I’m a 25-year-old male introvert and currently thinking about long-term compatibility. I’ve always wondered whether introverted men tend to do better with fellow introverts (because of shared quiet time, fewer social obligations, mutual understanding) or with extroverts (who might help pull us out of our shell and balance the dynamic).
I’m not married yet, but I’m curious to hear from men who are:
Are you an introvert?
Did you marry someone similar to you (another introvert), or someone more outgoing?
What has that been like — in terms of communication, conflict resolution, and general compatibility?
If you had to go back, would you choose the same personality type again?
Just trying to understand how these dynamics actually play out in real life, beyond the theories. Appreciate any thoughts or stories you’d be willing to share.
Comments
I’m curious what you mean by introvert. There’s introvert like my FWB is one, who will happily make plans and go rage and have an amazing time, but just needs to spend a few days recharging afterward.
And then there’s the new meaning of someone who spent their life online and playing games and never learned social interactions and therefore believes that they are an introvert.
I’m not married, but I’m in a relationship with an extrovert. It’s amazing…I was able to travel outside the country for the first time and explore the world. I got out of my comfort zone. I lost 60lbs and got my life together. I’m forced to communicate more than I ever had. Emotions, what’s on my mind, etc. Maybe being introvert is comfortable…not necessarily healthy.
This is coming from someone who used to game for hours and destroy the competition. I do miss laying in bed with my music and games, and staying inside, but the world is so amazing. Sometimes finding the right person will change your life for the better.
Married my opposite.
i am an introvert.
She is an extrovert
our communication is phenominal.
Absolutely, (though i could with a little less anxiety)
depends. me personally i’m naturally an introvert by habits/hobby but i do like socializing like eating with friends. found someone who was similar to me. dated a few extroverts but it was way too much. like they hike and do marathons and it was too much. people use to recommend for me to find someone extrovert in my 20s and it just wasn’t for me.
When we met I was more of an extrovert and a little wild. Over the course of our marriage (25+ years) I have become more of an introvert than I care to admit.
My wife is an extrovert. We’ve been married 10 years. No regrets.
My wife is close with her family, so she has people to chat with when I need to recharge. I go to social events with her on occasion because I know that’s one of her needs. I feel aversion, but I know the nature of emotion is impermanence. People know I’m not particularly gregarious, and they typically let me be. It’s important to show up. I’m not expected to be the life of the party.
The general idea is to communicate your needs, and work to understand and meet your partner’s needs. If both spouses are committed to that, there isn’t much you can’t work through.
I’m an introvert in that staying at home charges me and going out drains me. My wife, when we met, was definitely an extrovert and always wanted to go out. I found that going out with specifically her wasn’t draining at all, so that brought me out a bit more. Over time, we equilibrated – she found that spending time with me at home was becoming more enjoyable, and I found that it wasn’t so bad to go out, so now we have a steady rhythm and a group of close friends that we see about once a month or so and it works pretty well for both of us.
Married pretty well the same
When we argue it’s very quiet
My wife is more extroverted than me. Like many things in life, it’s a spectrum. She’s the one to set up social planning, but we both enjoy our quiet downtime together.
I’m a loud woman married to a quiet man. Somebody has to tell the waitress his order is wrong and it’s not going to be him.
(Introvert) I can never stress enough how important it is to marry your “energy equivalent”. Someone whose presence in a room alone makes you feel calm, happy, content and who feels the same about you.
Introvert married to an introvert. It’s fantastic. Really low pressure relationship. Our bond is very close because we rarely talk to others except on occasion. We do go out but only when we both want to. It’s very intimate.
I am an ambivert and my wife is an introvert. It has worked great for us.
My wife couldn’t be with an extravert.
Introvert married to an extrovert. Between me and her, we talk constantly. I married her because she doesn’t drain my social battery, she charges mine back up.
She’s the perfect example of “someone needs to tell the waitress you ordered fries, not onion rings.” She has done that for me more than I’d like to admit.
If I could go back I’d try to get her in my life sooner. So—I’d choose her again.
Introverted man here with a long-winded response, my fiance is one of the most extroverted, outgoing people I’ve ever met.
In terms of communication and conflict resolution, we overcome our fights and talk out our problems as respectfully and quickly as possible, mainly because that’s what she needs in a relationship. We learned about attachment styles and how she’s anxious and I’m avoidant. It’s forced me to confront my issues head on and faster than how I did before meeting her, but that’s not a bad thing, it prevents me from stewing in my own head about my relationship problems for too long, I’ve gotten better about talking about difficult personal subjects since meeting her. When I do need time to myself to think or cool off during conflicts, I just have to tell her straight, and she respects that.
