What are daddy issues? As the name suggests, it’s derived from a girl who has complicated issues with her father. Unlike the popular notion, one of the signs of daddy issues don’t automatically refer to having an absent father, but it can also mean having a bad one.
A parent’s role in a child’s life is very significant so if you had an absent or bad parent, this can affect all your relationships growing up. Of course, this doesn’t go for everyone who’s had father issues.
What are daddy issues? They are issues or difficulties that a woman has, while developing and withstanding romantic relationships in her adult life, based on the poor relationship she had with her father.Now that we have a better understanding of what daddy issues are, we can begin to determine the possibility of you, or a girl you know, having them or not.
# You have issues implementing boundaries
In determining what are daddy issues, these women have difficulty standing firm to their boundaries.
Maybe you’re a pushover and you allow people to walk all over you, or you’ll do everything to please everyone.
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. You feel like saying no is a crime, so you end up never doing it to begin with. No matter who it is, you just can’t stick to your boundaries.
# You have low self-esteem
Whether your father was in the picture or not, he didn’t give you the love and respect you deserved.
In your relationships and even friendships, you feel like you’re always chasing after the love you want. You’re not capable of saying what you want and going for what you deserve, which can lead to some toxic situations.
# You cannot trust your partners
One of the determining factors on what are daddy issues is the lack of trust for anyone they are with. When a woman has daddy issues, she generally has the worst time trusting and relying on people.
The woman’s father never gave her a reason to trust him, so she learned at a young age that she cannot trust the men in her life.
With daddy issues, you either have abandonment issues, commitment issues, trust issues, or all of these combined.
# You tend to date older menWomen with daddy issues tend to date those older than them. They didn’t have a father figure to look up to growing up, so they subconsciously choose men who appear as a father figure for them.
Okay, this is kind of gross to think of your partner as your father figure, but subconsciously this could be happening. We’re not just talking about a small age gap of a few or five years, but even more than that!
# You’re emotionally unavailableSurprise, surprise. The lack of emotional intimacy for those with daddy issues shouldn’t even shock you by now. One of the signs of daddy issues is the inability to become emotionally connected or intimate with anyone.
There’s always going to be a wall between you and them as you fear other men will always treat you the same way your father did – either abandoned or neglected. Your father hurt you, and now you’re afraid to love somebody else. It makes perfect sense, honestly.
# You prefer sexual relationships to emotional onesYou gotta admit, sex-based relationships don’t have the messy feelings and complications of an actual relationship. This is all the more true for those with daddy issues.
They might even have more sexual needs than a typical person as they think they can hook and keep a man just through sex alone.
# You’re afraid of abandonmentBeing abandoned by your father doesn’t entirely mean they were never present. It could also mean having a mentally or emotionally neglecting father who never gave you what you needed. Your father abandoned you, and now you constantly fear it will happen again.
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. Even if it’s as simple as not saying “I love you” back, you fear they no longer love you and are going to walk away eventually.
# You constantly need reassuranceYou find yourself asking for reassurance from your partner often. We can’t stress this enough, but no matter how many times they remind you they love you, it’s never enough for you.
Reassurance is a must for you to feel at peace with yourself and your relationships. You constantly second-guess their intentions when they don’t reassure you. [Read: 20 ways your overanalyzing is sabotaging your relationship]
# You tend to be jealous
Jealousy is something that many women are guilty of, but especially for those with daddy issues. If you see your partner talking to other women, you tend to get worried, even if they are just friends. You always assume the worst, just because you’ve been dealt the worst cards with your father.
When you’re asking what are daddy issues, everything you do in relationships stems from a bad parental figure, such as being obsessively jealous. That little voice in the back of your head tells you that you aren’t good enough and causes more issues.