8 Ways Your Relationship With Your Dad Can Affect Your Current Romantic Relationships
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How many of us have accepted this fact — the fact that no matter how old we grow, how wiser we become, deep inside there’s one thing that will never change — we’ll always be our daddy’s Lil girl! Admit it or not, if there’s one person who has always impacted our lives, it’s got to be our beloved fathers.
As we grow up, you’re bound to realize that it’s your father who influences your romantic relationships the most. Perhaps your father is very handsome, charismatic, helps mom in handling the household, and he is very generous — can do anything for anyone. Maybe your mom and he are still very much head over heels in love even after two odd decades of togetherness. So, when you start looking for a partner, what is it that you look for most? You begin to calculate the percentage of the visibility of your father’s traits in the man you’re dating or want to date. In essence, you find yourself dating a 2.0 version of your father.
And if you’re a child who might have not grown up with a father. Maybe you have a father but all you get from him is a birthday wish and nothing more. Your mother must have had a rocky relationship with him. Then what? Do you feel drawn towards unstable partners (a representation of your day)?
We’ve put together a list of eight ways that indicate that father’s do influence their daughter’s choice when it comes to men. Irrespective of whether he is doing it intentionally or not. Read on.
1. You End Up Becoming Clingy
If you’ve grown up without a dad or let’s just say an absentee dad who never gave you any attention or care, you will find yourself expecting the worst in your relationship. You may fear rejection, abandonment, and you are always worrying about your partner leaving you. When such thoughts float in the head, you end becoming clingy and heavily dependent with your partner. You just want to be with him all the time and know everything. This, dear girls, can lead to cracks in relationships.
2. You Begin To Resent All Men
If your father was a bad husband to your mother, and a bad father to you, you end up judging all men as the same… that they all suck! Though we find you thinking this way is totally justified, it can however color your future relationships the same way. And if you want to be in a happy relationship with your partner, you certainly have a lot of rewiring to do and move from the past.
3. You Constantly Are In Need Of Reassurance
If you have grown up in a household which didn’t provide you enough love, attention or care. And you’ve always seen your mom doubting your dad’s loyalty towards her. And if you had a dad who cheated on your mom. All these are likely to make you feel very cautious about your partner too. You will find yourself checking his phone constantly and might ask him to prove his love for you time and again. This can be very exhausting for your partner, and if you don’t hold your horses on time, he might just push you away — which again will reassure your fear of being unwanted by anyone.
4. You Don’t Let Anybody Come Close
We know that being deprived of father’s love can hurt a lot. And those feelings are going to linger on you for quite some time too. This might kill the desire to find a partner in you. Even if a good guy tries to bond with you, you will coil inside your shell and never come out. This will make dating a difficult task for you.
5. You Don’t Trust In Any Man Anymore
Being self-reliant is a good trait to have in you, but if you’ve seen your mother struggle to bring you up without your father, this trait can get overboard in your life. You might think that you need to handle life alone, you cannot tell your problems to others as they might just walk away one day leaving you heavily dependent on them. This is why you don’t trust anybody, especially the men!
6. You Get Highly Influenced By Your Father’s behavior Towards You
If you’ve had a loving, supportive, and an emotionally available father, you are likely to have learnt all these skills from him. And if your partner is the same towards you, you end up imbibing his behavior inside you. If your father didn’t show continuous love or care, you end up doing the same with your partner. You don’t show much love or care to him.
7. You Don’t Date Anybody Who Reminds You Of Your Dad
You like him a lot. It was your fifth date with him, maybe he was going to propose to you on the next one. Suddenly he acts in a way that reminded you of your dad. You tell him you cannot continue this and leave. You just refuse to date any man who resembles even one percent of your dad only because your dad never loved you enough.
8. You Cannot Be Alone
You must’ve seen your mom struggle trying to handle life alone. This must’ve have scared you to an extent that once you’ve entered a relationship, no matter how unhealthy it is, you will stick by it. This is very wrong as it can harm your mental state of mind further.
If you find any of the above-mentioned signs familiar, you don’t have to worry. You can take measures to fix yourself from feeling this way. Talk to a therapist, pour your heart out to a dear friend, or just go face your dad. It will give you some peace and you can begin a new approach towards your romantic life.
