that I actually don't care so much about it and the assumption wasn't made on purpose, it was just an accident. Then Jennifer would be mad at the fact that I am justifying myself, instead of moving on. According to Jennifer justifying=arguing, but I don't view it that way. To me, justifying= seeking peace, while arguing=seeking conflict, so the two are quite the opposite. But I can't get it through to Jennifer.

In fact we been to science museum and in that museum there was a section where we could experiment on how different sounds affect the person. In that section there were four recording of four couples, one involves justifying, the other involves anger, and I don't remember the other two. We were told that three of these four couples were going to break up, and one of them will stay together, and we were asked which one would stay together. My answer was that justifying couple would stay together, while Jennifer's answer was that angry couple would. Well, Jennifer's answer ended up being the right one, and I never understood why.

Jennifer told me that the reason justifying is wrong is that if I justify my actions, I blame the other person. But from my perspective why should ANYONE be blamed at all? All I want is piece, I don't want myself blamed, or the other person blamed either; I just explain what went through my head. Jennifer said that there is IMPLICIT blame that I would make without meaning to. So in other words, something implicit done without meaning to is WORSE than anger, even though anger is explicit and deliberate? Wow!

I guess that mindset would explain why Jennifer was so mad by my "implicit" assumptions and your gf is mad at yours. They seem to be very similar personality-wise based on your post and apparently to them implicit means more than explicit. So since your assumption is implicit thats why it is so horrible. And to me that is diametrically opposite to fairness.

The three most stressful things in many people's lives are: a change in employment status; a change in family; a change in homes.

Is it possible that your girlfriend is undergoing stress because of making this large financial commitment, and that stress is having a negative impact on your relationship with each other?

It would be unfortunate to end a relationship over incompatibility that had more to do with externally imposed stresses than fundamental incompatibility.

Jenissy, at this moment you are not the only one who suggested me that me and my girlfriend seems to be pretty incompatible couple. Nevertheless, we live in different cities right now and we meet each other only twice per month, just for a weekend. The conflict I described here happened through Skype-chat. I discovered, that any friction almost completely disappeared when we were physically together. Our biological compatibility is perfect and this fact alone is far enough to override any minor tension and misunderstanding during physical contact. Even my voice and web-cam image themselves set-up her mood in completely different level. The chat I described here would never happen in case of video-call or even a phone call. This gives us a hope that this relationship may work out after we start to live together.

Lene, as an aspie, I'm always assuming that I am the one who messed it up and who is supposed to change his opinions. Everytime I'm trying to learn my lesson and change my behavior to avoid similar conflict in the future. I have some NT female friends who always help me to understand what happened and what did I wrong. For last couple of months these friends say that I did nothing wrong; contrariwise, behavior of my girlfriend was inappropriate, hysterical or affected. They say that she is the one who should say sorry, not me. It was also this case. That's the reason why I came up to the conclusion that I already did ever that takes to make this work out and now it's her turn.

Thanks a lot Roman. This is first rational comment I've ever heard on this topic. Everybody just told me: "you're just incompatible", "her behavior is inappropriate and hysterical, she is oversensitive to unimportant things", "she is definitely trying to do ever that takes to make you angry in order to force you to break-up with her". But none of this sayings holds any constructive advice what to do. Our relationship really clearly shows symptoms of every of this states; nevertheless, there is always a small contradiction in background that is suggesting that it's maybe not exactly like this. Now I know about another possible cause I never considered before. I'll try to explore whether it's the case.

Good luck - hope things work out for you. For some reason misunderstandings and insecurity and everything all seem to blow out of proportion when people are away from eachother.

I think society is screwy this way. Just because two people are incompatible doesn't mean they can't have a relationship. And what does incompatible really mean. It sounds like empathy is needed a bit here, which may be next to impossible. Be patient and stick with it. Good luck.

Reconciliation involves each party looking at the possibilities that they may have hurt the other person’s feelings – even if they did it totally by accident – and presenting something like an apology. The other party can accept the apology and then forgiveness takes place, and the hurt is healed.

