I did it again. And this time she’s REALLY mad.

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I did it again. And this time she’s REALLY mad.

I have a bit of an obsession with monitoring and tracking things, both for safety and for just the sheer satisfaction of data collection and organization. Unfortunately, this has caused an upset with my wife and son, who see the camera in the living room as a violation of their privacy. I agreed to adjust the schedule, so that it would turn off during daylight hours when they’re home, and come on at night for security and to see what the pets are up to (that’s always fun). I was also allowed to have it come on during the day, when they were at work and school (again, security).

The trouble is, I didn’t change the schedule when school ended, and my wife and son are home all day again. When my wife confronted me, I told her that I forgot, but she’s too smart for that and got me to confess that I simply didn’t fix it. She asked if I’ve been checking in on her, during the day. I said that I do occasionally. Not all the time.

I worry about them, and the house bunnies we have roaming free in the living room. I’m afraid that if the camera isn’t going all the time, that someone might get hurt or need help and no one will know until it’s too late. Sometimes, when a bunny or a cat is acting sick, I’m able to scan back through the footage and figure out when it started, or what they might have gotten into. It’s been helpful. It’s also allowed us, as parents, to see when our son has gotten into trouble or watched something on the TV that he wasn’t supposed to.

Nevertheless, my wife believes I violated her trust, for not changing the camera schedule again when school ended and “spying” on her during the day. She knows it’s not malicious or prying, that it’s due to the way my autism is expressed in monitoring and tracking things, and worrying about the ones I love. But she still feels “violated” and “betrayed.” She said she’s giving me “one more chance,” and then she’s “ripping that thing [camera] off the wall.”

I feel horrible. I took the camera off the wall, myself, both to demonstrate my remorse and commitment to my renewed promise, and to remove for myself the temptation to slip back into the offending impulse. This means I can’t monitor the pets or our sneaky son anymore. If someone gets hurt and no one is around to help them, I’m going to regret removing that security feature. But she was just so mad. She even made me apologize to our son for spying on him (even though that was part of the reason we installed the camera, because he can’t be trusted). If a bunny gets sick or a dog breaks into the house and eats them, or someone leaves a gate open and the bunnies escape and get eaten (I worry a lot about bunnies being eaten), or a fire starts, or whatever, I can’t do anything about it. When I lived alone, I had cameras all over. I loved being able to watch my cats and keep an eye on the place while I was at work. Things change when you live with other people. They don’t like the cameras. I mean, I get it. They make me feel safe. They make me feel like the ones I love are safe. But they feel “watched,” even though I check in once in a while, and some days forget to entirely, or scroll quickly through the feed later on to see if anything happened.

I considered leaving the house to spend the night on my couch at work, because I felt so bad and she was so mad. And like I usually do when she’s this mad, I start contemplating getting my affairs in order, and making a plan to move out on my own again, telling myself that “I’m a bad bet,” and “she’s better off without me,” that my weird autistic traits are just too much for a normal person to deal with. It’s the way she looks at me in moments like this: horrified and betrayed, yet also sad and pitying, because she knows how my mind works. And I imagine she’s questioning, in that moment, if it’s all worth it, if I’m worth it. She hasn’t said it in awhile, but I remember early in the relationship she would sometimes say she’s not sure she can count on me, that she knows it’s not my fault, that’s who I am, but that she needs to look after her mental health nonetheless. I think that things between us have improved a lot since those early days. I’ve done a lot of therapy and personal work, and she has said how proud and impressed she is, how far I’ve come. I don’t upset her and make her doubt us nearly as much as I used to. And knowing that I’m autistic, and educating herself, has made her more understanding. Having an autistic son and dad also helps her understand me better (a more recent discovery). Nevertheless, she has moments when she just feels burned out from being so understanding, and feels the autistic weight of weirdness surrounding and suffocating her, and she just wants to be with normal people who can read her social signals and reciprocate and she doesn’t have to handle with special gloves. I get that too. I often feel like a burden on her, or a piece of her burden, and hate myself for being born this way, for being a problem for so many people, and for all the trouble I’ll surely cause for them in the future.

“I’m a bad bet.”

“Why would anyone deal with me?”

I tell myself those things a lot. It’s hard not to, when your whole life you’ve grown up being reminded at every turn how weird and troublesome and high-maintenance you are, how you constantly fall short of expectations, how you keep breaking your promises, how you keep letting people down, hurting their feelings, making them furious, making them pity you, making them pull back from you, because they “need to take care of themself.” Or “you’re SO smart about so many things! Why can’t you figure THIS out?” Sometimes I wish my disability was glaringly physical, because then maybe people wouldn’t take everything so personally. If I had a visual impairment, they wouldn’t feel “betrayed and violated” when I bumped into them or knocked over their valuables. But because I have a “social-emotional” impairment, they think I meant to “bump” into them. My eyes work just fine, but it’s a different kind of vision I lack. And people don’t get that. Part of that is my fault for pretending to “see just fine.” I didn’t want to be treated differently, because that often means being talked down to and “handled” like they’re better than you. I hate that. So, I often pretend. But then a crack in the facade appears and they feel lied to. WTF? How can you win?

I’m rambling now. What are your thoughts?

Just like the Truman Show.

People have a right to their privacy.

You're absolutely right.

