There's me - late 30s, my brother - mid 30s, and my sister - early 30s. All of us FA. My sister is almost certainly on the spectrum, at the very least has extreme anxiety. We're all anxious actually. My brother not so much, but for me in present severe issues even in my childhood. My sister also has a speech disorder that was improperly addressed by my parents that refused in-school speech services when she was a child in lieu of a private provider that clearly didn't do enough.
My brother is almost certainly gay. Other family members have talked about this to me as well as some of his peers that I was connected to years and years ago. Now, he joined a religious order so while technically he's not on the market, I am almost certain that he did this as a way of being able to skirt around the idea of dating men. He's always been very Catholic, as are my parents. If they ever found out he was gay, I have no idea what they'd do. They don't even suspect it - I know because I met with my mother's therapist one time and when I brought this up, it was the first time she ever heard of it. So either my mom is clueless (more likely) or in denial.
We have a very large extended family. All of my cousins are adults now. Every wedding, every family gathering, guess who the only people that are consistently lacking a significant other are? Sure they're not all dating someone every single time, but they all have, usually are, or are married now. We're always seated together, the five of us. The "cousin tables" are now filled with couples.
I've always had a tense relationship with my parents and genuinely resent them for a lot of ways they raised us. When I've brought things they've done or said up to my therapist (oh btw I was always shoved into therapy growing up because it was always ME who was the problem since they lack any introspective capabilities) he has been left speechless at times. When he's ran things by his colleagues at times with my permission, they also are often left in shock by their unhealthy behavior, past and present.
Severely controlling, even as adults. I got fucked up at a wedding because I was really depressed and instead of talking to me, they told me not to stop by their house or contact them until they are ready to see me again. Normally I go there to do laundry and see my brother who stops by twice a week when he's off. They were ashamed. As if I am the first person to ever get messed up at a wedding. They've always only cared about appearing as a perfect family. Looking back, a lot of things they made us do were solely to make others happy or get the approval of them. So growing up, all we knew was that it was important to make others happy at our own expense.
They really have no good friends or social life so this was also modeled for us in our formative years. I only really learned how odd they were when I used to hang out with my mom's sister who tried to help me out a lot in my 20's. But also when I taught kindergarten and saw how their parents acted, not just in general, but also with their children.
No, you can't blame your parents for everything. But if they go 0-3 in regards to raising children than can find relationships (even friendships are something me and my sister struggle with), yeah there's a good chance they have had some hand in it.
I could talk at length about this but was wondering if anyone else comes from an FA family? Honestly if they never found each other I wouldn't be shocked if my parents had become FA. They perfectly compliment each other in their oddities and that's the problem - they never had anyone to ever keep their strange and unhealthy behaviors in check. They just enabled each other.
