This is not easy for me to admit. At 26, I am still as much of a Daddy’s girl as I was when I was 5 years old. For a long time, I was in denial about this, but now I realize I must come to terms with it and examine this for the sake of my marriage.
“Hi, I’m Tara and I’m a Daddy’s girl.”
Hi, Tara.
I’m not the only one, of course. My two sisters have it bad as well. My middle sister wrote a post on her blog recently about her “daddy issues”:
It came to me yesterday that my dad does a lot of things many other dads don’t do. But because I’ve never known anything else, what my dad does or doesn’t do and how he acts in every situation is the standard by which I judge, well, men.
If a guy doesn’t open the door for me, I’m looking at him crazy. If a guy can’t cook, and worse, refuses to learn, he’s hopeless. If he has no ambition, no goals, I’m looking elsewhere.
My definition of a gentleman is absolute. My dad has set the bar pretty high.
And I obviously agree with her. My dad is pretty awesome.
But I realized early on in my marriage that I was subtly comparing my husband to my father, which isn’t fair. My husband is his own man and no matter how high of a pedestal I have my father on, my husband’s efforts should be judged on his own merits. Period.
If your wife sounds anything like me, here’s some suggestions for improving your marriage and not having her feel like she has to choose between you and her father:
- If you can, arrange to spend some one-on-one time with your father-in-law. You’ll see how he treats people – from the waitress at the diner, to the cashier at Walgreens, to the young man in line behind him at the grocery store. You need to understand your father-in-law to understand what kind of upbringing your wife had, and what her perceptions of men are. I know in my mind, men were supposed to be the strong and dependable type – no excuses.
- Ask your wife directly if she’s a Daddy’s girl. Many, like myself, might not even be aware of it. If she gets defensive, simply tell her some version of the following: “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. You should feel fortunate to have a man in your life who treats you the way your father does.” It might get her to evaluate her expectations of you””whether she expects you to do things because of what her father did or didn’t do.
- Finally (and this is a hard one to write) gently make your own path in the relationship. Avoid the pressure to be “just like Dad” and just be you.