My boyfriend (45M) and I (37F) have been seeing each other for 2.5 years. During couples therapy, he recently confronted me and said that I’ve lied to him several times and he no longer trusts me. As an important note, he is autistic.
When I asked for details about what he felt I’d lied about, some of the instances were times when I said something figurative that he took literally – a frequent issue due to his autism. For example, I made a statement something like “My ex played video games all day and never spent time with the kids,” and he feels that I’m lying because there was one time that my ex went on a family vacation with the kids and I, so clearly I’m lying about him never spending time with the kids. Instead of understanding the concept that I’m trying to share, he apparently dismisses it all as a lie over semantics. (He also came to this conclusion without knowing that during that vacation, my ex had a tantrum and stormed off, leaving me alone with the kids for almost the entire time – so…)
Another time I was figuring out the logistics for picking up dinner and I said that my daughter didn’t have dance class that evening so I could be flexible with dinner timing. He took that to mean that class was not being held, and accused me of lying when he found out that we’d actually chosen to skip the class. I don’t feel that my wording was specific either way – but the subject of the conversation was dinner timing, not the class, so I didn’t feel that I needed to be super specific and detailed. He took that as a lie of omission – I felt I was just being succinct about the part of the conversation that was not the main focus.
One of the other things was a misunderstanding where he thought I’d contradicted myself about something but then realized that I was referring to two different situations. I attempted to explain myself about all of the above things, but I was extremely emotional and I don’t know how much I was able to clarify – he at least seemed to accept that he was mistaken about this last misunderstanding.
Since the conversation yesterday, I’ve barely been able to stop crying. We were friends for years and our relationship was built on me feeling like I could tell him things I couldn’t tell anyone else. Now I’m looking back at every vulnerable thing I ever shared with him and wondering what else he thinks I’m lying about, or how I’m supposed to find verification so he’ll believe me. I told him about my past trauma not being believed by the police about an abusive ex – now I wonder if he doesn’t believe me about that either.
He claims to love me. I can’t comprehend how he was unable to extend me the benefit of the doubt that I’m not lying by default. I don’t understand why he would jump to the conclusion that I’m lying instead of assuming there’s a misunderstanding or asking for clarification. Where am I supposed to go from here? I thought I’d marry this man and now I have no idea how I’m going to continue the relationship at all in the face of him telling me he doesn’t trust me.
TL:DR: My autistic boyfriend feels I’m lying to him when I don’t speak 100% literally, and now it’s damaged the trust in our relationship. I don’t know how to proceed.