Soothing the heartbreak through analysis

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It's been about 4 years since I last posted on Wrong Planet, roughly about the time I was officially diagnosed with ASD. I'm not sure if etiquette permits me to unload my BS onto everyone so soon without putting in some work responding to others' posts first.
I guess I need some outside assurance about how things went between me and a girl I saw very intensely for 2 months. I will try to be as charitable as possible because I don't want this to be a place for me to seek validation by pointing out everything I didn't like. A fair warning, this is all over the place. I can’t bring myself to edit this. Requests for clarification or more detail are welcome. Perhaps all the pathetic little details will entertain some of you enough to read the whole way through and maybe even respond.

She ended things last week. I was more or less dealing with it fine for the first few days. Things had been rocky and I had wanted to end it for a little while at that point--I even did the week prior, but we reconciled the next day and she came out to visit me at my new house for a week. But I guess as the break up started to hit me, I got quite upset.

The main thing upsetting me is that she basically laid the blame on me and especially on my ASD. When we broke up she told me I was too immature for her.

Background: I just turned 29 (on the day things really started to deteriorate between us, actually), and I recently moved into my own apartment for the first time, and am about to start a PhD. I had lived on my own in dormitories before, but this was my first apartment. Four years ago, as I was supposed to be completing my bachelor's degree, basically all of my mental health problems came to a head, and I discovered that I had ASD. Basically, my life fell apart, and my parents took me back in and did everything they could for me to get to a place where I could live independently. Two years ago, they moved halfway across the country with me while I did my MA degree, and in the past 18 months I've gotten sober and excelled in my studies to the point where I'm now entering a world class program in my field. On top of all this, my parents have always been overprotective. So, because of this recent history, my parents keep quite a close eye on me, and they text me several times a day every day. Very doting and all that. They continued to do this even though I was seeing a woman--I guess they didn't realize how unattractive that would look on me.

Anyhow, because of this relationship with my parents, the woman I was seeing finally concluded that I was too immature for her, and that she needed a man who could take care of her. This was literally 2 weeks after telling me I was the most supportive man she'd ever met, that she felt safe with me, and being with me made her feel calm. Keep in mind, also, that I am earning money in my chosen field as a graduate student, I live on my own, I have my own car, etc. I have had a ton of help from my parents—they gave me the car, for example—but I am still not living a child’s life.

After not talking for a few days after breaking up (i.e. after she dumped me--I don't want to try to soften things to make myself feel better), I was feeling quite resentful for her telling me I'm basically a child. I sent her a message on Facebook, because it seemed less intrusive a medium of communication than text message, telling her that I didn't want to rehash things, but that I was insulted that she told me I basically have the maturity of an 18-year-old. I argued that it simply wasn't true. Among other things, I told her that the recent history of my ASD diagnosis helps explain the way my parents treat me, and that their treatment of me should not reflect on my maturity as an adult.
Of course, this is a mistake I always make, thinking that I can win an emotion-based argument with reason. (More on this below.) She reacted quite harshly, I thought. She told me that I was childish and that it wasn't normal for parents to be so proud of a 29 year old for moving out on his own. I hadn't argued it was normal--I just tried to argue that these circumstances mitigated the charge of immaturity.
I don't remember the exact details of the rest of the conversation. It was brief, but she registered a new complaint: Not only does my ASD make me immature, it makes me essentially abusive, and emotionally dangerous to non-autistic people. She sent me a link to a site I'm sure many of you are familiar with--heartlessaspergers.com--and told me that maybe it would give me some insight. I didn't react well--after glancing briefly at the website, which basically paints autistic people as psychopaths (no hyperbole), I believe my exact words were "How is this insightful?"
At this point, her complaints were roughly,
 1. I am immature, cruel, cold.
2. I can’t or won’t admit fault or that I played any role in the deterioration of our relationship.
3. Because of these things, if she hadn’t broken up with me, then she would have been driven into madness eventually by me.
This site, heartlessaspergbers.com, basically says that people who are in relationships with autistic people are victimized by autism, that autism makes people incapable of empathy and therefore unable to provide emotional support. The major claim it makes which sticks out in my case is that this lack of empathy makes autistic people incapable of seeing themselves as anything but all knowing and right about everything. One final point, this was her second relationship with someone with ASD. She told me early on that she had a relationship with a guy with Asperger’s, that things started out great and eventually they got bad, and she says that she experienced the madness and physical illness described by this website. I don’t doubt it. She showed me this heartlessaspergers site when she told me about this. So I know she has always had it on her mind, and she’s already predisposed to think autistic people will be this way, really sweet in the beginning and then eventually callous, cruel, etc.
And I was really sweet in the beginning, and as far as I know, I did my best to keep it up. Sure, things sucked in the last couple days, but before that…She’s giving me the impression that I had basically been a monster to her for a long time, rather than that we were getting along particularly poorly for a couple days.
So basically, she says now that I was the reason things went south the way they did, and part of that was because I would never admit when I had f****d up. And if I try to deny this, heartlessaspergbers says I’m actually furthering the abuse. So if I say that I have legitimate complaints, she’s being told by this website that I’m wrong and that this is further compounding the problem. Basically, I can either admit that I did everything wrong, or if I deny it, I’m only proving that I’m incapable of empathy, that I did do everything wrong PLUS I commit the further crime of denying it.
HERE’S THE PROBLEM: From my perspective, I have very concrete complaints about her behaviour sometimes, and she is the one who won’t admit it and who, in fact, won’t let me express my complaints. I can’t make this point because it will just fortify her belief that I’m a cruel, empathy-less monster.
She literally wouldn’t let me make the point. She has this thing where if a point of contention comes up (often politics, which she brings up most of the time), she will make her points freely, and then tell me to stop and that the conversation is over. And this always seems to happen she doesn’t like what I have to say. I have tried to tell her that I feel disrespected when she does this, that it makes me feel like she doesn’t value my opinion, and that I find it insulting when, for instance, she tells me that my views are wrong or not worthy of consideration because I believe everything I read (I don’t) and don’t go on political twitter (So what?). She ignored me the first time I told her how all of this makes me feel.
It all came up again last week on my birthday. She again would not let me speak. I didn’t stop her from talking. She literally threw her hands up in the air and said “STOP”. Here’s what (part of) the discussion was:
She doesn’t like political party A, and wants party B to get back in power. I said that party A has at least a couple things over party B, (1) that party A has granted government-employed scientists more freedom to speak to the public about things like climate change, and (2) that party A wants to tax corporations at a higher rate than party B.
To try to shut me down, she even said, “Doesn’t autism make you think only in black or white?” And I said, “you even just said you agree about (2)” and she said “I DON’T LIKE PARTY A. STOP TALKING ABOUT IT!” She would do this often, try to discount what I was saying because of autism, or by bringing up difficulties with socializing that I’d told her about in the past, saying that basically what was going on was that I shouldn’t trust my own social instincts and should just stop when told to stop. She often said things like “Didn’t you say that you often misinterpret situations…?”, implying that I must be misinterpreting the present one.

