“Who’s your daddy?” is a sexy question some men ask their women. It suggests that he’s in charge, loving and protecting her, taking good care of her. Asked of a daddy’s girl, it raises all kinds of issues! If you date or are married to a daddy’s girl (or if you are one), keep reading for tips on how to create happiness with the woman whose heart belongs (maybe) to daddy.
Daddy’s Girls Come In All Different Packages
Some daddy’s girls were the typical tom boy, excelling in all things masculine, bonding with their dads and making them proud. Many of these women grew up to be powerful in the workplace. Sometimes, they are easy to love because “guy stuff” is something they’re comfortable with. From their husbands’ hobbies to topics of conversation to what he watches on TV, they are right there, genuinely enjoying it all. However, some of the tom boy types are so loyal to their dads that no other man stands a chance of measuring up as good enough.
Other daddy’s girls are such because dad went missing when they were young. Perhaps he abandoned the family or died or just wasn’t emotionally available. She’s daddy’s girl because she still longs for his approval. She wishes above all that he would or could “see” her. This type of daddy’s girl can be a challenge to love as she wants you to take the place of the man she’s been missing her entire life. Living up to the image of a phantom father is tough.
There’s another kind of daddy’s girl who is submissive – even subservient. She grew up believing her father’s happiness depended on her performance. She may have been abused by him or she may have been taught that walking on egg shells around him, keeping him from getting angry or upset, made a difference for her. However it happened, as an adult she believes her happiness depends on the happiness of her man. In the beginning she can seem like the ideal woman, but this much submissiveness eventually becomes tiresome.
Handling A Daddy’s Girl
It’s the common elements among the various kinds of daddy’s girls that you can work with to erase relationship stress, creating relationship satisfaction instead. For instance, daddy’s girls believe that they are the most influential person in their men’s lives. They feel superior to the men in their lives. Whether they treat their men like father figures or little boys, they see themselves as “the big one” in the relationship. Daddy’s girls feel like most everything falls on their shoulders to fix or take care of. This sets them up to experience frustration with their men who are too often perceived as incapable of doing most things “right.”
To move from relationship stress to satisfaction, a daddy’s girl first has to give up the feeling that she is superior to her man. The best way to do this is for her to make a spiritual practice of stopping the following behaviors:
1. Stop correcting him in public and in private.
2. Don’t do for him what he can do for himself – unless it is an act of sheer, unadulterated generosity.
3. Stay out of the middle of his relationship with his mother.
4. Do not take over a task he is in the middle of accomplishing, even if you believe you can do it better.
5. Catch any attitude of superiority and drop it.
6. Don’t sigh, roll your eyes, or emit anything approximating, “tsk, tsk, tsk” as a response to anything he says or does.
I call this a “spiritual practice” because simply making up one’s mind to make these changes once-and-for-all is impossible. It takes diligence, returning again and again to simply stopping the daddy’s girl behavior while getting comfortable being a new kind of woman in your own life and in his.
Now, the title of this article is “How to Handle an Adult Daddy’s Girl.” So let me speak to just the men for a moment.
The adult daddy’s girl you are in a relationship with has a lot to offer. These women, even the submissive ones, know how to get things done. Using an old fashioned term, they make awesome “help mates.” However, they have a habitual way of relating to men that can pour could water on your desire.
If you don’t want to lose her but you fear if nothing changes she’ll run you off, try the following (or try it before things get that bad!):
1. When she tries to take over a task you are in the middle of accomplishing, invite her to relax and let you finish. Remind her that you are an adult, capable of taking care of things even if you do it differently.
2. If she makes a habit of correcting you, challenge her to stop treating you like a child. A daddy’s girl can think she’s just sharing how she feels or believe she is doing you a favor. Unless she treats every other adult in her life the same way, correcting them, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on believing it is her job to correct you – unless you give her that responsibility.
3. If she’s the submissive type, encourage her to trust you with her dreams and her ability to make her dreams come true. Let her know your life won’t come apart at the seams if she experiences some autonomy.
The best way to handle a daddy’s girl for optimal relationship happiness is to know yourself as a grounded masculine man who desires a woman (not a mother or a little girl). That way of being will result in words and deeds from you that invite her to be that woman with you.