Sounds like you were raised by a parent with a clear case of NPD. Children raised with narcissist parents struggle to understand how to love others because they never saw a good example of a parent sacrificing themselves for the love of their children when they were younger. To the child raised with a narcissitic parent the world becomes a place for selfish focus and they tend to reject the idea of sacrificing for, and loving others. They give up tying to really find love and instead live a life focused on aquiring substitutions for love. Almost all leftists are narcissitic. The ones that are not narcissitic have actually passed right through narcissism and wound up in the world of psycopathy, which is beyond narcissism. These are the leaders of the political left. Psycopaths have a clear understanding of their inner lack of love. They see those who are able to recognize and desire love as being inferior. Love is a weakness to the psycopath. The narcissist has not yet acknowledge that they see love as a weakness. Mostly because the narcissist is an expert on lying to themselves ABOUT themselves. The narcissist tells themselves, and all the world, that they know how love wonderfully. Sounds like you came from a shitty family. And perhaps your GF's family actually knows how to love. Families like that do still exist. But there are fewer of them every year.