Early on in the relationship she established that she didn’t want to discuss contentious or complicated issues via long, drawn out text messages. I wasn’t the best at following this, often because she would say what she wanted and then the expectation was that I wouldn’t respond, since my responses were long, drawn-out text messages. Eventually this rule morphed into “I don’t want any long text messages”, and this basically came to mean that she could play the “I told you I don’t want any long text messages…” card whenever I said anything she didn’t like. A related point: Early on, she had emphasized how important communication was to her in relationships, and I agreed (still do). Initially, this meant that if there was something I wanted to say, or a complaint I had, I should just say it. Later, when I made a complaint (in a less than tactful manner, granted), and I cited the importance of communication, she said she only meant for BIG things like if one of us cheated, etc. And then the other day, she brings it up again, says that I told her how important communication is to me, but I wouldn’t talk to her about what was bothering me (which was the point about her not letting me express my opinion).
I get it. If I have a point I want to make, I am relentless and I won’t stop if told stop. But with her, she would tell me to stop, and then she would continue on with the conversation, making me think that it was justified for me to continue on too.
So I often felt like I had to make sure what I said would please her and fit her whims, or she would get upset and tell me I was ignoring her wishes. And she told me that I made her feel like she had to walk around on eggshells all the time???

On the night of my birthday, when things had basically fallen apart, she said she wanted to go home the next day. Things were tense. I tried to tell her how her way of communicating made me feel, but she wouldn’t let me, interrupting me and shouting “DO YOU EVER THINK YOU’RE WRONG?” During this fight, she literally mocked me, saying back what I said in a dumb voice. She gave me a chance to speak, and I said one word (“You…”) and she said “Uh huh” and stormed out of the room. Like, the fact that I thought she was doing something unkind was unfathomable, not up for discussion, and merely reflected my myopia and selfishness.
I’m not saying I handled things well. There were certainly better ways to make my point.

The next morning things were tense. After I basically ignored her and she snapped at me a few times, we finally had a conversation in the car. She told me, calmly and not in a mean spirited way, how she realized that I was too immature for her, that she needed a man who could take care of her, that she didn’t want to have a romantic relationship with somebody with autism again.
I listened, but still upset at having been shut down repeatedly the day before. When it came time for me to speak, I again tried to raise my point, that I often felt like she wouldn’t listen to me, didn’t respect my opinion, etc. But she became really angry, saying that after she had tried to be nice and make peace with me all I could do is complain about her. We really started to fight. She would not let me say what I wanted, and I said “This just proves my point.” And she again mocked me. She reduced what I was saying to a litany of insults, and wouldn’t let me clarify what I wanted to say. I kept saying, “That’s not what I’m saying. If you’d let me talk, I would tell you.” And she said, “I know what you’re saying. I don’t listen to you. I disrespect you. I insult you. I got it. Is there anything else you want to say?” So what I thought was a legitimate compliant was turned against me.
Needless to say, I was not happy when I dropped her off.

