Daddy Issues

Daddy Issues

 

You’ve heard of the Oedipus complex, right? According to Freud, it is the theory that every man secretly wants to kill his dad and have sex with his mom. (We know. That’s totally creepy behavior.) But perhaps you haven’t heard of the Electra complex. It’s a psychological term developed by Freud’s colleague Carl Jung. For Jung, the Electra complex denotes a woman’s sexual attachment to her father and a corresponding competitive hostility toward her mother. It’s from Jung’s Electra complex that we’ve derived the modern concept of “daddy issues.”

These days, people say a woman has daddy issues when she appears to be seeking attention from men in order to compensate for the attention she may not have received from her father. When we talk about her daddy issues, we’re generally talking about things like aggressive flirtation, promiscuity, a tendency toward exhibitionism, and certain emotional hang-ups.

Whether her daddy issues are actually the result of her relationship with her father or whether “daddy issues” is just the label society has chosen to attach to this kind of behavior, it is a set of characteristics you might encounter in a woman. Consequently, you need to know how to recognize her daddy issues and how to handle them.

Sexual aggressiveness

Most guys delight at the idea of a sexually aggressive woman. But if a woman is grinding up against you on a dance floor, initiating public groping and dragging you into her bedroom on the first date, it might be a sign of her daddy issues. If you’re up for a one-night stand, there’s probably nothing you need to do except enjoy the ride. But if you’re interested in a relationship with this girl, your strategy should be to take things slow. If her sexy signals are overly aggressive, tell her you want to slow down and get to know her before doing the deed. Make plans for a future date instead of stripping each other’s clothes off. Show her you’re interested in more than just sex and she won’t feel quite as desperate to impress you with her sexual prowess.

Excessive flirting

It’s a stereotype that girls with daddy issues flirt a lot. And maybe it was even her flirting that got your attention in the first place. Once she’s your girlfriend, though, flirting with strange men is not going to fly.

It’s important to recognize that not all women flirt because they’re interested in the guy they’re talking to. Your girlfriend may be flirting because she craves attention and enjoys the rush of developing sexual tension with a stranger. The best way to deal with this manifestation of her daddy issues is to confront her about it. Tell her you’re not OK with it. The extra attention from you will likely offset the attention she’s been seeking from random guys.

Clinginess

We typically apply the “daddy issues” label to women who seem to crave male attention -- and ploys for male attention can take many forms, including clinginess. Every woman wants care and assurance from her partner and, of course, girlfriends want to spend quality time with their boyfriends. But a girl with daddy issues wants those things in excess. She may throw a fit whenever you make plans without her. She might beg and bargain whenever you try to leave her apartment. It’s important to keep her daddy issues in check by establishing strict boundaries. Stick to your guns and maintain a separate social life. If you give in to a bout of clinginess once, you’re sunk forever.

Compare and contrast

As we said at the outset, according to Jung, her daddy issues are all connected to her relationship with her father. Whether you buy Jung’s theory or not, we think it’s fair to say that a woman’s relationship with her father affects her romantic relationships. If her dad failed to show her love and affection, she might grow up expecting the worst from men. If you find her blowing up over minor screw-ups, it might be because your mistake reminds her of her father’s poor parenting.

The key in these situations is to make your partner aware of these unfair comparisons. You are not her father, for better or worse. You can only be yourself; show her the reliable, attentive and caring guy you are, and eventually she’ll stop blaming you for someone else’s mistakes.

If only women were so simple

We recognize that diagnosing a woman with “daddy issues” is necessarily an oversimplification, but the fact is that “daddy issues” have become cultural shorthand for a set of behaviors exhibited by some women. If you’re a guy, whether or not you consider these behaviors to be “daddy issues,” you still need to be aware of what they look like and how to deal with them.