5 Signs You Have Daddy Issues and You Don’t Even Know It

Let me tell you why it’s important to talk about this daddy issues topic many have avoided.

Girls who grew up without a dad find it hard to be in healthy relationships. It’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they don’t know what it looks like.

To say that the absence of a father doesn’t make an impact on their love life is such an understatement.

It’s complicated and confusing, and sometimes it can get too much to handle.

For any woman out there wondering why you always seem to fall for the wrong person, it’s probably you have unresolved daddy issues you aren’t aware of.

And this is the best time to work on that.

1. You always find yourself in unhealthy relationships

It’s like you’ve given everything to every guy you dated, but they all give you the same ending: a heartbreak.

Not just that, every time you’re in a relationship, there’s no such a thing as feeling emotionally stable. When things are good, they are really, really good, but when things go south, they’re really, really bad.

It doesn’t matter who you date. You always find yourself on an emotional roller-coaster ride.

Depending on your family situation when you were a kid, mine was pretty messy. It’s hard for me to differentiate which one is healthy and which one is not.

All relationships just looked the same to me, and if your dad was never around for you and your mom, you eventually like to think that it’s normal. That’s what you’ve been seeing your whole life, so where’s the problem?

Of course, you cant’ see it until that one guy you love to death breaks your heart into pieces, and you have already lost yourself in the relationship.

That’s where you start wondering, “does a healthy relationship truly exist?”

2. You find it hard to communicate what you truly want

Women with daddy issues most don’t know what they want in a relationship. Some of them learn it the hard way but the rest? They end up settling down for less.

I was once like that too. I’ve seen my mom never actually tell my dad what she really needs from him, so as a result, their whole marriage revolves around his needs.

A healthy relationship requires constant communication from both parties. It’s crucial to even keep the relationship going in the first place.

So if you have never seen your parents communicate in a healthy way around the house, you’ll find it hard to do the same in your adult relationship.

3. At some point in life, you hate men in general and think they’re all suck

I had that phase when I was in my early 20s. I just think all men would cheat or leave me.

I saw the “proof” in my parent’s marriage, so why do I bother to believe otherwise?

And that kind of mindset is what makes women with daddy issues stuck in a toxic or even abusive relationship.

No matter how picky they might seem, they always end up with a guy who couldn’t care less about her or cheat on her eventually.

While it’s easy to blame it on the guy, it actually has a lot to do with how you perceive relationships in general.

Think of it this way; if you enter a relationship thinking the man will leave, cheat or do something bad to you, it’s only about time until it actually happens.

You don’t trust him in the first place, and no one likes to be dating someone who doesn’t trust them enough.

Even if that man genuinely loves you, he’ll eventually feel tired of the negativity you bring into the relationship.

I know this to be true because the first year I was with my current partner, things were so hard for both of us. I always questioned him, and he felt like he was trapped dating me.

It is expected that it turned into a toxic for a while. Once I changed my mindset and forced myself to let go of the old belief, I could finally see what a healthy relationship looks like and stopped sabotaging it.

4. You don’t think you can ever trust a man 100%

From the bad childhood, heartbreaks in your first few relationships, and all the trauma you’ve been getting, it’s expected that you have major trust issues.

If you’re lucky and find a secure man who can love you properly, it’ll get easier to heal and trust someone again. But one thing for sure, it’ll never be 100%.

You become too scared to let anyone enter your life and get close to you. You always have this gigantic wall inside your heart that you aren’t even aware it’s there.

In your defense, you built it so that it can make you feel safe. That’s how you cope with all the pain, after all. But what you don’t realize is that wall is also the one that makes you push away good people.

The people who genuinely care and love you. A woman with a daddy issue just finds it hard to hand all their trust to someone.

For them, it can be the greatest risk they take.

5. You are emotionally unstable and have a low self-esteem issue.

In general, women with daddy issues aren’t very confident. They don’t feel secure and are always anxious if someone could love them the same.

I spent the majority of my teenage years chasing guys. I made things work with them. I compromised too much, and I never said “no” whenever they came around.

When they told me I was pretty, I’d feel good about myself, and when they told me I wasn’t good enough, I took it very personally.

In short, I was very emotionally unstable, Because I based my happiness on other people and never believed that I could be happy on my own too.

This sign is so common because if you came from a healthy family, you won’t’ feel like you arent this or you arent that.

Your parent, especially your dad, gives you affection and enough reassurance that you’re more than enough.

How we go from here

Having daddy issues isn’t something you can ignore, and hoping it’ll never make a difference (negatively) in your love life. You need to be highly aware of it so you won’t repeat your parent’s relationship history.

I certainly don’t want to have what my mom has with my dad. And rewiring my mind to think of a different ending has always been the hardest thing to do.

But as they say, just because you come from a broken home family with no dad ever around doesn’t mean you have to stay broken in your romantic relationship too.

You can always have the power to change the narrative.

You can a small step such as seeing a therapist or talking to someone who overcome their daddy issues. Trust me, you are never alone on this.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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