'The Almighty Email Archive'....am I overreacting?

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Awhile back, I was posting a lot on here not so much about MY AS issues, as about those of my slightly-less socialized Aspie boyfriend, and the way that I couldn't exactly deal with some of it. He's getting better in a lot of areas, but I just found out about yet another thing, that I have to admit, freaks me out a wee bit.

We were friends for years before we started dating. I now realise I was a 'special interest' of his pretty much that entire time, which while a bit creepy, is amusing and flatttering at the same time, so any bad feelings I had regarding that in general have pretty well faded. However, he's just informed me that he has saved and archived every email and IM conversation we ever had, over YEARS, and goes back to read them often. Additionally, he admits to going back to read them to dredge up things from the past to rub my nose in when he's feeling argumentative (which, a lot of the time, stems from me pointing things out to help him) Not only is that habit of his beyond annoying and sometimes full-on upsetting (no one wants to have painful things from the past that were told in confidence, shoved back in their faces), but when I thought a bit about it, it's kinda creepy. I guess there's nothing TOO wrong with keeping CERTAIN emails, or even ones from the time you start dating someone. But like SIX YEARS worth of emails, and often using them in that way? Not cool AT ALL.

What I guess I'm asking is, has anyone else ever done this? I'm sorta trying to figure out how normal this is....among abnormal people like us, that is.

wow.

and by 'wow' what I mean is "my goodness, what a horder." He keeps your past emails and researches them to keep you frozen in time, unchanging, daring you to step out of how you were before, so you don't change and remain what he has discovered about you, forever. It seems he is trying to suspend you in amber.

I would resist, personally. And move on. That sort of domination seems unhealthy to me.

Even with the weight of a lot of the problems we've had before, I have never considered fleeing so seriously till now.

Funny, being the queen of delayed reactions, I didn't react half this violently last night when it came up....it's now, after thinking a bit more about it, I can't stop shuddering. He's been caught in some downright stalkerish behaviour before, but this....well, it just really freaks me out. The 'special interest'-type obsession was for some reason far more acceptable in the past, when it was just a crush on a friend....I feel it should have moved to a different level now that we're a couple, and I'm afraid it kind of hasn't.

Additionally, I've been stalked before, a few times, one of those stalkers being my last long-term ex, who I had to get an order of protection against. As a result, anything this obsessive and weird scares the s**t out of me.

I have politely requested that he destroy the archive and please, for the love of god, move forward, but honestly, I seriously doubt that will happen.

I save my emails and transcripts; I've rescued some really good creative ideas for composing music that way that would have otherwise been lost. However, using those against the person I am in a relationship (or now, my wife)... that's a bit troubling. It isn't the collection that is an issue, it is his behavior stemming from it.


M.

I do the same as you do....I save PARTICULAR emails, both for creative reasons and personal reasons. It's both the fact that he's saved ALL of them and ARCHIVED them, and what he's choosing to do with them that bothers me.

It came up last night when I said something about myself being brutally honest, and he decided to counter that by citing SPECIFIC examples (there's always specific examples) he'd LOOKED UP from correspondence 2+ years old of when I wasn't entirely truthful. First of all, I do not consider leaving out uncomfortable details of certain situations when recounting something to a friend 'dishonest' nor are TYPOS DISHONEST, and secondly, this crap was OVER TWO YEARS AGO. In the past, he's brought up issues regarding short-lived relationships I've had, Asperger's related problems I had YEARS AGO, and other things no one in their right mind would ever bring up again, just to get the focus off him, and he can quote me with better accuracy than I can quote myself (and I am a quote machine). It's really too much.

Agreed. I have large caches of past correspondence with many people, but not for any purpose of intimidation or manipulation.

This seems unhealthy for both of you. He's acting as if you then and you now are the same person. People change, even those of us on the spectrum. I would be severely freaked if someone did this to me.

I don't know what else to say about this.

Interesting... again, I think the issue is more with his behavior and actions than the cache of emails themselves. While I don't keep all, I do keep most of my correspondence and conversations; the primary reasons being to retrieve creative ideas and to keep a record of my life. I'm not good with keeping a journal, so my conversations are the measure and memory of what has happened in my life. It has allowed me to visit happier times when I was sad, and to examine the painful times in my life by taking me back through those words. But to use those as a weapon against someone - that is where I find the situation troubling. The preservation in amber comment (from Merle, I believe) was an interesting insight, and quite possible... the prospect of change might be too much for him.


M.

I do agree with the preservation in amber comment....and I know change bothers him, whether it's negative or positive. He obviously takes serious exception to the fact that I've sorted out a lot of personal issues since we've been together and shortly before that (in a large part due to my last relationship and health problems)...both Asperger's and non-Asperger's problems. One of his favourite things to do is basically accuse me of being high and mighty for trying to help him through certain problems he has, that I've experienced myself. Instead of taking advice from someone who's been there, he'll simply say, 'Oh, like you don't do that', or 'you do it too', and then start citing examples from emails I sent him, some of them 4 or 5 years ago.