I would say she hurt your feelings by giving you the idea that she places no value (or “reality!”) on science, which is clearly central for you. She doesn’t have to be blamed for deliberately hurting you unless it was not an accident. If she meant to hurt your feelings then she is being mean. But even if what she said was just blunder, by MY standards (from an NT perspective) it would be really helpful to the situation if she would just say, “Gosh I’m sorry I hurt your feelings like that. I didn’t mean to. Your interests are important to me and I’ll try to respect your feelings more.” This gives you some important assurances. This allows you let go of negative feelings and move on. That is a better way of healing hurt feelings than just waiting for things to blow over.

I see a pattern here in WP posts, a very strong one, that does not see value in apologies.

I’m also dealing with a man who’s been deeply important to me for 14 years who simply never apologizes. He has hurt my feelings in various ways, out of neglect or silence. When I tell him about it, I have the expectation that he will say “I’m sorry. Your feelings matter to me.” Or something like that. Not getting that releaser leaves unhealed wounds. It makes it so I “get over things” but not in the healthy way that the little rituals offer. Its like putting a bandaid on a wound without washing it. There is more likelihood of scaring.

Justifying is what he does instead.

For instanced, when he has stopped talking to me for weeks, it felt to me like he didn’t like me any more, wanted to distance or punish me. I felt hurt by his silence. He had been feeling bad about things totally unrelated to me. His withdrawals were the way he reacted to his own problems. When I told him how much it hurt my feelings, he told me WHY he withdrew; an explanation – a justificaiton. But that was inadequate to deal with the damage.

Sincerely telling someone you care about their hurt feelings is important. Without that it feels like things will simply continue to happen at random. Justification is cold, like the person don’t really care. The sense of insult will remain, and the sense of having to be on guard against the next hurt.

Saying “I’m sorry” helps people regain their sense of trust and intimacy. Call it a ritual, but it is part of an interpersonal healing process. Iwould never be this aware of that fact were it not for all the unhealed hurts I’ve had to deal with – justified, but not healed.

(Oh as to whether YOU did anything wrong – I have no idea. She definitely hurt your feelings though, and you might ask and see if she cares about that. If she can come up with a rational reason for getting angry at you, then you’ll know what you accidentally did or didn’t do to make her feel she had the right to become angry at you. If she can’t make any case for her anger - - - well, I’d kind of regard that as a bit of a time bomb.)

Your girlfriend is just being unreasonable. This isn't about "using the scientific method" or how you think. She just doesn't want you "justifying" because justifying is talking back. She doesn't care if what you are saying is logical or not, all she cares about is her feelings. Right= makes her feel good, wrong= makes her feel bad.

Bringing up rent, money issues like that can push so many buttons, sounds like she was uncomfortable with how you knew how much she had paid for rent, perhaps she thought that was private. So since she got angry, then she tried to rationalize her anger with whatever nonsensical argument and then attacking your intelligence. You made her feel bad and so you are wrong, period, and you must be punished. The actual content of the argument is irrelevant.

The problem is that instead of trying to understand you she just feels entitled to a mindreading boyfriend who never says anything that makes her feel uncomfortable and if you ever do it's your fault and you'd be better apologize and STFU.

Most people are crazy like that so I guess you'll just have to deal or become celibate.

To handle the situation you have to let go of standing up for yourself or what is correct. The most important thing to her/the relationship is that you said something that made her angry, and when you stick up for yourself, you are ignoring that you made her feel bad, in her eyes you are arguing that you have the right to make her feel bad.

Your analytical nature drives her nuts because she probably has a lot of buttons. When things are fuzzy and undefined it is easier to feel better, but when things get defined that pushes buttons.

