Your Toxic Relationship Isn’t About Them—It’s About Your Father
Jun 14, 2025
It’s Not Just a “Daddy Issue.” It’s A Pattern.
Let’s be honest. When clients find themselves in unhealthy relationships, it’s easy to place the blame on the other person—too controlling, too distant, too unavailable, too much. But eventually, a deeper question often emerges: why do they keep attracting the same kind of love?
More often than not, it’s not about their partners at all.
It’s about their fathers.
And for many, Father’s Day brings that truth into sharp focus.
Patterns Don’t Lie—But We Try To
We don’t choose our family, but we often unconsciously choose partners that mirror them.
Not because we want to suffer—but because we want a do-over. A second chance at being loved the way we weren’t.
Here's how my “daddy issues” showed up in my love life (spoiler alert: maybe yours too):
The Invisible Ways “Daddy Issues” Shape Love
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Attracting unavailable partners: Just like Dad—emotionally distant, inconsistent, or preoccupied.
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Overgiving to be chosen: I kept proving I was lovable, instead of believing I already was.
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Fearing abandonment, but choosing people who leave: It's not a coincidence. It’s a cycle.
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Mistaking intensity for intimacy: I confused emotional chaos for love because calm felt foreign.
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Low self confidence in relationships: I measured my worth by how someone else treated me.
This article calls it “repetition compulsion.” Psychology calls it trauma reenactment. I call it: tiring as hell.
What Helped Me Break the Pattern
If you’re reading this and nodding, you’re not alone—and you’re not doomed to repeat the cycle forever. Here’s what helped me get out of the loop:
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Naming the wound: Not blaming, just seeing. My dad couldn’t give what he didn’t have.
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Doing the work (not just talking about it): Therapy, journaling, and my Relationship Diagnostic Session helped me see my story clearly.
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Building self confidence in relationships: I stopped asking, “Why won’t they love me?” and started asking, “Why don’t I believe I’m lovable?”
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Attracting love differently: I now look for safe, kind, consistent—not sexy chaos.
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Staying single long enough to stop people pleasing: Read that again.
As PsychCentral explains, “daddy issues” aren’t a diagnosis—they’re a shorthand for attachment wounds. And they’re common. But they don’t have to define you.
If You Want to Heal, Here’s Where to Start:
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Read UnAddicted to You — my book about breaking cycles of codependency, people pleasing, and pain-based love.
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Book a 1:1 session with me if you're ready to stop dating the ghost of your dad.
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Join a SignShine class and raise emotionally connected kids who don’t have to heal from you later.
Let Me Leave You With This:
You didn’t choose your early wounds.
But you do get to choose the love you create now.
And sometimes, being in love starts with finally letting go of the one who couldn’t give it.