The Psychology of “Daddy Issues” “Attachment disorder really comes down to which parent's love was missing or inconsistent in your life and how that unfulfilled craving for love and connection has impacted your behavior in adult relationships to form emotional bonds,” says Tatiana T.
Daddy issues in adults are caused by an ongoing need for understanding, love, support, and approval that wasn't received in childhood. These needs can transfer into bad relationship decisions during adulthood.
In psychology, 'daddy issues' are described as a 'father complex. ' A father complex develops when a person has a poor relationship with his or her father. The need for approval, support, love, and understanding progresses into adulthood, and it may result in bad decisions with relationships.
Scientific evidence shows that a physically abusive father can traumatize adolescents and lead to anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal. 6 The adolescent may also mimic their father's aggressive and violent behavior after spending more time together.
Potential signs you may have "daddy issues" include low self-esteem, trust issues, repeatedly entering toxic relationships, people-pleasing tendencies, jealousy or overprotectiveness in relationships, idealizing men in your life, or seeking avoidant or emotionally unavailable partners.
The Origin of “Daddy Issues”
These impulses can either be positive or negative. A negative impulse towards a partner could be fear or distrust, while a positive impulse could be admiration towards the partner.
A woman with daddy issues might date an older man because the guy looks, acts, and feels like her father. She wants to be treated with lots of attention and love by someone who can protect her and is capable of providing the lavish life she thinks she deserves, just like a dad would.
Essentially, one of the significant signs that a woman has daddy issues is that she is attracted to men way older than she is. These men are usually old enough to be her father. The father-daughter relationship informs and is the foundation of a girl's beliefs about men, love, and romantic relationships.
“Fatherless Daughter Syndrome" (colloquially known as "daddy issues") is an emotional disorder that stems from issues with trust and lack of self-esteem that leads to a cycle of repeated dysfunctional decisions in relationships with men.” - Wehavekids.
You're hypersexual
A person who experienced a dysfunctional relationship with their father may use excessive sex as an attempt to get the love they couldn't get as children. Sometimes, people also use sex to compensate for their low self-esteem.
Daddy issues is a term that describes the effects of the emotional wounds inflicted on a child from an emotionally unavailable father. Those wounds, if left unhealed, may lead you to look for external validation from men to know your worth. You may only feel worthy when getting male attention.
What does daddy issues mean? Daddy issues is an informal phrase for the psychological challenges resulting from an absent or abnormal relationship with one's father, often manifesting in a distrust of, or sexual desire for, men who act as father figures.
Because they never got the direction needed from a father figure, they learn to make up their own survival playbook. This can lead to negative coping skills such as sexual promiscuity, total avoidance of intimacy, isolation, substance abuse, anxiety, and depression.
And if things are going well, dopamine gets replaced by two hormones: oxytocin and vasopressin. They create the desire to bond with your partner and nurture them. Attachment allows couples to stay together long enough to raise children, develop a deep, meaningful bond, grow old together, and feel contentment.
You're aloof. You focus your mind on things other than what's going on in your relationships. You miss cues from those around you that your relationships need your attention.
There are unclear boundaries.
And with toxic father-daughter relationships, this might look like: invading your privacy, disregarding your feelings, and making your decisions for you without even asking you for your input or giving you a good reason why (other than “Because I said so and you will do as you're told!”).
You don't have to have an abusive or absentee father to have daddy issues. You could, like me, have a father who didn't always express his emotions or you could have a father that you had to “work” to impress or notice you.
Someone with daddy issues is either anxious or avoidant. They're too worried about their partner whether their partner will stay faithful or not, and they always feel insecure. No matter how perfect they seem for the partner, they still don't think they're good enough. On the other hand, some are afraid of commitments.
Your attraction to older guys is not wrong. In fact, it's completely okay. A lot of women like older men. It could be because of intelligence, stories, experience, or stability, or anything else.
When you label perfectionism or people-pleasing as a “mommy issue” and codependency or promiscuity as a “daddy issue,” you're perpetuating harmful stereotypes that assume men and women raise children differently (and dysfunctionally) based solely on their gender.
Being raised by an emotionally unavailable parent or guardian can lead to a life of unstable friendships, strings of failed relationships, emotional neediness, an inability to self-regulate, provide for yourself, and identity confusion.