Daddy issues aren't a punchline — they're the map. Gina digs into why smart, self-aware women keep choosing the same wound in different men, what your childhood actually wired into you about love, and why awareness isn't the same as healing. The patterns start way before the relationship you're crying over now.

This podcast reflects personal experiences and opinions and is not therapy or professional advice.

Music: "Do It Anyway" by Scarlett Solo, used under license.

I mean, the show is called Daddy Issues, so we might as well talk about the obvious, daddy issues, and mommy issues too, because let's be fair, everyone contributed, and I will always give credit where it's earned. There are just as many mommies passing out issues as there are daddies. They too are very generous, and we are oh so grateful.

We will get to those mommies in another episode though But if you are here now listening, I want to welcome you back to your new favorite show. This is your host, Gina Sullivan, and you are listening to Daddy Tissues.

(Intro Music)

I used to think daddy issues was something people just said to make fun of girls who had a lot of sex or the girls who all the boys went to for their blowies. You know, the girl that dated all the bad boys and wore a ton of eyeliner, and she had a tongue ring with a ball screwed on the top that glowed in the dark that she got from the mall, who was always dyeing her hair colors that got her sent to the dean's office where Sister Helen would give her some demerits for her uniform skirt being up her ass at her all-girls Catholic high school.

Or we can just define daddy issues the way the rest of the world does: your everyday, wholesome, average slut. Oh, and

guys love to throw that word out there like they're giving out a grand prize. But if we're being honest here, and we know that this is the exact place to do just that, guys have just as many daddy issues as we do, if not more.

So they can all suck it But now that I'm 40, divorced, traumatized, full of wisdom, and apparently hosting a podcast from my bedroom, I can say from deep within my soul, daddy issues are not just a funny joke. They are literally the root system. They are the wiring. They are the reason that some of us can be smart, self-aware, pretty, funny, capable, and still find ourselves attached to men who make us feel like we need a private investigator and a

priest to survive.

Trust me, I did not get it at first. I'll never forget the day I walked into my first marriage counseling session, and the therapist kept using the word childhood trauma. I'm like, "What the fuck does my childhood have anything to do with this fucked up relationship I got going on here, crazy bitch?" I'm sorry.

She's not a crazy bitch. I love that woman so much. She seriously saved my life. But anyway, I remember sitting there like, "What are we doing here? I came here because clearly I'm perfect, and I already did my fair share of therapy after baby daddy number one. So I'm good. But this guy over here has a serious anger issue that we need to address, and I've been asking him to go to therapy and take care of it, but he's not gonna go.

Please just give him some meds or something so he can be nice to me, and maybe I'll wanna have sex with him again." And then what happened after that I totally did not see coming. Maybe this crazy bitch was onto something. That was the first time I stopped and went, "Huh. Maybe the relationship I was in wasn't the beginning of the problem.

My divorce sucked, but that was actually just the beginning. However, this show isn't just all about me, so we're gonna get back to that story another time. Just trust me when I say I have some experience, and that is a huge understatement So this is the part that makes me wanna bang my head into the wall.

Well, really all of this makes me want to bang my head against the wall, but what really does is the fact that we don't even realize we're doing it. It's not like we see a guy and get butterflies and go, "Oh, here's my next mistake." No. We always think we are choosing someone new. We think,

"No, this one is definitely different.

He doesn't look like the old one. He doesn't act anything like that other psychopath. He's not loud. He's not aggressive. He's not trying to fight every man at the bar who looked inside his designated space he clearly had reserved for his beer. He doesn't smash my phone in the middle of the street. He doesn't put gum in my hair.

He doesn't punch holes in walls. He doesn't throw a seven-pound diaper bomb full of pee at my head after changing the baby because he didn't like my tone." All right, I'm getting ahead of myself, but you know what I mean. He's nice. He's calm. Everyone loves him. His parents like each other, and they go to church, and he has a job and a degree or whatever.

He's the guy that people say, "Oh my God, you're so lucky to have him." And you think, "Finally. Finally, I did it. I picked a good one." And then years later, you're standing in your kitchen, dead inside, trying to

fish out whatever is stuck in the garbage disposal. Because sometimes the dysfunction doesn't look like chaos.

Sometimes it looks like a nice guy who slowly makes you feel small. Sometimes it looks like a joke at your expense. Sometimes it looks like him talking over you. Sometimes it looks like everyone's thinking he's great while you're quietly losing your mind. And when you finally react, suddenly you're the crazy one.

It's like this cute little magic trick What I've realized is the way we love, the way we attach, the way we tolerate disrespect, the way we chase approval, the way we confuse anxiety for passion, all of that usually started way before the relationship we're crying over now. It started in the house you grew up in.

It started with what love looked like when we were

little. What did women allow? What did men get away with? Who got protected? Who got blamed? Who had to keep the peace? Who was allowed to be angry and who wasn't? Who had to just swallow it? For me, I grew up watching women pleasantly tolerate disrespect with such grace.

