Daddy Issues

My best friend Terrence back in high school used to always say, “Here comes Michael with another one of his sobb stories. Let us all get the damn Kleenex.”

I knew he meant no harm, besides his life seemed more dramatic with the abusive alcoholic father. I was still jealous because at least he had a father and a mother. I lost my parents at a very early age. When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be a kid. Even before the abandonment, my mother had her drug issues. She was never responsible. I took care of myself. At eight years old I had a job sweeping the parking lot at the local liquor store. I used to constantly worry if I was going to eat. It didn’t get better when I got into the foster care system and was passed from one negligent relative to the next. I ended the insanity when I ran away at 15. I had my first apartment at 16. I forged a fake I.D. that made me 19 and they didn’t check credit. My senior year in high school I had three jobs because I needed to pay rent, for prom, my car, the senior trip and all my club dues. It was overwhelming. My loneliest day was when I moved myself into my college dorm. I packed my car and drove the three hours. I carried my stuff up to my room. I saw all the parents. It hit me like a brick. I was alone. I so wanted to be rescued.

Ten years later…

When we first met the sex was great. He was so attentive and nurturing. He made me feel safe. He went and ruined it when he asked me out on a date. I hesitated but accepted. I knew he was older but I didn’t really think about it. On the first date I found out he was twelve years older. The first date he paid for everything. When he took me home he told me he had bought me a new wallet. He didn’t like my old wallet because it was falling apart. I tried not be suspicious and thanked him for the considerate gift. I did need a new wallet. The next day as I placed my IDs and credit cards in the new wallet I noticed it had a hundred dollars in it. I felt sick. I knew I might have to break up with him. The next date he said that he was cleaning out his closet and saw a couple of shirts he thought I enjoy. The shirts still had the tags on them. I felt myself getting weak. The sex wasn’t so great anymore. I started to notice his age. I suddenly didn’t like his middle age body. The forth date I decided to break up with him when he decided to find me a better job and set up the interview. I stopped taking his phone calls. He didn’t understand. I tried to explain to him my past. I had major “daddy issues.” It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate his kindness but I got weak with nurturing men. I needed to break up with him before it was too late and I got dependent. He wasn’t the first.

The term "daddy issues" is an informal slang expression from popular psychology that refers to any of a number of difficulties stemming from an unsatisfactory parental relationship. It’s applied to those who experience difficulty as an adult in romantic or sexual relationships as a supposed result of a poor upbringing. According to typical usage, a person with daddy issues may be promiscuous or seek excessive or inappropriate attention with significantly older partners in an attempt to rectify childhood parental trauma.
In the beginning, I didn’t think I had a problem. I knew I had an attraction to older men but I thought it was because they were stable and the sex was better. It wasn’t so rushed. I felt men my own age were too immature, had sex with their egos, didn’t listen and just wanted to party.

First, there was Charles. He was twenty years older than me. Sub-consciously I was looking for someone to ease the pressure, loneliness. I didn’t know I was setting myself up for failure. We started off as friends. It was more of mentor relationship. Soon came the sex. He said I made the first move. I don’t remember. I remember I felt conflicted. I didn’t see him as a lover, therefore our relationship felt like molestation. It was weird. He treated me like a child with all the damn lectures and allowances but then he get naked and fondle me. It was so damn confusing.

As our relationship progressed, I became more dependent. Charles was like “daddy issues” quicksand. The more I struggled to escape, the deeper I sunk. I ended up living with him. I didn’t work. He was my only source of income. I figured it was okay because I was still in college. Nothing changed when I graduated. I couldn’t seem to find the right job. I wasn’t really looking. I knew I had a problem when I found myself lying on the kitchen floor crying to my best friend in Chicago that Charles wouldn’t give me the keys to his car. I kicked and screamed, and promised to run away. My friend Sha just laughed on the phone and told me to grow. She said it didn’t make any sense for a man to act like two year old child. It dawned on me that it was his house. It was his car. It was his money. I had no security but completely dependent. I owned nothing. I knew when the relationship ended all I would have were the clothes on my back. I couldn’t understand how I gotten myself into such a precarious situation. I was a smart kid. Yet, my daddy issues were pathological. I loved the dependence. It was all I ever really wanted. I was living my dream that in reality was a nightmare. My friends didn’t understand it. And Charles could get abusive. He always had some awful comment or a way of making me feel stupid. But I stayed. Even when he came home that day and went off about me not loading the dishwasher correctly and started throwing dishes, I stayed. I was stubborn. When he touched me, I would go cold but I stayed. He would finally have to rid himself of me. Charles found a new lover. He was younger and also had “daddy issues.” I went to live with a friend. We never spoke again.

I vowed it would never happen again. Yet, I had a pattern in my relationships. I attracted “caregivers.” There always seemed to be somebody trying to rescue me. I wasn’t so willing to pay the price anymore. I knew being taken care of wasn’t romantic. It was Stephen King’s book “Misery.”

I wasn’t willing to give up my identity again. When I met Tom, I was convinced he was different. I was living on my own. I had my own money. I was completely independent. I met him in a club and he wanted to buy me a drink. I turned the tables and bought him a drink. We started dating. I wouldn’t let him pay for dinner. I knew Tom was fifteen years old, I was 23 and he was 38. But he was different. He wasn’t like most of the older men I dated. He liked going out. He wasn’t materialistic. His apartment was as simple as my apartment. I felt as if I could build a life with him. I felt as if I could contribute. After we moved in together, he lost his job. I made enough money to take care of us both. We seemed happy in the beginning. He found another job. I thought I was over my “daddy issues.”

The age difference started to get to me. I felt he owed me more than what I was getting. I stopped paying rent. I always thought it was a volunteer thing anyway because it was his name was on the lease. It was my post adolescent vanity. I thought he should worship my youth. I thought he should be the caretaker since he was older. I still needed my father figure. And it started to happen again. Tom took care of all the bills. I didn’t ask any questions. He cooked and cleaned. He even washed my clothes. He did my taxes. He fixed things. I ended up quitting my job. I acted like a child because I knew I had my safety net. Our sexual relationship changed. Tom was a very good looking man and had a great body. I was sexually attracted to him but my need for a father figure conflicted our relationship. The more dependent I became on him, the less sex we had. Soon, we had no sex. I told myself it was because he was boring in bed. I told myself it was because he had no passion. It was me. I took a good red-blooded man and made him my Daddy. I didn’t want to have sex with my daddy. That was not my childhood fantasy. When I was kid, I dreamed of someone coming to rescue me. They were going to take me to their mansion and I’d get to play and not worry. No where in that fantasy did I think I would be having sex with that rescuer.

After too many hard earned lessons, I knew for my sanity, I needed to stay away from certain type of men. I had dreams and I wasn’t willing to give that up again. I wanted my identity. I wanted my independence. It wasn’t that those men were bad men or that I was opportunistic lazy black man. I loved them all but I couldn’t be a whole person with them. I couldn’t be a man. I liked sex. I didn’t want to have to cheat. I needed to feel as if I could make it in the world by myself. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I needed to let that childhood fantasy go.

I remember I used to say to Charles, if I got a job, I wouldn’t need him. It didn’t make any sense for another man to take care of another grown man. I didn’t understand I wasn’t supposed to need him. I will always miss the things I didn’t get because my father died when I was five. He never taught me how to ride a bike. He didn’t teach me how to fix a car. He didn’t get to teach me how to dress for an interview. But mostly, he didn’t get to teach me how to be a man. My “daddy issues” were just a crutch. I didn’t learn anything but how to stay a child. I was still alone. The only difference, I was now a man and could take care of myself.