Reply to Only Child, No Cousins, No Family In the Area

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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.  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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