Ok let’s get this out of the way because it is relevant: We are both very high functioning autistics. So we both do some pretty weeeeird sh*t. Normally I love it. Her quirks are adorable, and she likes mine too. I hope you can read this with an open mind, and if I am missing some super obvious social convention… please point it out? People are hard.
One of her quirks involves taking notes on *everything*. We have a shared notes folder where she has written down a hilarious amount of info about me. And her. And anything else you can imagine. Sometimes it comes in handy! I rarely even look, that’s not my thing.
But our problems started when I realized she was charting out my entire sexual history in there!
For the last 2 months she would randomly ask things like “When did you start dating xyz” or “what kind of things did you do with abc in bed”. I didn’t think much of those questions. Never asked why. Usually just gave a quick fact-based answer and moved on without another thought. Tbh I don’t feel like going into detail about my exes, and the idea of digging up the past constantly is slightly off-putting. But slight enough that I never mentioned it.
When I saw what she had written, I felt sick. I don’t know, it just felt like a massive invasion of privacy, even though I don’t think it was meant to be malicious. She’s just doing her thing. To be clear there was nothing in this note that carried any emotional charge or judgement. Mostly just names, dates, occasional sexual details. So it was nothing *bad* per se, I just prefer to leave the past in the past. When I break up with someone, I go no-contact, and move on.
I told her how I felt, that I don’t like it and feel like my dirty laundry is being inspected under a microscope.
She claims that she wants to know about my past because she sees them as “learning/formative experiences”
So I decided to set a boundary.
I want to set a boundary about going into my relationship history. I understand that as my partner, you have a right to honesty, which I will continue to give to the best of my ability. I will never knowingly lie. But I also have a right to privacy, and to process my past in my own way. You can still ask anything you want, I am not trying to control you. But I will control *myself* by saying “no” sometimes, and just not go into details.
If you really want to understand my formative stories of growth/learning, then let’s talk about those. those can actually be really interesting topics for me that get me fired up! And part of me wishes we had more conversations about the deeper stuff like psychology, healing and philosophy. But we almost never talk about that stuff. The How’s and Why’s behind the choices we make. The inner world and changework. I do not think you are going to get that from writing down who I have slept with, and when. Instead, I would gently encourage you to watch my present patterns, values, philosophies… and ask how I arrived at them.
So I would like to request that we please remove the relationships section from the note.
After that she quickly deleted the note… but started giving almost one word responses to everything. We spoke on the phone and she seemed to be having a whole meltdown. She expressed concern about having topics that are off limits, and a desire for us to be completely open with each other.
🚩I mentioned “I feel like you do not want me to have privacy, or boundaries. Is that correct?”
and she couldn’t deny it.🚩
So now the situation has escalated from ‘mildly uncomfortable’ to ‘Does this person even care about my rights as a human being?’
What should I do? Should run for the hills? Or this just one of those things people say when emotionally aroused that they don’t necessarily mean?
I think if she *does* mean it, that she does not want me to have privacy or boundaries… then 100,000% I am OUT. But that doesn’t seem to align with her personality. She’s always been a sweetheart.
TLDR:
She wants to know everything about my past partners. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. And she admitted she doesn’t want to have privacy or boundaries in our relationship.