So, clearly, we had communication problems. But I don’t think they were all my fault, and now she’s implying that they are all my fault, and that I can’t see this just makes me even worse.

So anyway, after we spoke that first time a couple days ago after breaking up last week, she was very dismissive and I basically thought, there’s nothing more to be said here. So I unfriended her on Facebook. A childish move. The next morning I get a message from her and we go back and forth a bit, and eventually it becomes a relatively cool detente, we wish each other well and move on. Later, I texted her saying, “I would really appreciate if sometime you feel like telling me in more detail, what specifically I did wrong, so I can try to fix it moving forward.” She clearly didn’t want to talk about it and again suggested I read heartlessaspergers.
So I did. And it became clear that she thought I would do nothing but hurt her if given the chance, even if I didn’t mean to.
I was really upset. I sent an email, asking her if this is how she really viewed me, how could I be such a monster and not even know it? I asked I I had driven her crazy like all those people said happened to them on heartlessaspergbers. It was thoroughly pathetic.
She texted me later and told me to please stop, that it was obsessive and unhealthy, and then she said: “You did not drive me crazy because I knew of Aspergers beforehand and got out of any long term affair. I was highly stressed though because you weren’t or didn’t want to see your contribution to anything until there was nothing left.”
It became clear that she viewed me as a ticking time bomb, somebody who would eventually make her mentally and physically ill (“the madness”, she called it) if she stayed with me. She had to get out for her own safety.

I just want to figure out how all this happened. I know things weren’t great near the end, and they were pretty awful the last night/day, but I just can’t figure out how this was all my fault? Throughout the relationship, I frequently admitted when I was wrong or at fault. I really made an effort to see what I had done wrong. Yes, at the end, I was doggedly trying to register a complaint against her, but it was a legitimate compliant, not me being blind to everything but what’s in my own head.

She has not admitted any fault in this at all. Like, at all. She’s basically telling me through this heartlessaspergbers website that my thinking she’s at fault to any degree is a form of abuse, that I’m just compounding the abuse.
Part of me wants to reconcile with her, to go back to the fun way things were most of the time. Maybe it’s just because now I’m alone in a new city with no friends. Or maybe we really could’ve been good friends, regardless of the prospects for romance. A bigger part of me just wants to have a human conversation with her, to be given a chance to tell my side of things, to come to some understanding of where we both went wrong and hopefully to come out of this having learned something, not just to feel like a failure as a human being, or worse, a non-starter.
How could I be the most supportive man she ever met one week and then a cruel child who could only bring her down the next? Am I really a selfish monster?

In my experience, there are times when people just have to "move on."

I've been through similar things, been called "immature," etc. As I reflect, I realize that our relationships "just weren't in the cards," and I move on to another experience.

One should analyze one's self, though, and see if one can improve. But don't place the "blame" on yourself for the breakup--or even on her.

Perhaps, even if you were Prince Charming, the relationship still wouldn't have worked out for many reasons.

Saying all this, I've indulged in similar "paralysis by analysis." And I'll probably continue to do so should there be future breakups.

But the best thing to do.....is to remember your pleasant memories, and reflect upon how you could have done things better and different.

But move into potentially "greener pastures."

Thanks for the reply. I suppose moving on is the only option available. But it hurts.

If I could boil down the problem I'm having, it is that she and I have the exact same complaint about each other--that the other won't admit their own part in things--but she has the trump card: She says that I am the problem, that I can't see this is just part of the problem, and that all of this is covertly abusive and follows directly from my ASD. So not only did I f**k up here, but I am doomed to f**k up forever and I'm incapable of improving.

Also, she thinks that my autism is making me ignore her viewpoint and basically gaslighting her. But she uses my autism and my own admission of some difficulties I have to discount my opinions and perspectives on things. Often she would say "Didn't you say you often misinterpret things because of your ASD?" She once she came out and said that I should systematically distrust myself, and just ask her what was happening.

"Covertly abusive" is a term I would just disregard. Anything can be interpreted as "covertly abusive" should one desire to apply the term.

If somebody uses that term, they are engaging in a good deal of self-justification, in my opinion.

She's trying to defer any blame from herself, obviously.

If this is what the relationship was like after two months then I'm sorry to say but it was never going to be long term, not realistically. Relationships tend to start well, the "honeymoon phase", and arguments tend to come later and that is when the relationship starts to get tested to see if it's strong enough to last. If your relationship skipped the honeymoon period and went pretty much straight to the arguments then that's not a sign of a good relationship.

So long term I'd probably sack this one off, don't try to reconcile.

As for the actual problems, I guess it's possible that she had just been poisoned by that website and saw it as a get out of jail free card. Or it's possible that maybe you were to blame for some things but you just couldn't see it? I've had girls accuse me of things in the past that I've had to have a good honest think about. I know I "know' I'm right....but am I really? In that regard I understand why you want a good honest "postmortem" of the relationship to see if any light could be shone on these issues. Maybe in time she'll calm down and you can have a chat about it. Maybe she won't, but you at least have a few things you can try and concentrate on and tackle in your next relationship.