I’ve been in relationships with introverts before, and in a lot of ways it’s easier since our personalities were more similar, but the communication wasn’t always there, and it’d usually end with us just kind of being in a relationship rut. But I’ve been in relationships with other extroverts before, and they can be fun and give the energy boost a relationship needs sometimes, but most of the time the relationship would just end up annoying me more often than not.
With my fiance, I think I just got really lucky. Our personalities are opposite and we compliment each other sure, but mainly we respect one another, we’re never mean during conflict, she’s extroverted and loves to party but also loves to stay in and veg out and be creative, which is what I love to do. We met each other in our mid 30’s, and I think that has a lot to do with it. If we had met in our 20’s i do not think it would have worked out. We’re more patient at this age, more emotionally mature. We’ve had our fun when we were younger, and we know what we want in a relationship and what we don’t want.
I’m pretty introverted unless I’m around people I know. I fell in love with my wife in college (way back in 1979) after we ended up talking nonstop for two days. She was outgoing and obviously talkative and made me feel very at ease. She was from a small town in East Texas where she knew everyone and everyone knew her so she never met a stranger. I was from Dallas and stayed quiet until I knew who was who. We still get along great.
Doesn’t really matter dude. At the end of the day. If you click you click. What is more important in my opinion is having common values hobbies and goals.
I’ve seen all kinds of combinations of couples work.. Introverts with extroverts, introverts with introverts. Extroverts with Extroverts. High energy with low energy. People of different races and cultures. Common ingredients to all these? Love and hard work. Because nobody tells you that healthy relationships need work.
We’re both introverts.
We are very bad about encouraging each other to skip that social event too!
Opposite and it’s great. I’m an introvert and she’s an extrovert. She’s my social meat-shield at any event we go to and it works great!
We’re pretty equal. lol we’re both laid back and chill. works well for us
not married but with a life partner – i would say it’s less important whether she is introverted or not, and more whether she respects it when you tell her you need alone time
We are both introverts, although the level of introversion has changed a bit since getting married. She was not as introverted as me at first, but now is far more introverted than I am. I was quite introverted, but has moved along the scale, just a bit, towards extroverted.
General compatibility has been great! There are very few things we outright disagree with the other on. What hobbies we don’t share, we can often do in the same room together. We do struggle with communication and conflict resolution, though. It is really easy for us to fall into a passive-aggressive trap, but over the years we have gotten far better about just stating what we think to the other and life is much smoother.
I would def choose someone of the same type again. We both get tired of social events, her a bit faster than me, so neither feels bad about dragging the other home early. We share so many interests and hobbies I cannot even conceive of being happy with another person.
We are pretty opposite from each other in that regard. My wife is an extrovert but kind of socially anxious, so she loves to talk and socialize but only with a select few people. I’m more introverted but I am pretty decent at being social and have a pretty sizeable friend group. It works for us. I just need to set some time for myself from time-to-time. She understands.
There can be some conflicts sometimes. Sometimes I really feel like I need to be alone and she is needing attention. Sometimes she will be intimidated by certain plans and certain groups of people and become quite anxious. But we work through it and it’s usually fine.
My wife is more extroverted than me (I’m definitely an introvert), she’s probably in-between an extrovert and introvert. It works because she pushes my boundaries, but we can still relate occasionally to how exhausting people are.
I’m an introverted introvert, she’s an extroverted introvert. So not exactly my opposite. She’s is definitely the one who feels more comfortable in social situations. I have panic attacks in crowds. We cover each others bases for the most part
Conflic resolution was the hardest part as she comes from a family who would shout and scream and get it all out immediately, whilst I came from a family who never talked through problems and assumed if you’re shouuting at me then you no longer love me. That one took a while and some good solid communication!
I would definitely marry her again yes. She’s wonderful for me
She’s more extroverted but but not really a full on extrovert. It works out well because she deals with the social stuff, which is nice.
Same as me, we stayed in and watched a lot of TV. It was awesome and still is, but there’s a monster that makes it really hard to do now.
I’m an introvert but functional enough to hold a technical sales job. At the end of the day, I need some quiet time to decompress. My wife is an extrovert who has a compulsion to talk to people, and to tell me all about her day.
It has actually worked out okay, albeit not without friction. If I were to marry again I’d be looking more for one who shared my hobbies; intro / extra wouldn’t be a primary criterion.