I have a major issue that keeps me up at night.

All my life I've been individualistic. By choice and in light of my introversion, I've always preferred flying solo. Before you jump to conclusions, no this isn't about sarging. This is about living with others. Though I love my family, I hardly tell them anything going on in my life and I tend to keep talk to a minimum. I have a small group of friends that I may confide in from time to time and go out with albeit not so much these days. I was in a five year long-distance relationship that basically ended because I didn't have the balls to move in with her. We also clashed frequently.

Fast forward a few years and I find myself in a somewhat similar situation. Though (I believe) I love my girlfriend very much (of 18+ months), lately my fuse with her has been incredibly short. I was recently physically semi-violent with her. I'm far from a violent person, so this has me really alarmed. We do not live together but now I find myself terrified of moving in with her as I realize all our heated arguments are in private, and God knows what else I could do in a burst of anger.

Though I could have certainly made a case that my ex of five years was responsible for our then fights, I find it hard to make a similar case against my gf, since she is a very sweet girl.

So now I find myself questioning: is it me, unable to cope and live with others? If it is, how on earth do I improve as a human being? How does an introvert like myself cope with a constantly needy (emotionally and sexually) extrovert? How do I deal with a woman constantly wanting to be inside my bubble of isolation?

Or is it quite simply the wrong relationship? Is it just a complete mismatch? Do I need a woman that will understand and cater to my needs? If so, how the hell do I deal with the thought of losing her potentially devastating me? Even if I choose and somehow manage to move on and find a new girl, I just have a gut feeling (or fear) that I would again find myself in a similar situation after the honeymoon phase draws to a close.

Some more existential questions: were we wired to fight with the ones we love to prevent us from staying in the same relationship for our lives, thus pushing us to find new women and continue reproducing throughout the various stages of our lives and thus ensuring the survival of our species? Or do some people (like myself) just lack the necessary life skills required to succeed in relationships?

You're probably not going to find all your answers on here. My suggestion is get to the root of your problem wether than be serious introspection, some consoling, therapy, religion, etc.

My suggestion is to keep a journal, and read some spiritually enriching books. Closely monitor and control your thoughts.

Although I often wonder the same type of things. Are we really built for monogamous relationships? I don't know? Sometimes I go around feeling like piece of meat, hookin up here and there. Other times I try to have a healthy relationship and somehow fuck up.

At the end of day you just have to have a good relationship with yourself.

Why do you think you have a hard time living with someone, what are your fights about? Think about those things Semi- violent?

At some point in this or previous life, you've been bombarded with stimulus that triggered "fight or flight" responses. . . most likely from close member(s) of the family. Your brain acquired a taste for the toxic hormonal cocktail that explodes in your brain during these binges and all you're doing now is setting yourself up for the next hit. You know it when your brain is about to get some. . . you feel bad about it. . . but there's a sense of satisfaction, a release, and your brain thanks you. You're so desensitized to it now that it's no longer even that nerve wrecking and it no longer feels like "you're going to die". . . but the toxic combination of hurting another + the chemical release keeps you looking for the next hit. Your habit for "fight or flight" is so deep that you even write about yourself and your actions as a researcher would a lab mouse.

You have many questions but you do not state what you want. What do you want? Do you want a better relationship life? Do you want a better family life? Do you want to pick up chicks? Do you want to continue to bombard others with pain?


Really? What makes you think you love your family? You keep the talk to a minimum. . . does this mean that when you open your mouth once a week, you tell them, "I love you!"? If you do not share anything with them, are you reserving your love energy in case they are trapped in a car in the river so you can come to their rescue?

@op
I don't know what caused you to be such a loner...
I think that relationships are not the issue that needs fixing.
You lived long time being alone and not with other people so you don't have tolerance or experience on a variety of situations. The more you interact with people the more you learn. Being social is a never ending learning experience. You learn every day how to handle situations, how to be a good listener, how to be a good communicator, how to compromise and how to read situations.
I think that if you want to change you need to gradually introduce yourself to people. Go with whatever feels comfortable and push slowly your boundaries. Set the final goal to be a person that can be surrounded by people all the time.
It won't happen overnight and you will have to do lots of learning and work to do.
A part of you will always be the loner but you will gradually learn how to tolerate other people in your environment.
You can start slowly from your family. Start interacting. Expect that in the beginning you might get into arguments. Make sure that every argument is a learning experience and the focus is to increase communication with people around you, not to push your point across or win. It is a gradual progress into interaction with people.
Closeness might bring lots of good things but it can definitely bring tension because no two people are 100% compatible.

What exactly could I be fighting? My girlfriend's automatism in borrowing my stuff without asking, and other nonsensical things at the center of our "nothing fights"? Just to be clear, I had a decent upbringing -- at least not one that involved violence. However, I can possibly relate my introversion and some slight lack in self confidence to my sister's bullying growing up.
What I truly want is to be happy (or happier). How I get there is precisely why I'm here. From what I've observed, most people who have successful careers also lead successful family lives and appear content in life, and perhaps to a certain extent many people experiencing difficulties with their careers also experience difficulties in their relationships and families. But that is just an observation that could be wrong. Beyond being happy, it is difficult for me to pinpoint what I want. My career, finances, education, and health are all in perfect order. All that's left is for me to figure out the last element.
Even though I don't share much of my personal life with them, they're the most trust worthy people in my life and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them.