I watched women carry everything. I watched women hold families together while people around them acted like that was just their job. So somewhere inside me, even though I didn't choose it consciously, I learned that a woman loves by enduring. A woman loves by forgiving. A woman loves by understanding why everyone else is broken.

A woman loves by staying, and that is a dangerous, dangerous lesson to learn because then when a man disrespects you, it doesn't always feel like danger. Sometimes it feels familiar,

and familiar can feel like home, even when home was a mess. That's the sick part. We can grow up in chaos and then spend our entire adult lives chasing chaos because peace feels boring and instability feels alive And people will say, "Why do you keep picking men like that?"

As if we're walking into Target with a list that says, "Emotionally unavailable, charming, inconsistent, may ruin my life, but has eyes that make me melt." No, it's not that simple A lot of this is subconscious, it's chemical, it's emotional. It's the body remembering something before the brain can even explain it.

And I'm not a therapist. Clearly, I just learned how to use my microphone, so let's all manage expectations. But I do know this, every woman I know has a pattern. Every man she's

drawn to has something. Maybe it's not physical. Maybe it's not obvious. Maybe he doesn't look like her dad. Maybe he doesn't act exactly like him, but there is something, a tone, a distance, a charm, a control, a wound, a way he makes her earn love, a way he gives just enough and then pulls it back.

Something in him feels familiar, and that familiarity can feel like chemistry. But sometimes chemistry is just your childhood trauma recognizing another bad idea, like what the actual fuck? And the worst part is that once you become aware of it, you think you're cured. You're like, "Okay, I get it now. I like emotionally unavailable men because of my dad.

Great. Solved. Where's my healthy husband?" No, because awareness is not the same thing as healing. Knowing the

pattern does not automatically stop your body from wanting the pattern. That is the part nobody wants to talk about. You can know better and still want him. You can understand all the red flags, and still, when he texts you, your entire body vibrates.

You're like, "Keep them coming, baby." Your eyes glued on those bubbling dots on iMessage like they're lines of cocaine. You can know he's bad for you and still feel like he's the only person who makes you feel alive. That doesn't mean you're stupid. That means the wound is still driving. So this episode is not me sitting here judging women for their daddy issues.

Absolutely not. I'm in the car with you, and I packed snacks. This episode is me saying maybe it's time we stop making daddy issues a punchline and start treating them like the map. Because if we can understand where the pattern started, maybe we

can stop calling ourselves crazy for repeating it. Maybe we can stop blaming ourselves for being drawn to what felt familiar.

Maybe we can start asking a better question. Not why am I like this, but where did I learn this? Where did I learn that love feels like proving myself? Where did I learn that disrespect is normal? Where did I learn that chaos is passion? Where did I learn that I have to fight to be chosen? The first step isn't fixing it.

The first step is noticing it. Notice who makes an alarm go off in your body. Notice who makes you feel like you have to prove yourself. Notice who gives you that sick little high when they finally text you back. Notice who makes peace feel boring and chaos feel exciting. Because once you notice the pattern, you cannot fully unsee it.

I know, that does not mean you magically stop wanting the wrong person and all the toxic shit that came along with it.

Unfortunately, healing does not come with a refund policy. We can't go back in time and redo everything. But it does mean that the next time your body says, "Oh my God, I need him," your brain can at least say, "Do we?

Do we? Or is this just the wound asking for its favorite drug?" That is where all our work starts, and that is what Daddy Tissues is here for. Not to shame us, not to diagnose everybody we've ever dated as a narcissist or a sociopath, not to pretend we're healed little angels drinking lemon water and making good choices.

No. We are here to tell the truth, the ugly, sad truth that maybe we can start to laugh at with each other. The truth that gives us all some validation and clarity, because maybe we weren't cursed. Maybe we were actually chosen. Chosen to finally see the pattern,

chosen to be the one to break the cycle.

Lucky us. Chosen to stop passing this shit down like a family heirloom no one asked for. And if that sounds harsh, good. Some of us have to be the women who finally say it out loud Some girls were fortunate enough to have a great relationship with their dad, and some of us were not. And if you are one of those girls who didn't get the love from your dad that you deserved, maybe it's because he didn't get the love he deserved from his dad.

And no, that does not excuse everything, but it does explain some things. So maybe today, instead of letting the anger eat us alive, we look at it differently. Not because it was fair, not because it didn't hurt, but because somehow we

turned it into strength. We wouldn't be the women we are today without it.

Hell, I wouldn't have a podcast. We gained something here that maybe those other girls don't have. We are strong as fuck. We are resilient. You can throw anything our way, and somehow we figure it the fuck out. We're motivated. We're determined. We have something to prove. Not because we're not enough, but because now we know we are, and we are pretty damn amazing Grab your daddy tissues, girls, because today is the day we say, "Daddy, thank you so much for giving me what I needed to make me me.

I love you so much, but with all due respect, fuck you. Fuck your dad,

and fuck his dad, too." Till next time.

(Outro Music)