AITAH for disclosing my past NDA with my Girlfriend since it has expired?

I (31M) have been dating my girlfriend (28F) for a little over a year. Overall things have been good and no major drama, pretty healthy communication, and we’re at the stage where we talk about long term stuff like moving in together and all. So we’re quite pleased and familiar with each other.

Before we started dating, I worked for a mid sized startup that went through a messy acquisition. During that process, several employees (including me) were asked to sign NDAs because we had access to financial information and internal disputes between executives. The NDA basically prevented me from discussing anything related to the acquisition negotiations and internal conflicts for two years.

That two year period ended about three months ago. While the NDA was active, my girlfriend occasionally asked how I was doing since I didn’t speak much about work that period not to blow my cover and she kept on asking specifically about that job because it ended somewhat abruptly on my resume since I had mentioned to her that I had a time demanding project beforehand. I always kept things vague. And most times she asked me about work, I’d say things like company restructuring or legal stuff I can’t talk about. She seemed curious but didn’t push too hard, and I figured it was better not to even get close to the line because she can be sweet (persuasive) sometimes

Last weekend we were out with some friends and the topic of bad workplaces came up. Someone mentioned corporate scandals and NDAs, and I casually said something like, Yeah, I had one with my last company during the acquisition. It actually just expired recently.

My girlfriend immediately asked what it was about. Since it was no longer under NDA, I explained the situation: basically the founders were fighting over the sale price, there were accusations about misreported revenue, and a few employees (including me) were pulled into meetings where we saw documents we probably shouldn’t have. Nothing illegal that I know of, just very messy internal politics and lawyers everywhere.

I didn’t name individuals or reveal anything that could cause problems. I kept it pretty general. The friends we were with mostly just thought it was interesting corporate gossip.

On the drive home though, my girlfriend got quiet and then told me she was upset which I expected and understood.

Her issue wasn’t what I said, it was that she felt like I had kept a “significant part” of my life from her for over a year. She said it made her question what else I might not be telling her. I reminded her that I literally wasn’t allowed to talk about it while the NDA was active. Breaking it could’ve meant serious legal consequences and loss of job.

She said I could’ve at least told her more about the existence of the NDA earlier or explained why that job ended the way it did. In her mind, the secrecy made it feel like I didn’t trust her.

I tried to explain that NDAs are strict and I didn’t want to risk even accidentally revealing something by talking about it too much. My approach was basically: keep it as simple as possible until it expires.

Now she’s saying the bigger issue is that I waited until a group setting to mention it rather than telling her privately first. She feels like she learned something personal about me at the same time as our friends.

From my perspective, it wasn’t some huge secret life event. It was just boring corporate legal drama that I legally couldn’t talk about before.

But she’s still a bit cold about it and says it made her feel “out of the loop” about my life.

AITAH for disclosing my past NDA situation the way I did once it expired?