I agree with most of your post, and I think you give good advice.

Just to be clear, I'm not a social retard nor am I shy. I interact well enough with strangers and I get along more than fine with colleagues at work. But when I have the choice, most of the time I prefer individual activities.

You don't give the impression of a social retard or shy person.
No social retard thinks that needs any improvement simply because he is just a retard.. lol

It's nice to see some awareness and empathy in this thread.

OP, all it takes is one time. One experience can derail a person's life. Ask a girl who's been raped. Ask a guy who's been in the military. You downplay your childhood . . . you separate yourself from it. And yet, you've experienced trauma more than once. Your sister bullied you? Where do you think she learned her anger and behavior? Where did she learn to hurt another human being? You've witnessed it all. Everybody knows everything. Behavior is habitual. If you experienced it once, it means you experienced all your life.

Make a choice:

1. Stick with your family and follow Maria's advice: Make it work. Communicate with them. Share your pain. Share your pleasure. Can you in your heart, forgive them even if they are not aware of their errors, let alone seeking apologies for them?

If so, express your love. . .
http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

2. Otherwise, get the fuck out and live your own life. It's one or the other.

*The most successful(financially) people I have met are psychotic. To get there, they give up their family, hobbies, passions, etc. . . and to get to the next level of after that, they kill their family, kill their hobbies, and kill their passions.

**Your excuses and leniency to fucktard family members who treated you like shit gives you the strength to treat others the same. I don't know your parents and I don't know your sister but I am going to go out of my way to tell you that they are fucktard angry assholes who often cornered you into situations that required you to FIGHT or FLIGHT but due to your situation, could not do fight nor flight.

***I used ^this language because you will not. The more you "respect" torture, the more you will dish it out.

You wrote you want to be happy . . . fine. but first, figure out what makes you happy.

Well, looking back at the past two odd years, the time I felt the happiest was when I met my gf, and the months that followed. You know... the classic honeymoon phase. Right now, I'm not unhappy, I simply feel neutral and like I'm riding the waves. If anything, I feel frustrated by the tension that has lingered in our relationship. The main source of tension has been my gf's belief that honeymoon phases should never end, and my apparent distance. Yes I've been distant, but that hasn't changed the way I feel about her. And yes I've made efforts to reassure her and to be more romantic, etc. But that isn't enough for her.

So how do I get back to that same level of happiness with her? Am I even able? Or am I to find it with another girl? I understand no one can really help me until I figure out what I want... But how do I begin by figuring that out, and what makes me happy? Some other small pleasures: playing sports, laughing with friends, other young adult crap.

About my family -- I can assure you my parents are the best there are. I could not find anything negative to say about them. If something, it would be that they simply let my sister continue mocking me, all the while telling me ignoring her was the best solution. This sort of laissez-faire style of upbringing affected my self confidence but overall I must say my upbringing was probably better than 70% of others'.

Actually, I just remembered an event that marked my life.

After I finished my shift at my then teenage job as a salesman at a retail store, I headed back home carrying with me an incredible amount of stress. I was totally oblivious to it at the time, but looking back now, I was probably the equivalent of a pressure cooker at maximum capacity. That became obvious to me after a very subtle but habitual comment from my sister (to which I had developed the habit of ignoring) sent me in a rage of fury as I slammed my plate full of food on the table and yelled out things at the top of my lungs that I had no idea I was even capable of muttering. My family, stunned, sat quietly, probably too afraid to dare attempt to stop a freight train coming in at full speed.

That was, in my opinion, the very moment when I found power and strength, when my testicles finally dropped to my sac, and perhaps more importantly when I associated anger with domination.

It may also explain why earlier in my relationship, I was more frequently getting angry to regain control of what is a very sweet yet somewhat manipulative girl. However, she's since learned to let me take charge, and there was no particularly good reason for my burst of anger one week earlier. Actually, now that I think of it... the tipping point in our heated argument was her intentionally mishandling a piece of my personal property. My sister frequently did this when I was younger to provoke my ire.

We're getting somewhere.

There's a reason you are quiet around your parents. There's a reason why you explode. There's a reason why your sister taunted you. There's a reason why your parents let her do it. You bring up numbers. . . 70%. . . what does this really mean? I used some terrible language earlier to stir some negative emotions and hopefully, some awareness of your history as well. Just as nothing is intrinsically good, nothing is intrinsically bad. I am not suggesting that you label your family one way or another through awareness of past events; I am merely suggesting that there is a very strong possibly that you, like all of us, have been influenced to become who you are today. It's OK to admit to the negatives and accept them just as it is a good idea to admit and accept the positives.

We can continue to play family psychology detectives. . . but if you'd like to improve your relationships with others, your choices remain the same. Ever meet an asshole who behaves that way at the mall but not at the movies? Ever meet a loving person who is that way at a Starbucks but not at McD's? We are creatures of habit. . . and our behavior is most transparent around the people we love the most. Every moment you are with your family and you do not consciously and actively express your love to them is another nickel in the "lonely man habits bucket". Take a look at the "5 languages" website. If you are naturally quiet, fine. . . you don't have to talk to express love. There are many other ways to do it . . but do it. Practice and learn to do this with your family and doing it with girlfriends, strangers, co-workers, etc . . . will come naturally.