r/OnlyChild

Like sure you have cousins, friends etc…but your cousins are most likely gonna be at separate schools than you, not to mention friends are fake, phony, and real ones are hard to find ESPECIALLY during school years. Lots of the times you really have to fight your own battles and basically take on the world by yourself. And kids are MEAN and they love to gang up on and bully other kids, and you have to fight them all off by yourself. Vs having the luxury of saying ”leave me tf alone before I get my big sisters/brothers to fuck you up”. Even during adulthood, it still would be nice to have siblings that you know would have your back and stand up with you when the time comes and vice versa…It really shaped me into who I am today and why I always have my guard up and I’m quick to go on defense mode, cuz I’m not used to anyone having my back so I always had to have my own back. I made a post similar to this not too long ago but just wanted to refresh it i guess….But yea as only children, I really think we all learned that we have to have our own backs.

It does have its perks. You supposedly get more attention, independence, and you learn to be comfortable doing things on your own. I genuinely appreciate a lot of that. But sometimes, being comfortable alone and wanting to be alone are two completely different things. There are moments when I really wish I had a sibling to randomly talk to, argue with, share stupid inside jokes with, or just have someone who understands the family dynamic without needing an explanation. A bond that is more friendly than familial and yet trustworthy. I grew up learning to enjoy my own company, but sometimes that independence can feel a lot like loneliness. I don't think people always understand that distinction. I’m grateful for the good parts of being an only child. I just wish I could experience the parts I missed too.

I (24F) have been living with my parents (62M) and (62F) since I was born. Pretty much grew up alone apart from neighboring relatives, grandmother, cousins, but none in the same household. I knew since I was a teenager that my mother is narcissistic, lack of empathy, conditional love and constantly playing the victim when things dont go her way. I also think she has borderline BPD but I am not a psychologist nor a professional in that field to confirm, just my personal observations. She would be angry and mad and then switch up to being nice and offering to cook me something as an apology but would remind me of how much she does for me. My father was also guilty of this but I dont hold it against him as much. We’ve always been a non-confrontational family and usually let the tension fade, no apologies just quiet moving on.

Fast forward to now where I graduated college and Im pretty much stuck at home, being held back by opportunities and options because its not up to their standards or what they initially had planned out for my life. My grandmother (my moms mom) passed last year and less than a month ago so did my father. I didnt take it well and I imagine so did my mom, her two sisters, my aunts also passed a few years back in 2021 due to covid and 2010 due to cancer. It all happened suddenly and we were left on our own, and it has been rough. We rarely see each other and I purposely avoid her to avoid conflict, she on the other hand tries to force us to bond and spend time together, even if I know it will eventually end up being arguments and constant back and forth.

This is our second big fight since my dad passed and I really am debating on moving out to separate myself from her. Ive been trying to be the biggest person for so long, understanding that she is grieving probably more than I think she is, but I cannot keep excusing her treating me (and others) this way just because of it. Any advice on what to do, thanks in advance.

Going into my sophomore year of college today as a commuter. I had the funds to afford an apartment had I split it with other people, but after my dorm experience freshman year, I can never see myself living on my own with other people that aren’t family. When I looked this up on google a lot of the people who felt this way were introverts, and I’m quite the opposite. I simply just enjoy having my own space and for the one school year I had to share a room or living space with other people, I genuinely disliked it so much I came home often because of it. My roommates were fine, don’t speak to a few of them but I was never that close with many of them anyways. Am I stuck up? I even see in the future living in the cheapest single bedroom place I possibly can.

