How does your partners birth order (only child, oldest or youngest) make a difference in your relationship? Is there a difference if you are of a different birth order?

18 comments

1. He’s the oldest of three. I’m the youngest of two. It’s not something I ever think about. It doesn’t affect us at all.

2. I’m the oldest, he’s an only child. Not much, but he does not seem to understand that tickling is a declaration of war.

3. He is the oldest of 3 brothers and I’m the youngest of 2.

4. He’s the oldest of two, I’m the youngest of six, it doesn’t make any difference to our relationship

5. I can only go by my experience. I’m the oldest of 4. My first hubs was the youngest of 4. OMG he was a baby. Last one was oldest of 4 like me. We understood each other much better, lol.

6. Haven’t ever tracked this across partners and if I did I doubt I would have learned anything worthwhile.

7. he’s a twin. his brother & him are closer than we are.….

8. My husband is an only child (I lucked out cus he was “socialised” lol)..

   I’m oldest to 4 brothers… pretty much all my exes were the eldest sibling.

   I think there are potential slight differences birth order can have in relationships.. but it also depends on personality and their family dynamics. But whether they’re significant difference than actually affect the relationship or not depends on other factors of the couple too.

9. My ex husband and I were both the oldest of three and two, respectively. I felt we could relate to each other in many ways. We did have our share of power struggles at times

10. He’s an only child and I am the younger of two. Sharing food with him is like a race to the finish line. He doesn’t know about the invisible line that divides the plate in two, and If I am eating more slowly than him, I need to defend my food from his marauding. He will also take the last of something rather than splitting it in half and automatically offering to share it.

11. He’s the oldest of 2, I’m the youngest of 2. We’re both 4 years apart from our sibling. He has a younger sister, I have an older brother (or had, my brother is now a sister). I’m 2 years younger than my husband. We sometimes get along like brother and sister, I know that sounds weird. But we’ll make fun of each other and joke around like siblings do. He also tends to be the “bossy” one in the relationship, or has more of a need for things to go his way, and I’m more easy going and roll with the punches, and I think that’s because he’s the oldest in his family and I’m the youngest in mine.

12. He’s the oldest. I’m a middle child (but youngest for 9 years). This has been mentioned before but I’ve never through too much about it being impactful.

13. Im the youngest of 2. He is 5th of 7. I don’t feel it affects our relationship.

14. I haven’t noticed any differences, but I honestly can’t even recall the birth order for some people I dated. Their order in their siblings wasn’t something I considered important. My longest term relationships have been with people who were the eldest or only children in their family, but that is likely just coincidence. I am an eldest sibling myself.

15. I’m the youngest technically, even if I am adopted. My fiance is the third of eight. I deal with more of the… his mom didn’t have enough time to love him properly growing up with 8 fucking kids. So as an adult he has some issues stemming from that.

    Other than that we don’t think about it

16. I am the oldest of two (I have a sister) and he is the third of four (boy, boy, boy, girl). But the oldest boy has kinda been out of their lives for years so tbh I kinda forget he exists. Whoops.

    Anyways, I don’t think it makes much of a difference but I have realized that men who have sisters understand women functions more, like menstrual cycles, at a younger age. But my bf is 29 and I’m 25 so chances are he would be more mature about that even if he didn’t have a sister.

17. I’m the oldest with a very large age gap. My husband is the youngest with the very large age gap. My parents are both the youngest from big families as well. The amount of abandonment and disproportionate responsibility that happened when we had our first baby was genuinely traumatizing. My parents parentified me as a child and didn’t help me as an adult and my husband had no idea how to help me and was accustomed to being coddled to some extent. It was a very, very hard transition that included me learning how to ask for help and teach others that the way I was being treated was damaging. It was hard but we got there.

18. My husband is the middle of 5 and I’m an only child. He wants no attention and is used to that and I’m used to getting a lot of attention so it’s a struggle sometimes haha.