Like suppose you pointed out to her "you weigh 140 pounds". It doesn't matter if she weighs 120 pounds, or 160 pounds, or 140 pounds on the dot, she would probably respond to that too by getting angry and saying it's not true and there's no way you know that and you know nothing about these things. The real problem is that you delved into details of a topic she is not comfortable with, your stereotypical woman does not want to think about her weight, or about money. When you argue about whether you are correct or not, you are forcing her to stay on a topic she is not comfortable with, so whatever you continue to say on the topic will continue to make her make her feel bad. Again, makes her feel bad = wrong, makes her feel good = right. For some people, especially women, that's how their brains work, right and wrong is determined by feelings and not logic. They don't even realize that their arguments are not sound, they are relentlessly driven to prove they are right.

Yeah, it's just another feelings-over-logic mindsetted person.

One time I was at my sister's apartment and I took a shower. (We are both women, but she has more of that mindset. ) I wasn't used to showering in a tub that had a shower curtain, the one I always used had doors. So I left the shower curtain hanging outside the tub, instead of inside, which let lots of water get on the floor. She got very mad at me when she saw all the water. I explained that I did not know I had to keep the shower curtain hanging inside of the tub, it never occurred to me. Then she said "oh, so it's my fault?" Then I said, "why does it have to be anyone's fault", then she just went silent and stomped away.

I think this mindset we are discussing just naturally goes along with this great fear and insecurity about being blamed for something. Saying justifying is blaming the other person is complete and patent nonsense.

I think in the museum exhibit, I think the angry couple stays together because they have the most passion. I did not see the exhibit, so I can't say more, there was probably more to it than that.

I bet neither of you never get a meltdown, a tantrum, whatever it's called.

Or else you would know what it's like to have someone in front of you who is talking talking talking talking etc. - whith never ending when all you want to do and to have is silence and loneliness or maybe silence and consolation.

... Or a good fight of some kind (adrenaline needs to find its way somehow) when it's less worst.

It's a good idea to ask someone what made them angry. If it turns out they have a legitimate reason -- you happen to be standing on their toes, for instance, then it is their hurt that manifests as anger. And if that is the case, then you will know whether or not defending (justifying) yourself is really the right thing to do. For instance, if you have broken a rule by bringing your dog into a park that has a "no dogs" rule, because you didn't see any signs, and someone points out your error, your appropriate response is not the same as it would be if someone just came up to you in a park and told you he didn't think you should bring your dog, because he doesn't like dogs.

This really is true:



That, in a nutshell, is why hurt feelings can go to a sense of having been wronged; from having been wronged, over time, to outrage that the proper response is not offered. Someone who does not offer apologies when they have hurt someone in some way, even accidentally, is saying that they have the right to do that! They are reserving the fight to do it again!

Lets make this really clear: say I steps on your toes by accident. You yelp. I have two possible ways of reacting. The automatic built in response that most people have and expect anyone else to have is to quickly say "I'm sorry!" The bigger the yelp, the more sorry I've got to able convince you I am. This is not about how wrong I might or might not be. Maybe those toes were left somewhere carelessly and it would have been a miracle if I hadn't stepped on them. It is still a good idea to employ the social repair mechanisms immediately rather than resort to option 2, (which I only see in the AS mindset, by the way) which seems to be to point out the reason I was justified in stepping on the exposed toes.

Generally speaking if two people accidentally bump into each other, they both automatically offer some small apology.

Read "Peacemanking among the Primates" by Franz de Waal to understand further how gestures are used to repair social mishaps. Perhaps even more fascinating, read "I Am Here, Where are You" by Conrad Lorenz, to get a feeling for how geese use very stylized, ritualized behaviors in their social interactions.

Geese are highly emotional creatures, just like people, and will respond to the amount of energy that is put into displays, to gauge the strength of emotion (how much the other goose "means it") and people can do the same. So penitence ranges from small tokens to full blown "Oh gosh I really blew it!" displays. They are only without value if display is not accompanied by genuine desire to (a) soothe the offended party and (b) not repeat the offending behavior.

A HABIT of responding to someone else's yelp with justification is less likely to lead to happy interactions than to frustrations.

Keeping all the above in mind, you still need to start by finding out if there's anything you genuinely owe an apology for, or if the debt is all the other way. Yes, there are people who are completely incapable of detecting the difference between the feelings they have a right to and those they do not.