Is anybody else extremely sensitive to grief and loss in every form? Not just death I hate losing people in any way so much that I sometimes avoid getting too close to others because in my mind fewer close relationships means fewer people to lose (or will leave me) But at the same time I crave closeness so badly. I also have this fear that nobody will ever value closeness or relationships as deeply as I do since I treat friendships with so much value almost like I seek a siblinghood with my friends. Plus I have abandonment issues, having an absent parent, and being betrayed by friends. I don’t know I guess it’s all built up over time and made me extremely sensitive to loss. I’m 24 (F) seems like it’s getting worse over time as I grow up

I’m an only child (F), and my father sadly passed away two years ago. I do have quite a few cousins, and growing up I never really felt the absence of siblings because I was always surrounded by them. In fact, I’ve always loved the idea of having a big family and lots of cousins around.
I’ve recently received a marriage proposal from someone about whom we’ve heard a lot of good things. He is also an only child, and interestingly, his father passed away when he was very young. So in that sense, we both have only our mothers now. He currently lives abroad for work, while his mother lives back in his hometown. We’re also around the same age, just a few months apart.
The thing is, I’ve always imagined marrying someone who has siblings because I grew up wanting siblings myself. I also want my future children to grow up with a bigger family around them and not feel lonely or miss out on having cousins, especially because having cousins has been such a big part of my own life.
So I’m a little unsure about what it would be like to marry another only child. I’ve never really known anyone in this situation personally, so I’d genuinely love to hear from people who are only children and married another only child, or anyone who has seen this dynamic closely.
How has it worked out for you? Were there any challenges you didn’t expect? Did being only children actually make certain things easier? And what is it like when both spouses have only one parent to care for, especially when one or both parents live separately?

Just looking for honest experiences and perspectives before I make any assumptions about what it might be like.

Just wondering how many of you may be located in the NYC area and would be interested in starting a support group for those of us getting older (35+) and who don’t have kids, navigating the complications of being an only child. I just turned 40 and literally started to feel like I have a mid life crisis coming on the very next day, ha. And I thought maybe there could be others out there who would benefit from something like this! Maybe virtual at first, with the goal of finding people who we could build closer individual relationships as time goes on.

My parents are getting divorced now that I’m 26, and I’m not really sure how I should deal with my relationships with everyone in the family afterward.

My dad isn’t my biological father. He married my mom when I was around four or five years old. But I do genuinely consider both of them my parents.

The family situation is a little complicated. When I was six, I was sent to live with my maternal grandparents in the countryside, and I stayed with them until I was 25. It was only last year that I finally moved to the big city and started living with my parents.

My mom and stepdad have been married for about 20 years, and I have three younger siblings: a 19-year-old sister, a 13-year-old sister, and a 12-year-old brother.

My mom recently told me that after the divorce, my 13-year-old sister will live with her, while my 19-year-old sister and 12-year-old brother will stay with my dad.

If I’m being truthful, I don’t think I’ve ever really felt much love or warmth from my family. At the same time, I still don’t want my parents to get divorced.

The strange thing is that now that it’s actually happening, I don’t really feel much of anything. I’m not devastated or extremely sad. I just feel... kind of numb or indifferent about it.

What I’m struggling with is figuring out what my relationships with all of them are supposed to look like after the divorce.

For example, what about my dad?

He isn’t biologically related to me. Once he and my mom are divorced, technically there won’t really be anything connecting the two of us anymore. But at the same time, he has been my dad since I was four or five years old. He has occupied that role in my life for about 20 years, even though I didn’t actually grow up living with him for most of that time.

So am I supposed to continue treating him as my father? Would it be strange to keep calling him Dad and staying in contact with him after he and my mom are divorced? Or should I accept that our relationship may naturally come to an end?

And then there are my younger siblings.

Some of them will be living with my mom, while the others will be living with my dad. How should I handle my relationships with them? Should I try to stay equally involved with all three of them regardless of which parent they live with?

I know I’m already 26 and technically an adult, so my parents’ divorce doesn’t affect me in the same way it would affect a young child. But I feel like the family structure I’ve known for most of my life is suddenly disappearing, and I don’t really know where I fit anymore.

For anyone who has experienced something similar, especially having parents divorce when you were already an adult or having a stepparent who raised you: how did you handle these relationships afterward?

I’d really appreciate any advice.

It’s so heavy. The feeling that no one cares, it’s you against the world, that heavy, heavy loneliness no one will understand. Having older parents with no siblings and no friends is ruining me. I’m a wreck. I’ve tried therapy since I was 14. It isn’t helping. I get so attached and wreck myself. I feel SO fucking alone and so scared and so angry all the time. I’m so scared. Life feels unworthy when you have no body.