IDK, you sound like a great dad/husband/bunny-parent to me! Maybe I'm just weird, but I only expect privacy in the bathroom. If I had a camera set up in my living room and I knew my spouse was on the other end I'd be waving into that thing and sending messages in sign language all day.

My neighbors have a security camera and they catch my kids going over there to pet the cats (outdoor cats) and I'm glad for it--if something happens to my kids while they're out, at least we have some record of where they were.

So, look, this camera thing. You're not a "bad bet." You're not a bad person. This is just a personal preference thing. It's like putting cilantro on your food. Some people like cilantro. Some people think it tastes like soap. There's nothing wrong with liking cilantro even if your spouse hates it.

And you know what? Even NTs get into fights with their spouses. Even NTs put cilantro on the food even though they know their spouse is a cilantro-tastes-like-soap person. Everybody does this stuff.

You might not want compromises, but I can think of a couple of ideas that might help with some of the issues.

1. The TV. What programs is your kid accessing that he shouldn't? Maybe there are other ways to restrict the TV, like blocking certain channels or canceling cable/whatever streaming services you have. There aren't too many objectionable things on just antenna-tv for a kid to watch.

2. The bunnies. Is it possible to set up a bunny-cam that's down at bunny-level and only focuses on the bottom six inches of the room? You wouldn't be able to tell what the humans are up to but you'd still be able to see the bunnies. Obviously your wife would have to be in a much better mood before you broach the idea of a bunny cam.

But for now, maybe just accept that sometimes people need to get into a little trouble on their own... We can grow from our troubles, both kids and adults.

Good luck

It's obvious you love and care for your family (human and bunny) very much. Try not get too down on yourself though. Your wife sees wonderful qualities in you. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have said I do and married you. She must think your a wonderful man. I understand her desire for privacy in the home though. In today's modern world, there are cameras everywhere. Home is the one place you shouldn't have to feel like your being watched.

Pteranomom had some great ideas, like the parental controls on cable box or streaming services and the bunny cam (to be negotiated when things settle down.)

Perhaps you can compromise? Maybe adjust the camera lower so that it can watch pets at floor level? or placing a camera in a specific zone of your living area so that the humans in the house can always expect privacy outside of that zone?

Last edited by DanielW on 28 Jun 2022, 2:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm pretty sure peace in this scenario will involve abandoning the security cameras long-term and learning to deal with no longer being able to ease your anxieties with that coping mechanism.

Aww thanks! It's interesting, because when I first had the camera up, she expressed how happy she was knowing that I could "be a part of things," even while I was at work. She felt safe, knowing that I would see if she collapsed and call someone. A little more than a year ago, she was rushed to the emergency room with tons of clots in her legs. She almost died, could have died at any moment if a clot got loose, and we worried about that for months afterwards, waiting for the medication to reduce and eliminate them. She was glad for the camera then. But I think that changed when she started getting better. And I get that. I respect it. I was dishonest and I betrayed her trust. Because of my obsession and worry, I felt like I could help myself. That's an explanation, not an excuse. My motives were good, but the fact is I agreed to turn off the camera when school ended, I didn't do that, I hid that from her, and that's on me.



That's a great analogy. It's funny, because she HATES cilantro and I love it, and she judges me for it, but we don't hold it against each other.



Yeah. This is a whole thing. We still haven't sorted it out. There isn't any consistency in "presenting a unified front" on device usage. We'll try for awhile, but it breaks when he wears her down on a particularly trying day, or she decides to "try again for awhile, to see if he can be responsible." He can't control himself. Has to have a device going all the time, often several at once (TV, tablet, music). It's insane. He's an addict. But she's the primary parent most of the day, and spends half the time with his bio-Dad, who has his own rules, so my ability to make/enforce rules is limited.



I'll think about this. Thank you for the suggestion. I think the issue is more the possibility of me overhearing a conversation she doesn't want me to hear, than seeing something I wasn't supposed to see. She's not hiding anything, but sometimes she might want to vent about me to a friend or parent, or talk to the boy about something meant just for them. I get that. She might gripe about me a lot. I have no idea. Like I said, I don't watch the camera all the time. I would check in a few times a day, scroll through for anything out of the ordinary, make sure the bunnies are eating and drinking regularly, etc. But the point is, she has no idea what I see or hear, so that creates a feeling of insecurity, just the possibility of being overheard at the wrong time. I think I'm just going to leave the camera off the wall. It will make them feel better. It will make me feel less compelled to "spy." We'll just take care of the bunnies the old fashioned way, like people did for years before cameras were everywhere. It's a luxury. Not a necessity.

Thank you for the kind words. Of course, you're absolutely correct. And I know it.

Good ideas! Thank you. I'll take them into consideration.

Thank you. I agree with this assessment. It's hard, but you're right.

I only feel truly safe when I am alone. Having cameras watching me would drive me nuts. I don't even like the game cameras around the property. I will sneak up and walk around them when I see them.

I'm sure you care deeply about the safety of your family, but cameras may be over the top.

Agree.
This is crossing all sorts of boundaries.

You're absolutely right. It was a violation of privacy. She welcomed the camera, during a hard season in her life (she almost died from blood clots and wanted me to look out for her, during the months of recovery), but that season ended, and I didn't respect the new boundary.

I also agree. Thank you for your honesty.

She's "giving you one more chance."

It's not all over yet.....