Daddy Issues Club

It feels like him. But it ends the same every time.

I crave the validation from older men

I have been like this for as long as I can remember. My father was never a safe presence in my life. He was invasive, demanding, abusive—someone I had to manage, not someone who protected me. Affection was conditional. It had to be earned, and it could disappear in a second.

I was never called beautiful, being held, being cherished, and when I saw other girls being treated better, I always thought there was something wrong with me. I was 5. 

So I learned to chase it elsewhere – anywhere where I felt wanted, loved, and adored.

I got attached to any older man who showed me softness, attention, or interest. Even as a child, I was trying to compensate for something I never received. 

By the time I was a teenager, that pattern had already taken shape. At 17, I was in a relationship with a 49-year-old man. I loved him so much, and he used this love to keep me close, but at an arm's length at once. Nothing was up to me, and the wounded, hungry little girl in me was grateful for scraps. When I asked for more, I was called selfish, unrealistic, and even crazy at times. So I took what I could get for 4 years. The best years of my youth were given to someone who turned out not to be any different from my father. 

Like the ones that followed, he didn’t give me what I was looking for. He took what I was offering.

Why do we crave older men? Why does it feel so intense? 

Because the validation fills an existential gap — something that should have been filled in childhood. 

To feel safe, whole, and confident, a child needs a steady father figure present throughout their life. A father who protects, cherishes, and guides. Who holds their child with affection and expresses love and devotion without condition.

When that figure is absent — emotionally or physically — or is abusive, dismissive, incapable of unconditional love, the child grows up carrying a void that feels impossible to fill.

For these children, the world always feels a little dangerous, cold, and ruthless. So they desperately try to fill that void, to escape the feeling of being small, lonely, hungry for love and attention.

That is why the feeling is so incredibly intense. So consuming.

Can dating older men fill the void?

Temporarily, it can feel like it does. But it does not hold.

Because what you’re looking for is consistency, safety, and emotional presence at a level that no romantic relationship is built to sustain—especially not one built on imbalance.

I have been in enough of these relationships to understand why men enter them. "Daddy issues" became a kink somewhere along the way, and it feeds a fantasy — the young, eager, grateful girl. These men also enjoy the attention that comes with being seen beside someone young. It feeds the ego. It was never about love.

None of them were capable of unconditional love or real affection. Not one was willing to sit with my feelings, to listen, to hold me through something hard. There were no long conversations. No hours of just existing together. No you are the most precious thing I have ever seen.

There were hidden partners. Wives. Other girls. Hobbies more important, friends more important, image more important — a 4pm nap more important. Yes, hear that well.

I was kept for convenience. For sex. For empty hours.

And every single time they called, I ran back. I was so desperate to please that thinking about it now makes me want to be sick. What's worse — I ended up becoming everything I was searching for in them. I became the mother, the nurse, the therapist, the steady one.

I was 17.

To put this into perspective, step back and ask yourself: what does a man in his 40s or 50s actually want from someone young?

Not your fantasy version. The reality.

Conversations about your inner world? Sharing retirement plans? Thinking about how to meet your needs, all day, every day? Let's be so for real. 

I'm not calling all older men selfish or incapable. Here is the plain and uncomfortable truth: the level of emotional hunger you carry would overwhelm almost anyone. In these dynamics, it rarely gets met.

If this is you, read this carefully.

The next time you feel that pull, pause. That feeling is not a connection, it's recognition. A familiar emotional pattern presenting itself as relief. If you give into it, you already know how it ends: temporary comfort, harder crash.

If I could ask you to change one thing, it would be this: Delay your response. Don't engage immediately. Create space between the feeling and the action. Use that space to get clear on what you actually need, what you're expecting, and what this person is genuinely capable of — or willing — to give. I promise, your control will start forming in that clarity.

So if this hunger cannot be met by anyone else, are we just supposed to suffer?

No.

The hard truth is that only you can heal this.

It is frustrating, yes — but if you sit with it long enough, and the initial “screw that” subsides, you will realize that it's also freeing. No one else can do it, which means no one else can take it from you either. It can't be undone by someone losing interest, pulling away, or prioritizing a 4pm nap over you. (I'm not over it. I won't be.)

Many of us fantasize about being saved.

I do too — it would be hell of a lot easier than what healing actually requires. But what you build by going through it is yours. Permanently.