My mum died of cancer last April 2026, I have my dad left but he doesn’t take care of his health no matter how much u convince him or tell him. I live in the UK. Had a very bad dream about him being ill. Sometimes I have dreams and they end up coming true. My dad paid his mortgage off and he said the house is in my name etc. We have a joint account

I had a dream of my mums funeral months before she died

My question is what the hell do I do when he’s no longer here in the future??? Anyone in the UK been through this as an only child. It’s something I have to be prepared for as an only child with no siblings.

I am the one who couldnt take all accountability of my life,my parents were always against me,if i would say that i want to do that or i want to have a business, i want to setup a restaurant they just simply kept quiet and never said anything,i didnt have any active person in my life who were really good at anything and would say something promising,

My major issue was if i couldnt get along with anything instead of learning i would just quite the thimg or leave it like a looser,i always found comfort myself into meditation,into spirituality,into tarot card but i never could anything better for myself to achieve because there were no one who would motivate me.my parents always controlled me the way they wanted to be

Even writing this is making me cry. This is also my first post on Reddit because I’ve been so desperate in trying to find people that relate to me. For my entire life, it has ONLY been me and my mom and now that I’m moving to college, leaving her alone makes this even worse. When I try to explain this to other people, they say they understand but they don’t. I worry about her every day. I’m scared for what’s going to happen when I go on my own without my best friend in my life.

Going to college is the single hardest thing I’m doing, and I have been debating dropping out already or transferring to a school closer because my school is 5 hours away.

We have had conversations about it (filled with tears and crying) and those have made me feel better but I’ve only been getting worse thinking on her life after I move and what I’m going to do.

She’s told me that she will be fine. Thankfully she has a boyfriend but her boyfriend lives 2 hours away from our hometown. I told her to move in with him so she isn’t lonely and that’s their plan for the end of September. But the whole situation is horrible because this means she moves on her own and has to commute insanely far for her job.

Regardless, I just want to know from anyone who may be in the same position if it gets better… I’ve searched up on tiktok and I’ve only seen people say it’s gotten worse.

I’m so scared and have been crying about this every day for the past week. I feel like talking about it is the only way I can cope but even then idk what to do.

I am an only child in my late 20s. My parents are in their 70s and are divorced, each with a partner. They live in a major city and love living there. I find the city they live in stressful and have fallen in love with another city in a different part of the country. I want to support them in their old age and care for their partners as well. But it feels selfish to live far away. I do think I could make living in the city where they live work and could probably thrive there. I want to be realistic. Any advice?

Hallo, ich habe ein Thema, das mich einfach nicht los lässt und sehr belastet. Ich habe eine Tochter die mittlerweile 16 Jahre alt ist und mache mir bis heute Schuldgefühle weil sie „allein“ ist und keine Geschwister hat.
Ich habe eine Stoffwechselerkrankung, aufgrund dessen wurde mir von den Ärzten abgeraten, ein zweites Kind zu bekommen - es war schon das 1. eine Risikoschwangerschaft und alles sehr anstrengend und ich bin gesundheitlich an meine Grenzen gestoßen… Trotzdem lässt mich der Gedanke nicht los, dass meine Tochter mit einem Geschwisterkind vielleicht glücklicher wäre?
Habt ihr dazu vielleicht ein paar hilfreiche Erfahrungen für mich?

Turning 37 next month and grew up an only child with baby boomer parents who had me later than average. On my dad's side, I'm the only grandchild. On my mom's side, I have some cousins but my mom's emotional instability made contact with her side of the family pretty fraught, and besides - my cousins all come in sibling pairs so when I did see them oftentimes the siblings would for some reason exclusively play with each other and I'd just be stuck in a room with all the adults anyways.

My parents were determined that I wouldn't become "spoiled" and long story short I'm still working on not feeling guilty about expressing my needs or asking for things. I also wasn't allowed to watch tv, play video games, see certain movies or eat certain foods so was pretty ignorant of everything my peers were into, this meant making friends at school was a challenge. Adults loved me and I was constantly being called "wise beyond my years" or "an adult soul." I spent a lot of time entertaining myself and got really good at being solitary.

