Why Your Birth Order Matters to Your Love Life
Are you a take-charge person or an attention hungry baby?
Were you the first born or the baby of your family? It’s a fact that where you fall in your family’s birth-order hierarchy helps shape your personality and plays a significant role in your relationship.
Assessing compatibility through birth order
“Your personality is directly related to how you interact with other people,” said William Cane, author of The Birth Order Book of Love. Your birth order plays such a strong role because the first people you interacted with were your parents and siblings. Determining your own birth-order personality, and that of your boyfriend, can help assess your compatibility.
LeslieBeth Wish, a psychologist and licensed clinical social worker and author of Smart Relationships, said, “Birth order is more than just who is born first or middle or last. It's equally important to look at your functional birth order. For example, my paternal grandmother was the third born of many siblings. However, she acted as an oldest sister, even to her older siblings because she was smarter and more level-headed.”
Functional birth order as a consideration
To find your functional birth order, ask yourself what you think might have happened in your family if aliens came one night and plucked you away? Who would fill your spot? Who would miss you? Would things fall apart? Would someone else get picked on? That will help you determine where you fit into your family’s hierarchy, Wish said.
“Research continues to show that mutually happy couples report that they ‘complement’ each other. In other words, they thrive on opposites attract. But what does this mean? And what does birth order have to do with it? For starters, it means that two people with many important shared values, and respect and commitment to each other bring to the relationship different coping and problem-solving styles that have built-in flexibility so that they are not squabbling forever from the outposts of their differences,” Wish said.
This difference in style can add depth and strength to a relationship. Extroverts and introverts can temper their differences and teach their partner how to learn new ways of behavior, Wish said.
Firstborns: These children tend to be conscientious, ambitious, organized and dominant in a relationship. As with all birth-order positions, gender plays a role, too. Oldest first-born sons tend to be take-charge types, leaders. Oldest females, on the other hand, are more likely to be bossy, confident and aggressive than their younger sisters.
Middles: Middle children are the least defined of the types since there can only be one eldest and one baby, but middles shift depending on how many siblings overall in the family. That said, they can be predictable and work well with anyone.
Lastborns: The youngest in any family are treasured and often babied for much longer than their older siblings and, as a result, tend to be less responsible and more devil-may-care, with less of a hankering to take charge.
Only children: Many only children act a lot like firstborns. They tend to be responsible as well as mature and often grow up more quickly than kids with siblings because of how much time they spend with adults.
Determining who you work best with based on birth order
Oldest with oldest: When two oldest children pair together in a relationship, they create a true power couple and a classic combination of control, dominance and striving.
Oldest with middle: This is a pleasant pairing and can work well most of the time, but a middle child's tendency to mold herself around her partner may leave her in danger of not following her own dreams. This can depend on how domineering the firstborn partner is, and how accommodating the middle child's personality is.
Oldest with youngest: This pairing works well because the youngest child is cared for, while the older sibling can exert control.
Middle with middle: A couple with two middles works well due to their sensitive, compromising natures help keep a relationship healthy.
Youngest with middle: Middles can usually have harmonious relationships with someone from any birth order, but this combo may present some issues because middles morph into the styles of the other types, depending on the dynamics of their particular family.
Youngest with youngest: If the two youngest from their families pair up, they are carefree and risk-taking and always on an adventure. They can have plenty of fun, but they might run into a problem when it comes to paying bills or making important decisions.
Why birth order matters
“What does birth order have to do with opposites attract? Well, some of these differences tend to be associated with different birth order ranking: First born brothers of brothers or first born sisters of sisters tend to be take charge people who like to see results and to delegate. At the extremes, think of the role Meryl Streep played in the movie The Devil Wears Prada. Imagine two people married to each other with this style,” Wish said.
“On the other hand, imagine the babies of the family married to each other. Babies tend to be either mavericks or cute, outgoing babies who need guidance and tempering. Imagine two people married to each other with the personality of the characters that actress Melissa McCarthy plays. Endless mayhem,” she said.
But, sometimes people don’t choose a complementary partner because the combination of their birth order and personality can fool them. When that happens, you risk getting caught in the Flip Cycle, which is one of the top relationship patterns for women outlined in Wish’s book.
The Flip Cycle
In the Flip Cycle, Wish said, “You are the only girl in the family. You know how to lead because there is no sister to cast a shadow over you and dim your limelight. But you have an older brother who takes too much charge. Or, you have a younger brother for whom you provide nurturing. So, let's say you are educated/trained and have a good job/career that gives you responsibility. And now you find yourself attracted to an older brother of brothers. You like him because he is a take-charge kind of man. You think, ‘I feel safe. I like his leadership. But he will also be kind and look after me.’ But, oops, you misread him. Yes, he is a take-charge man, but he also wants to take charge of you.”
A woman who has experienced this decides she will no longer date control freaks. “Your birth order also grants you a comfort zone of being nurturing to a man. So, you choose the novel-writer or future actor, who is a youngest, and who works as a waiter at a good restaurant. He is sweet, patient, warm and easy to talk to. He likes that you like to be more in charge. But, oops, something happens, such as you get ill, you get downsized at work, your dog dies, or your house gets blown away, and you now need support and leadership in a partner. But your partner is truly only very good at being a recruited soldier, not someone who can take the reins and lead. You over-corrected your first relationship and got caught in the Flip Cycle, and you are about to do it again by going back to a more take-charge oldest. And on and on until you find someone who brings more flexibility and balance,” Wish explained.
Whether you were the middle child, the firstborn, or an only child, be aware of your birth order and what it means and use it to try to find your ideal partner.
