Dec 2, 2024
Father-child relationships can be confusing. Your father is human, which means he can protect you, love you, and hurt you all at the same time, sometimes without meaning to. (Abusive parental relationships are a different thing, which you can read about here.)
Early childhood attachment to your father can have massive impacts on your adult relationships. Not only do childhood attachments to parental figures influence your adult attachment style (and a negative one can result in an insecure attachment style), a confusing, tumultuous, or toxic relationship with your dad can lead to what is colloquially called “daddy issues”.
Daddy issues are often leveled at women who have dysfunctional adult relationships with men because of a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship. Daddy issues are actually gender-neutral and can happen to anyone. (Although it will likely present differently in men than women).
This article goes over the symptoms of daddy issues, what daddy issues look like in men vs women, and how to cope with or heal from daddy issues.
Related: Learn about mommy issues here.
What does “Daddy Issues” mean?
If you did not get the love, protection, or support from your father as a child, you may grow up to have dysfunctional relationships with other men, also known as daddy issues.
Daddy issues can be caused by:
- Absent father: A father who was either not physically there during childhood or who was emotionally absent.
- Abuse or neglect: This can be physical, emotional, or sexual, and may be directed towards the child or the mother.
- Codependent relationship with father: A close paternal bond is healthy, but there is such a thing as too close. When a relationship with your father turns codependent, you might repeat those patterns as an adult.
- Unaccepting father: If you had a father who constantly criticized you or pointed out your flaws, you may be more likely to develop daddy issues as an adult.
Daddy issues can range from mild—like if you didn’t get enough attention from your father as a kid and now show clingy or attention-seeking behavior with the men in your life—to severe—which may result in coming back to toxic relationships, mistrusting men, or repeating patterns of abuse.
Daddy Issues Symptoms
“Daddy issues” can present differently in everyone, depending on what your relationship with your father was like as a child. Some signs of daddy issues are:
- Difficulty Trusting Men: Someone with unresolved issues stemming from their relationship with their father may find it hard to trust men, leading to challenges in forming and maintaining healthy relationships. This can be romantic, but also professional or with friends. Someone with daddy issues may have trouble working under an older man at work, for example.
- Seeking External Validation from men: Constantly seeking approval and validation from other men in their life, possibly due to not receiving enough support or affirmation from their father figure. This can look like people pleasing, excessive neediness, jealousy, or clinginess.
- Fear of Abandonment: Feeling a deep-seated fear of being abandoned or rejected by men, which could be linked to past experiences with a distant or absent father. You might expect all men to leave you, and push away men before they get too close to keep yourself from pain. Or, you might hold on closer to the male relationships in your life to try and prevent them from leaving.
- Low Self-Esteem: Struggling with self-worth and self-confidence, often due to negative experiences or messages received from their father. Low self-esteem can come up in any area of your life but may be especially present in ones in which a male presence is frequent.
- Difficulty Setting Boundaries: Finding it challenging to set healthy boundaries in relationships, leading to potential issues with assertiveness and self-care. This can be in relationships, like being drawn to possessive or controlling men, or in professional lives, in which you may be used because of your inability to say no to the men in your life.
- Codependent Relationships: Tending to seek out relationships that are imbalanced or unhealthy, sometimes replicating patterns seen in the relationship with their father. People, especially women, with daddy issues often form codependent relationships with men in romantic relationships
Can both men and women have daddy issues?
Yes. Although daddy issues are most commonly associated with women, they can occur in both men and women. Let’s look at the difference in how they appear.
Daddy issues in men
Daddy issues in men will often take a more cold and emotionally unavailable approach. They are more likely to push away any relationships or behavior that remind them of their father. Signs of daddy issues in men include:
- Mimicking the behavior of their father, including if it was abusive or toxic
- Emotionally closed off or unavailable
- Shame around their emotions
- Anger issues
- He might find it hard to love deeply
These are just some symptoms that are more common in men, but they aren’t absent in women. Likewise, men can experience symptoms more commonly experienced by men.
Daddy issues in women
Because women are more likely to date men, daddy issues may be more of a prominent problem for them, as they might project their daddy issues onto the man they are dating.
Daddy issues in women may look like:
- Unable to trust men
- Clingy or needy
- Seeking men’s approval
- Pursuing toxic or unhealthy men
Again, these traits are not unique to women, and men may experience them. Women may also experience the common symptoms of daddy issues in men.
How to Treat Daddy Issues
Fortunately, it is possible to deal with and recover from daddy issues. Treatment for daddy issues may be:
- Take time to self-reflect: What behaviors are rooted in your relationship with your father? Are you okay with those behaviors or is it something you want to change?
- Build self-worth: Instead of finding your sense of self-worth in men, build it within yourself. This could involve journaling, affirmations, mindfulness, exercise, or any other self-esteem-boosting activity.
- Set boundaries: It may take some work to adjust your relationship with men. Practicing good boundary setting is one of the first skills that can protect you from falling back into bad habits.
- Break away from toxic people: If you’ve chosen to make relationships (romantic, platonic, or otherwise) with toxic, unhealthy people, ask yourself if they’re worth keeping in your life. Are they willing to grow with you? Or is it time to move on?
- Try therapy: Many people’s daddy issues are rooted in trauma. Therapy can help you work through your daddy issues, heal from that childhood wound, and become a happy, healthier person.
If you’re interested in therapy for daddy issues, Lifebulb can help. We have therapists who specialize in childhood attachments with father figures and can help you overcome daddy issues. Contact our team or browse our list of therapists near you.