I evolved into an extreme people pleaser and stayed in two back to back unhealthy relationships in my early 20s just because I was desperate to feel a sense of family and connection. Then my dad died and my partner at the time was completely useless in supporting me, my mom was a mess, and I ended up handling the responsibility of notifying friends and relatives, writing the obituary, comforting all the crying people at the grave site, and then MC-ing the memorial service. I was praised for how composed and together I was. I went back to my city and job a week later.

My dad dying (and then my last living grandparent a few years later) shook loose something in me and I spent the next decade trying to make myself happy and give myself nice experiences and things. Broke up with my shitty ex, tried to support my mom while also setting boundaries with her, and experienced some relatively healthy relationships for a change, although they were short term. Did a lot of therapy. I finally cultivated a community of friends, I have hobbies, I live by myself in an apartment I've decorated to my liking with an amazing dog but I still just feel ... lonely a lot of the time. Pretty much all my friends have partners, siblings they're close to, best friends that aren't me, both parents still alive, family group chats - I know it's unhealthy to compare, and I've shared a lot of my history and experiences with them openly, but it's still hard.

Dating seems way more complicated than it was when I was younger - family is always such a common first or second date topic and I don't want to bum anyone out. I love my space and independence and don't necessarily want to move in with someone right away (or maybe ever) but I'm still craving connection and love and a witness to my life. I feel like I might have missed my window, or like I'm so used to being alone that it feels like that's the way it will always be. I definitely don't blame all of my issues on being an only child, and know I should continue to work on myself, but I don't know, I'm just tired and wanted to vent. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

29F
I am faced with one of the hardest decisions of my life, and it comes with a time limit, so I need to make a decision soon.

I’m the only daughter and only granddaughter. I adored my grandparents, and they always poured their love into me.

They have all passed in the last three years, leaving their properties, homes, and estates to my mother and father to manage.

Well, my parents had me very late, and they themselves are rapidly approaching 80. Simply put, they cannot handle it anymore. The houses are starting to suffer, and things are breaking.

I am an extremely sentimental person, and these homes mean more than a lot to me. Bottom line I do not want to sell my maternal grandmother’s home and land unless absolutely necessary. Not making this move would likely result in that. The other home is in a good spot to be fixed up and sold/rent.

The problem is, I moved post-undergrad during Covid to Denver and have built a life here. I am in a long-term relationship but do not own any property or have children. My lifestyle here is very fulfilling, and I am in an experience-building part of my career needed to make upward movements.

I now have the opportunity (or responsibility, depending on how you look at it) to move home and live in my grandmother’s home while fixing the other up. This is simply something I cannot handle financially or logistically from 1,500 miles away with aging parents. I have also always deeply struggled, to the point of therapy, with not being present for my grandparents’ last years, and I am now worried about the same regarding my parents.

This move would more than certainly spell the end of my relationship, as he is in school full-time and works here with admittedly no desire to move east. I love him very much, and it would break me to lose him. I have not broached the subject with him yet, and long distance may be an option, but I don’t think that would be the outcome….

It would also cut me off from an area where jobs in my field are plentiful. Since I’m in a weird middle area of my career, I’m not sure how that will affect things.

I would look to be there for a minimum of 2 years. The homes are both paid off, and one is on well water, so living costs are not a concern. I do miss many parts of my hometown culture and love many parts of the area, but going from the Rockies back to Appalachia is quite the change, especially when you are an outdoors lover, trout fisherman, and public land enjoyer.

I think I know what the answer is, but I want to hear from those who understand what it’s like to not have siblings to lean on during these changes.

Those of you that have been in similar situations, what did you do?? Happy to hear any advice from anyone.

Thanks for reading.

And she's currently in doing a procedure. Everything happened really quickly but I'm so happy she's getting taken care of. I think I'm able to keep my composure pretty well because I'm also in the healthcare field. My dad on the other hand, is a lost puppy.
I'm still running on adrenaline right now but I'm scared of the emotional turmoil that's waiting for me on the other side.