Only Child, No Cousins, No Family In the Area
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Anonymous
| Any others in this situation? How do you get by without family? My parents are toxic and the little bit of family we did have (out of the area) my parents have estranged. So I basically have zero family. None. It is beginning to weigh on me. |
Anonymous
| What about inlaws? |
Anonymous
| I'm so sorry OP. How old is your child? |
Anonymous
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Join a church/synagogue/mosque/temple/etc. If you are atheist, join a Unitarian church.
You need community. Also, consider co-housing for living. |
Anonymous
| I'm in the same boat. I grew up with very large extended family gatherings for holidays, and now no one gets together. Both my spouse and I have not-so-great relationships with our parents, and we're only kids. It's lonely at times. Sometimes I wish I married someone with a great extended family... It would be nice to have BILs and SILs and nieces and nephews. |
Anonymous
Divorced. FIL passed away, and MIL is kind of to herself. Ex is an only, too. |
Anonymous
I'm sorry, I'm an only child. I wasn't clear. I have no siblings. |
Anonymous
| We are in this situation. We just manage. Create the community you want. There are occasional benefits. I miss my parents terribly but we don't have any pressure from them regarding vacations or holidays. |
Anonymous
| I'm 11:29, and you need to work at it. I happen to have family, but a very good friend of mine has absolutely none. You should see her house on Thanksgiving and, Christmas, Easter. Its full of people who love her & her family. She's made a really big effort to get involved in her church, at the kid's school, in the community (she actually lives in a cohousing community), etc. Her friends are like a United Nations. She always signs up to volunteer, meal train, etc. And yes, she actually works full time so this takes a big effort, but I can see from all the relationships that its paid off. |
Anonymous
There are so many ways to create community without joining a religious/semireligious organization. I hate this as go-to advice. There are a million other ways to create community and close, supportive friendships. |
Anonymous
What is a cohousing community? I probably need this. I rent right now and it's very lonely and giving me anxiety. |
Anonymous
Google Takoma Village cohousing. It's a good example of the trend. But it's not cheaper than renting an ordinary space, or buying one. You have to make very sure you are a good fit with the community and vice versa, because there are lots of expectations w/r/t shared work, costs, etc. that can be hard to figure out. That said, those I know in cohousing communities are very happy. |
Anonymous
New poster here. This post inspires me. I'm in a similar situation OP. We have no family in the area, and I'm an only child. My parents could have decided to retire anywhere, but they chose to retire on the West Coast, as far from here as possible (I grew up in the midwest). My husband's family is incredibly dysfunctional and they live in Florida, but we only see them once a year and they are not pleasant to be around. We have two young kids, and they have no cousins (I'm an only child and my husband's siblings don't have kids). I have lots of cousins who live all over the place, none here, but because we all grew up in different places I never really got to know them and we have no relationship now (I last saw my cousins at a family wedding 15 years ago). To make matters worse, DH and I moved to this area in our early 30s and we didn't know a single person here. It was really hard to make friends and find community when we were a married couple without kids. Then, to make things even worse, we inadvertently bought a SFH in the most unfriendly, non-family friendly neighborhood out in the distant suburbs you can imagine. Our neighborhood has no social events, no listserv, no moms groups, no community pool or park, etc. I really dislike living here, especially as a SAHM. I have two under two, so they don't really have their own friends yet, but I have tried really hard to build community and make new friends, and while I have made a few friends, it's nowhere near the community I'd like to have and I feel lonely and isolated all the time. We celebrate all holidays alone just the four of us, which is depressing to me. My parents refuse to travel on the holidays and DH's family does too. The kids aren't good travelers, so we haven't gone out to them yet. I'd love to have the full house for holidays that the above poster mentions, but all my friends travel out of town or spend holidays with local family and have never invited us. I continue to work hard to build community, but I think it's been hard for us because a) we live out in the distant suburbs in a non-family friendly neighborhood; b) my husband works 80 hour weeks, plus weekends, and is never around and he does not enjoy socializing and is not social at all, so we never have couple friends, and c) we have no local family or friends we had from pre-kids, so I'm trying to build my entire community now, and people here are just busy and don't have much time to make new friends. Good luck, it's really hard to be in this situation and I can totally empathize. |
Anonymous
I'm the poster you are quoting. You are right, there are many ways to create community, but I've found that people who are tapped into a place of worship have an easier time of it. I've also joined moms groups and neighborhood volunteer groups and that has also helped, but the church is ready-made for this. |
Anonymous
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DH has family in Ohio, mine are in California. We see each side once per year. DS is the only grandchild on either side, so no cousins.
We have created "family" here. Our neighbor has stepped in as "grandma", my bet friend is "aunt", his former nanny is another aunt, her daughter is like a babysitting older cousin...it's not the same, but it actually fills the void pretty well 
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