Helping Daughters Build Healthy Relationship: Tackling the Phenomenon of Father Complex

Introduction

Often times and over generations, the daughter-father relational issues have not been brought to the front burner for discussions. It has been relegated to the background premises on the assumption that child-rearing has always been a function of women. Though women haved played and continue to play pivotal roles in child-rearing, the psychological impacts of fathers on a child's rounded development cannot be overemphasised.

The evolutionary phases of humanity existence and the quest for knowledge, emanating from father absence, father presence and father involvement effects on children on child-rearing highlights the emerging interest in research focussing on father impacts on child psychological development. This has unearthed the impacts of father involvement on their children positively and negatively.

This piece focusses on father relationship and how it affects daughters or girls in their relationship with other men. Thus, Father Complex or "Daddy Issues".

What is it?

In psychology, ‘daddy issues’ are described as a ‘father complex.’ A father complex arises when a person has a poor relationship with his or her father. The need for, love, support, approval, and understanding progresses into adulthood, and it may result in bad decisions with relationships

(Perspectives Counseling, 2024). The term could also me be refered to as The ELEKTRA COMPLEX which is a psychoanalytic term used to describe a girl's sense of competition with other women for the affections of a father figure.

Nonetheless, 'Father Complex' or 'Daddy issues' affects both males and females but, the write up seeks to bring attention to the impacts on the girl child emphasising the rationale for the availability and involvement of fathers in the lives of their daughters.

Effects of Father Complex on girls

'Daddy Issues' or 'Father Complex' effects on daughters ranges from fear of abandonment, hard to trust men, emotionally unavailable, constantly need reassurance, dating older men, suspicious and excessively jealous, constantly testing his love, excessive friendliness towards guys and prefers sexual relationship to emotional ones.

Fear of Abandonment:

This is a negative psychological state of some girls steming from "having a mentally or emotionally neglectful father who never gave her what she needed", Morgan, 2024. This experience arouses "an intense and irrational fear of being abandoned by loved ones, particularly in romantic relationships, often leading to clingy or overly dependent behaviour", ETherapyPro, 2024. Women brought up from such homes normally say 'I'll dump you before you dump me'.

Hard to Trust Men:

Girls who have been brought by emotionally or physically absent fathers grapple with abandonment, commitment, and trust issues. A combinations of these negative traits affects girls self-esteem leading to mistrust of their partners, often culminating to insecurity and jealousy. Such disposition towards men affects the stability of their marriage.

Emotionally Unavailable:

As a result of not experiencing intimacy with their fathers due to physical or emotional absence, such women would normally have issues with their romantic relationships due to lack of emotional attachment from their fathers. They become emotional lost in relationships.

Constantly Need Reassurance:

“Excessive reassurance seeking often originates from deep-seated insecurities and an overarching need for validation, reflecting concerns around self-worth and belonging,” (Brito, 2024). Women whose socialisation were affected by Father absence constantly need reassurance from men which become debilitating for any functional relationship to thrive.

Dating Older Men:

One negative consequence on 'Daddy Issues' in daughters lives is subconsciously deciding to date older men who appear as a father figures for them. This is one of the vintage trait mostly associated with the concept of “daddy issues” or 'Father Complex ".

Excessively Jealous and Suspicious:

Women are naturally jealous but fatherless women are extremely jealous and suspicious of their partners arising from unresolved issues with their fathers. Jealousy often stems from feelings of inadequacy or insecurity due to father absence or 'Daddy isses' which becomes a carried over effect to the adult life of women.

Constantly Testing His Love:

'Father Complex' women grow and overly needy for attention and validation from their partners; uncomfortable with their partners having any female friends and unable to develop coping mechanism due to lack from receiving same from their fathers.

Excessive Friendliness Toward Guys:

Women with 'Daddy issues' or 'Father Complex' are easily drawn to men. These are noticeable in their response to men and women. They lean towards men to fill the void left by their physically or emotionally absent father. A palpable effect of 'Father Complex' or 'Daddy Issues'.

Prefers Sexual Relationships to Emotional Ones:

Daddy issues affects girls orientation about emotional acceptance and sexual relations. Most girls with Daddy issues misconstrue sexual relations for emotional intimacy. The consequence of this according to

Nielsen, (2021) is the usage of "sex to get attention and affirm her self-worth".

Conclusions

The forgoing narrative explains the complex psychological impacts of fatherlessness on daughters. This highlights the consequences, not only on daughters phyche but, also it affects their relationship with others especially, men resulting in dysfunctional romantic relationships. Though, 'Father Complex' or 'Daddy Issues' affects daughters self-worth resulting in deleterious effects on their phyche including fear of abandonment from other man, hard to trust men, emotionally unavailable to men, constantly need reassurance from men, dating older men, suspicious and excessively jealous of their men, constantly testing a man's love, excessive friendliness towards guys and prefers sexual relationship to emotional ones, the tide can be stemed going forward.

According to Susan Schwartz, 2021, The absence of father provokes and sustains a negative father complex, making the world bleak, oftentimes hopeless, until understood. The negative father complex can adversely affect a daughter’s confidence, promote the idealization of others and crumple assertion and initiative.

Steming from the premise, this article seeks to serve as a rallying call to all fathers to as a matter of principle and responsibility to be there for the girl child to offset the gloomy picture of Daddy issues ' effects on the daughters. When society has a lot more psychologically rounded daughters, they stabilise the home serving as a watershed for producing more stable homes.

DC KWAME KWAKYE is a FATHERHOOD ADVOCATE, author of the seminal book "Beyond Fatherhood: Changing The Narrative. Is available on all online stores also available for speaking engagements on +233244976550. Mail- dckwamekwakye.dk@gmail.com.