I'm not so sure whether it's ME changing or HIMSELF changing that he doesn't like, but I'd be inclined to say it's a bit of both.

I am BEYOND proud of the changes I've made over the years he and I have known each other. I spent much of that time in a very abusive and toxic relationship. I was NOT the same person then that I am now, I feel that I have finally come full-circle, and I don't enjoy being forced to relive how bad things used to be.

I'm with "M"

Is some form of couple counseling an option? Whether you stay together or not, he would certainly benefit, and will behave better with any future relationships. Consider it a public service on your part. And while you're at it, you might benefit, too.

I'd probably save at least some of the e-mails, (and even text messages) from my girlfriend. Those would consist of three types: special occasion greetings, insults she sent during a fight, and just stuff I particularly liked. The second one is particularly important, because in case she somehow tried to do something bad to me, I'd have evidence to back myself up, with or without getting the court system involved. (Hey, breakups can be really messy.) Of course, I'd never tell her than I'm archiving the insults, but if push comes to shove, I'd break them out as a sneak attack tactic. Hey, archiving someone's messages is simply weird (and even that's questionable), but insulting someone in a degrading way can be framed as verbal abuse. I'd have a solid case right there. Then again, if the breakup was peaceful and mutual, I'd simply delete all the messages except the very special ones.

The archiving thing is why doctors and lawyers will generally never leave a voicemail or send an e-mail other than "please contact me, I need to speak with you", professionally written, of course. If they simply say something in person or on the phone, and it wasn't recorded, they can always deny it if need be. For longer communication, they write a letter that they can edit for proper wording. I've adopted similar tactics in my relationships. If I have to fight, I do it in ways that can't be "recorded" and turned against me. Also, when I write on message boards like this one, I do not make any references to my real-life identity (Facebook is an exception, but there is nothing incriminating there), so if need be, I can deny everything. For an aspie, I'd say that's very socially clever. Yeah, mods can trace me if they have to, but my worry is an angry girlfriend trying to get back at me by publicly embarrassing me.

Yes, I agree; you two need to sit down and talk about this stuff, and since when you do it on your own it only leads to arguments, a mediator would be helpful. He may not understand that he's being stalkerish in the first place. And personally, I think you should lighten up about the e-mail archive (though you're justifiably upset that he's using it the way he is). If the general consensus seems to be right, he's so afraid of change that it's hurting his relationship. If that is the problem, then maybe it can be solved; but arguing pointlessly with each other isn't going in that direction, especially since he brings out the archives when you do argue, and then you get on his case about bringing them out.

Aspie1 - The thing is, the issues he's bringing up have nothing to do with him. It's mostly regarding things that I had told him about before we were dating, relating to other people. Being an attorney, I'm very well aware of what people can do with abusive emails, but it's not even an issue, since I never once sent him anything that was abusive or even manipulative or what I'd consider dishonest. Most of what comes up often is either regarding my past relationships or (un)reasonable facsimiles thereof, Aspergers issues I was battling years ago, and things I skimmed over that I more recently explained to him in more detail.


We have done the counselling thing, and we have also both seen therapists separately. I still see one occasionally, while he has completely stopped seeing his. Problem is, he's so set in his ways that he sees this as normal, and sees no reason why he needs help with it.

I saved a few e-mails from my recent failed attempt at a relationship, specifically, the ones where she pointed out some issues she had with me, which involved communication and expressing how I feel. I saved them to learn how to be better at those in the future. While I got better expressing how I feel and telling her what was on my mind, she had stopped doing those things, and eventually cut contact with me (as well as all her opposite-sex friends) when she found someone else.

If she were to ever resurface, I would definitely give her a second chance to see the new and improved me.

When she finally admitted why she cut contact, 6 months after she cut contact, I deleted those e-mails.

I never said that you were sending him abusive messages. I'm actually taking your side on this one. But in my relationships, I need to be fully prepared. I used to be friends with someone, until he had a dumb idea that I planned to steal his girlfriend, and started making violence threats. (Why? One time I talked to her, she was laughing at my geeky jokes.) However, he wasn't very bright, and did it by text messages and voicemail. I took my cell phone to a police station, and they recorded everything, along with prinouts of his crazy-sounding Facebook posts that I bought in. Next day, he was arrested. The cops praised me on my strategy of archiving the messages and building a solid case. (I guess this was a somewhat rare example of an aspie having a great experience in dealing with the police.)

Obviously, it's an isolated incident. But after that "friendship", I was super-careful in preserving any remotely insulting or threatening message that I get. (With that said, I'd never reveal anything confidential that's not relevant to my safety.) Given how messy breakups can be sometimes, up to and including the guy's car getting trashed, this could benefit me a great deal. If a relationship ends like that, I'd sure want to have a solid case like I did last time.

As for your boyfriend, you can tell him how hurtful it is when he brings up archived messages from the past. Perhaps he had an experience similar to mine, only in a romantic relationship, so he's coping with the same way. Only except in picking and choosing what to save, he's saving everything.