When a father seduces his daughter and the path to her recovery

“I always fall in love with a man who is almost as old as my father. I feel really good around him. I have a feeling it gives me security. However, I feel disapproval when I present it to my loved ones. Every time I say to myself that next time I will choose a younger one, but again I find myself in the arms of a mature man.”

“Men are scratching for me. I have a choice, but I always seem to choose the wrong one. No relationship works for me. Every time I fall in love, I think I’ve found the man of my dreams. However, great disappointment soon follows. I feel like no one is good enough for me. Then comes a period of sadness and overeating.”

In a previous post, I wrote about men growing up with an emotionally absent father. This time, I reveal what wounds the emotionally absent father left his daughter. Women who have not received the love and support of their father will look to their partner for this.

She is looking for a father in her partner

Some look for maturity, calmness, and a sense of security in a man. These tend to choose a much older partner. 

Older men inspire confidence in girls, as they usually seem more responsible. They know how to treat women and treat them more respectfully than younger men, who are often selfish and immature.

Others are looking for a man who will pamper them and shower them with attention like their father once did. Kenneth Adams, in his 2011 book “Silently Seduced: When Parents Make their Children Partners,” says that by doing so, they are trying to rekindle the sense of “specialness” they once had as “father’s princesses”. 

In doing so, they are unable to see their true emotional wounds as a result of their father’s behavior. No one has ever been good enough for them because they are still too “in love” with Dad.

Why does the daughter have a false image of the father?

Women who have been victims of their father’s emotional or sexual abuse are looking for the perfect man – the perfect relationship. 

Adamas writes:

“Abused children often have no choice but to create a false image of a parent who has abused them so that they can believe they are loved.”  

The same line of thinking guides them in choosing a partner, so they enter into relationships with pink glasses. What all these women have in common is that, despite changing partners, they are always disappointed. They also often face eating disorders. 

Some seek to fill their emotional void by overeating. Others seek to fill this void by starvation or excessive exercise, taking care to please their partner as they once had to please their father. Eating disorders allow the body to push the awareness of sexual abuse into the subconscious. 

As long as the woman continues to indulge in addiction, she denies the truth that caused the addiction. All her life she has been searching for the truth about her childhood. She is mistakenly convinced that she will find her with the help of a partner.  

The truth will set her free

She takes the first step to heal when she is able to face the reality of her father’s relationship with her. The father’s excessive attention to his daughter was motivated by his needs and not his daughter’s. According to Adams, the daughter was seduced by the father as she believed that his special attention was all she needed, but at the same time, she felt emotionally abandoned.

When a woman allows herself to grieve over emotional deprivation in childhood, she will finally be able to admit that her father seduced her. The truth will set her free.

Adams notes that the daughter will slowly achieve inner peace once she finds the cause of her addiction. She will begin to accept her body and herself. She will be able to establish emotionally fulfilling and functional relationships.

“Daddy’s Princess” is a daughter who was adored by her father. It’s hard to understand that a child who has everything is so badly hurt. If we take a closer look, we see that the father treated “his princess” as a mistress and not as a daughter. The daughter was emotionally abused in this way.

It damages her intuitive sense of self, which allows for the necessary freedom and confidence to make realistic decisions in relationships. The victim of covert incest (emotional abuse) develops idealistic illusions about what a relationship is. He lives in the belief that there is a perfect relationship. The latter is her only criterion in finding a partner.

Allow yourself to know the truth

In adulthood, victims of emotional abuse often find it difficult to accept that loved ones have their own needs. It is a consequence of childhood when one of the parents never saw the child as an independent, separate being. Correcting distorted perceptions is therefore one of the more difficult steps on the path to healing for them.

Distorted perceptions begin to crumble when you allow yourself to know the truth about your past. Until we know the truth, we cannot know what we need to change. 

Sometimes, it is very difficult to get to the truth – as both emotional and sexual abuse are traumatic. Traumatic events often involve dissociation, which means that we have “excluded” the event from conscious memory.

Treatment will be more successful with the help of a mentor, therapist, or support group.