Birth order

In a recent issue, Time magazine's cover story was about the intriguing subject of birth order. There is no doubt that our birth order is a strong influence in shaping our personalities and is one explanation why children in the same family are so different. The Time article, alas, ignores the influence of gender which is seriously stupid. There is a great difference, for example, between a boy who is the middle of three sons and another who is the middle between two sisters.

My favorite book on birth order is Family Constellation by Walter Toman who conducted groundbreaking research in both the US and Germany on the subject. This book is not conjecture but the fruit of serious scientific study. Toman discusses personality traits which are commonly associated with various birth positions and what are the best birth order matches for marriage. If two oldest children marry, they often butt heads and jockey for leadership in the relationship. Two youngest marrying frequently fruitlessly look to the other to take charge.

Recently a young couple consulted me. Their marriage of three years is failing. The husband is heartbroken. I am the last ditch effort to save their marriage. The wife wants out. She feels she has outgrown him, doesn't love him, so why prolong the misery. If the wife wants to work on the relationship, I have a shot at salvaging this mess. Since she doesn't, I'm not very optimistic.

In our time together, I learned that they were both unplanned babies. Her mom didn't think she could have any children. She was born via C-section prematurely. She spent her first weeks of life in the NICU hooked up to monitors and tubes. There was some concern about a heart murmur but she outgrew that. She is an only child.

The husband was also unplanned. He is a twin. He too was premature and spent several weeks in a NICU. In fact, it was the very same unit as his wife's . He also had a heart murmur that he outgrew. He and his twin brother were his mom's only living children. During his mom's first marriage, she had given birth to a premature little girl who had lived only a few days before she died. Mom's first marriage ended shortly after that tragedy.

This couple's history is a nightmare. There is so much pain, fear and sadness here. But the birth order alone is intriguing. The young wife is an only child who was catered to and most likely was indulged by her parents and her grandparents.She was the center piece of her birth family and the first grandchild on both sides. Now she wonders what is wrong with her husband. He just doesn't get that she is a princess. She is still a child, the only child whose mom and dad are at her beck and call. He, on the other hand, had to share with his brother from the moment of conception on. He is used to taking turns and sharing, but there is the chronic frustration of not getting enough from his mom. He got half the love and attention that a single birth baby would receive and he's now married to a gal who may have gotten too much. Does this mean that the marriage cannot be saved? No, but one key part of the treatment would be to instruct them in what ways their birth order influences how they conduct life and how they react to each other.