What are Daddy Issues? 15 Ways to Identify Their Telling Presence

What are daddy issues? Daddy issues are mentioned in nearly every film with women, and men that want those women, but there’s more to it than that.

What are daddy issues? Well, they are feared by many women, and sought after by many men *it’s gross, I know*. Not sure what the term means? Well, let us unpack it a moment, shall we?

Daddy– clearly the “most important” male figure in any child’s life. Typically, the man that biologically is the child’s father. However, sometimes this is not true.
Issues– A problem. Actually, several problems.

Now let’s combine the two together: Problems with the child’s father. It sounds so simple, but I promise you that it goes a lot deeper than this. What are daddy issues? Basically, they are issues that a woman has developing and withstanding romantic relationships in her adult life, based on the poor relationship she had with her father.

Sound like you? Because same. [Read: How certain father-taught dynamics can lead to daddy issues]

What are daddy issues?

Daddy issues seriously vary from person to person, and there is no “one way” to have them. It is also not a decision to have these issues, and many women don’t even realize that they exist within them. It is important to remember that these daddy issues are incredibly deep within their subconscious and cannot truly be uncovered unless by a certified psychologist, or the like.

Some possible issues include:

– Dating older men *subconsciously the woman wants a father type*

– Lack of trust issues *father was untrustworthy*

– Promiscuity *rebelling against father that “didn’t care”*

– Interest in same sex *wants nothing to do with men, because of father*

Please keep in mind that these possible daddy issues are just that: possible. These symptoms might just be part of an individual’s makeup, and have nothing to do with their relationship with their father. Again, everything is circumstantial and varies drastically from person to person.

Personally, I suffer from lack of trust issues. My father was seriously a compulsive liar, so I grew up knowing not to trust people and to always be prepared for a disappointment. For the most part, I’ve healed.

However, I have difficulty in relationships with men that are genuinely nice and kindhearted, because I’m always waiting for the bomb to drop, so to speak. I tell myself there is no way a man can genuinely be that honest and sweet. He must be hiding something. Even though that is not necessarily true.

Another interesting thing to note is that daddy issues are not just reserved for women with absent fathers. Many women whose father was very much present in their lives also suffer from daddy issues. [Read: The effects of a good or bad father on a girl]

Signs you may have daddy issues

Now that we have a better understanding of what daddy issues are, we can begin to determine the possibility of you having them or not.

#1 You have issues implementing boundaries. Perhaps you allow men and women to walk all over you. You’re used to it, after all. People may push things on you that you are definitely not okay with, but you allow it to happen because you’ve never been taught to say no. Something about it just makes you very uncomfortable. [Read: The crucial steps you need to take in your life to make boundaries]

#2 You have low self-esteem. Whether your father was in the picture or not, he didn’t give you the love and respect that you deserved. As a result, your self-esteem is incredibly low. This could result in you having issues creating boundaries.

#3 You cannot trust your partners. Like I said before, this is something I suffer from severely. Your father never gave you a reason to trust him, so you learned at a young age that you cannot trust the men in your life. They constantly let you down. [Read: Understanding the fear you feel in trusting someone]

#4 You tend to date older men. Since your father wasn’t the best male figure in your life, you fill the void here. I know, I know, this is kind of gross to think of your partner as your father figure, but subconsciously this could be happening.

This doesn’t mean you are dating men that are 20 years your senior *although it could mean this*! You could simply be dating a guy a couple of years older than you.

#5 You’re emotional unavailable. Your father hurt you, and now you’re afraid to love somebody else. It makes perfect sense, honestly. If you love somebody they have the ability to hurt you, and nobody wants that.

#6 You prefer sexual relationships to emotional ones. If you have strictly sex-based relationships, you don’t need to develop feelings and risk getting hurt. It is just less messy this way.

#7 You’re afraid of abandonment. Every time your partner leaves, the little voice in the back of your head says “he’s not coming back,” even if he has never given you any reason to believe this. Your father abandoned you, and now you constantly fear it will happen again.

#8 You constantly need reassurance. You find yourself asking for reassurance from your partner often. Do they still love me? Do they still want to be with me? Am I being too clingy? I’m super guilty of this, and I never even realized it until now. [Read: 20 ways your overanalyzing is sabotaging your relationship]

#9 You tend to be jealous. If you see your partner talking to other women, you tend to get worried, even if they are just friends. He could easily leave you for this woman. He could cheat on you with this woman. That little voice in the back of your head tells you that you aren’t good enough and causes more issues.

I’m also guilty of this one, even though my partner has given me absolutely no reason to believe this could ever happen.

#10 You seek emotionally unavailable men. Just like you can be emotionally unavailable, so can your partners. If your partner is emotionally unavailable, he might remind you of your father. We seek out what we are comfortable with, you know. If your father never gave you the time of day, this is what you became comfortable with, so you may seek this out in your partners. [Read: Father-daughter relationships and 10 daddy issues it could lead to]

#11 You push men away. If somebody is interested in you, you might push them away. You don’t want to deal with romantic feelings because they lead to disappointment, you know it.

#12 You become easily attached. Instead of pushing men away, you could do the opposite: become easily attached. When you find someone that you are really interested in, it can be hard to let them go and move on if they don’t feel the same way, or if it just doesn’t work out to plan. This goes back to the abandonment issues.

#13 You seek out fairytales. This is something I recognized within myself pretty early on in my life. Since I never got the “daddy’s little girl” fairytale, I have always sought after fairy tales in my relationships. It is exhausting to imagine fairytales occurring in real life and constantly being underwhelmed by the real experience. [Read: The father complex and 13 effects of a good or bad father]

#14 You are a people-pleaser. Your father was never pleased with you, no matter what you did. So now you aspire to please everyone. You just want to make everybody happy and proud of you. [Read: You can’t hide these signs of insecurity]

#15 You love attention from men, even if they aren’t your partner. Something inside of you craves the feeling of men interested in you. Even if you are in a relationship, you always hope somebody will check you out at the gym or hit on you at the bar.

[Read: 15 must-know facts about dating a girl with daddy issues]

Now that we answered what are daddy issues, I hope you can better understand the issue. While they vary, one thing is certain, these women were wronged by their father.

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