DADDY ISSUES

Women struggle to find a man who will be the man of her dreams; but as a child the man who made her young dreams come true was her father.

The one man in their life that's holding women back from other men in your life is the shadow of your father.

Growing up is not easy. Parent-child dynamic is complex.

Parents have the greatest influence on how you will grow up. They will form the values, principles and morals that will be the center of your adult core. During childhood,  parents have absolute power over you, and they're the defining influence in your life (and love life) during your formative years.
Fathers often are seen as the disciplinary, the voice of reason and punishment.

If one grows up with relationship issues with one's parents, it can leak into other parts of life.

LOST was filled with women with "daddy issues," which describes a woman's intimacy problems with men as a result of conflict with her father.

It's a concept that makes sense intuitively, but is difficult to explain in words but instinctively generalize.

Sociologists have concluded that many young women come into greater-than-normal conflict with  their fathers growing up, and those issues are transformed in how they deal with other men in the future. Most people can overcome it, depending on the severity of the situation. Others struggle.

Here are some signs a woman might be the latter.

1. You don't trust men.

It's not easy to truth others when the first, most important man to enter your life breaks that trust. Think about how hard it is to trust a partner after you've been cheated on. Broken trust causes people to guard themselves more closely in the future, lest you be hurt again.

2. You generalize men.

Look at your Facebook or Twitter feed and count how many times you see a variation of the phrase "All men are jerks." Most everyone would agree that all people are different. You have to take each person on a case-by-case basis. But if you spent most of your early life dealing with a "jerk," every time you encounter another one it reinforces a bias viewpoint toward all men. 

The problem is, your experience is heavily weighted in your mind toward the jerk example, and it would take tons and tons of great guys to tip the scales in the other direction ... an amount that will likely never happen if everybody is a coin-flip.

3. You need constant attention — positive and negative.

People who miss out on attention from one parent early in life tend to seek it out in others. It can be destructive because you'll take attention however you can get it. Like a child who acts out to get their parents to notice, you can hurt yourself and others.

If your father was aloof or otherwise ignored you growing up, you might be overly needy in a relationship. You can lash out to get your partner's attention when you feel you aren't getting enough of the conventional kind. You may seek out love from strangers in the hope of finding happiness. But this may be another form of negative reinforcement since you cannot find a suitable replacement for the void of your father in your adult life.

4. You're overly defensive.

A common response to pain is to recede into a shell. You can't be hurt if you never put your heart out there. Having a poor relationship with your father may lead you to not let other men get close to you emotionally.

The consequences of this on your love life are far-reaching. Do you never take the "next step" in a relationship? Do you bail at the first sign of trouble? Do you go cold when he wants to get closer?

5. You have trouble committing.

You've seen the fallout of bad relationships and you want no part of it. Whether it's the way your father treated your mother, or your personal relationship with him, you just know what happens when things go badly.

The truth is, it's hard to remember that everybody and every situation is different. Just because your parents got divorced and hated each other doesn't mean that you'll suffer the same fate.

6. You tend to prefer much older men.

In a subconscious effort to reconcile your relationship with your father, you may have a habit of pursuing much older men. You see someone reminiscent of your father showering you with love and attention, and it compensates for that deficit in your relationship with your father in some way.