Growing Up With a Narcissistic Father: How It Can Affect Adult Daughters

When love, approval or connection with your father depended on staying small, getting it right, or becoming who he needed you to be.

By Sheena McRae Registered Psychotherapist
 Women's Therapy Centre, Virtual Therapy Across Canada

Maybe your father could be charming, funny or incredibly generous—and still somehow make everything about him.

Maybe disagreeing with him meant being called disrespectful. Bringing up something that hurt you somehow became a conversation about everything you'd done wrong. Your accomplishments made him proud when they reflected well on him, but your choices became a problem when they didn't fit the version of you he had imagined.

Or maybe the hardest part is that nothing was obviously terrible all the time.

There were good moments. Maybe he provided for your family, showed up for important events or told you he loved you. Maybe there are parts of him you genuinely love.

And that can make it surprisingly difficult, even as an adult, to understand why being around your father can still leave you feeling guilty, defensive, angry, small—or somehow twelve years old again.

What Does It Mean to Have a “Narcissistic Father”?

Let's get something out of the way first: narcissism gets thrown around these days like everyone received a psychology degree with their TikTok account.

Not every selfish person is a narcissist. Not every emotionally immature parent has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And a father can hurt his daughter deeply without meeting the criteria for any diagnosis.

But narcissists also exist. And they have children.

Some daughters really do grow up with fathers who show longstanding patterns of entitlement, lack of empathy, manipulation, control, an intense need for admiration, or difficulty tolerating criticism and taking meaningful accountability.

If you're trying to understand your own father, though, you don't need to solve the diagnostic question first. Unless you're a qualified professional assessing him, you aren't in a position to diagnose him anyway. What you can do is pay attention to the patterns you experienced and the impact they had on you.

A more useful place to begin may be: What happened in our relationship—and what did I learn I had to do to stay connected to him?

You don't need to diagnose your father to understand what happened to you. But you also don't need to talk yourself out of recognizing harmful patterns simply because the word narcissist has become overused.

What Growing Up With a Narcissistic Father Can Feel Like

One of the confusing things about growing up with a narcissistic father is that you may have become very good at reading him.

You knew when he was in a good mood. You knew when something you'd said hadn't landed well. You learned which subjects were safe, when to keep your opinion to yourself and how quickly an ordinary conversation could become an argument you somehow ended up apologizing for.

You may have learned that disagreeing was disrespectful. That his intentions mattered more than your hurt. That an apology meant everyone moving on rather than anyone actually taking responsibility.

Sometimes approval felt wonderful—but also conditional.

You may have felt especially close to your father when you were achieving, agreeing with him, making him proud or needing him in ways that allowed him to feel important. Becoming more independent, having different opinions or setting limits may have changed the relationship.

And sometimes the message wasn't I don't love you. It was much harder to identify: I love you—as long as you behave in ways that work for me.

How Having a Narcissistic Father Can Affect You as an Adult

You can leave your childhood home without leaving behind everything you learned there.

If connection with your father required you to monitor his reactions, explain yourself carefully or keep the peace, those strategies can follow you into other relationships.

You might:

• over-explain perfectly reasonable decisions
• feel anxious when someone is disappointed with you
• second-guess yourself after conflict
• automatically look for what you did wrong
• find anger—your own or someone else's—particularly difficult
• feel responsible for repairing tension
• struggle to trust your perception when someone disagrees with it
• stay in relationships longer because you can always understand the other person's side
• feel guilty when you prioritize yourself
• become very good at noticing what everyone else needs while feeling less certain about what you need

Sometimes these patterns are obvious. Sometimes they're hiding inside qualities you've always considered part of your personality: being easygoing, independent, responsible, accommodating, helpful or “not someone who likes conflict.”

The question isn't whether those qualities are really you. It's whether you still feel free to choose them.

Why Do I Still Want My Father's Approval?

This can be one of the most painful parts. You may understand your father's limitations intellectually. You may have spent years in therapy. You may have built a life entirely separate from him. And then one comment from your dad can still wreck your afternoon. That doesn't mean you haven't grown.

Our earliest relationships help shape what connection, approval, conflict and belonging come to mean to us. The part of you that still wants your father to finally understand you isn't foolish for wanting that.

Sometimes adult daughters find themselves returning to the same conversation in slightly different forms:

Maybe if I explain it better this time.

Maybe if he understands how much it hurt me.

Maybe if I say it calmly enough, he'll finally hear what I'm actually saying.

And sometimes the grief is realizing that the conversation you keep trying to have requires an emotional capacity your father may not have—or may not be willing to use.

You can know that and still wish it were different. You can love your father and be hurt by him. You can understand why he is the way he is and still decide that something isn't okay. Understanding someone does not require you to keep abandoning yourself for them.

Why Setting Boundaries With a Narcissistic Father Can Feel So Awful

People talk about boundaries as though the difficult part is figuring out what to say. Sometimes that's the easy part.

You may be perfectly capable of saying, I'm not discussing that, or I'm not comfortable with that, or If you speak to me that way, I'm going to end the conversation. And then spend the next three days feeling terrible for having said it.

If being a “good daughter” once meant keeping your father happy, his unhappiness with your boundary can feel like evidence that you've done something wrong and something is wrong with you—even when the boundary is exactly what you needed.

Your father may also push back. He may demand an explanation, debate whether your boundary is reasonable, minimize what happened, become angry or hurt, withdraw, or involve other family members.

Suddenly you're not only managing your own feelings. You're receiving messages about how upset Dad is, how family is family, how he's getting older, how he “did his best,” or why you should just let it go.

And there you are again: being asked to take care of everyone else's discomfort with the fact that you finally stopped ignoring your own.

When You Start Questioning Your Own Version of Events

Another common consequence of relationships involving chronic invalidation, blame-shifting or gaslighting is losing confidence in your own perception.

You may leave an interaction knowing something felt wrong and then immediately begin building the case against yourself.

Maybe I'm too sensitive.

Maybe I misunderstood.

Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up.

Maybe he didn't mean it that way.

Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing.

Being willing to question ourselves can be healthy. But there is a difference between self-reflection and automatically assuming that someone else's version of events is more trustworthy than your own.

For many adult daughters, healing involves learning to tolerate something that initially feels surprisingly uncomfortable: You can consider someone else's perspective without immediately abandoning yours.

Do I Have to Cut Contact With a Narcissistic Father?

That decision is entirely your own. And therapy shouldn't make that decision for you either.

Some adult daughters want a relationship with their fathers and need help figuring out what kind of relationship is actually possible. Some choose firmer boundaries or less contact. Some eventually decide that no contact is safest or healthiest for them. Others aren't sure yet.

There isn't one emotionally healthy response that applies to every family. You also don't have to make a permanent decision today.

Sometimes the work begins much earlier—with understanding what happens inside you when your father calls, why saying no creates so much guilt, why you're still trying to get him to understand, or why you're allowed to feel angry and still immediately want to protect him.

Clarity often comes more easily when you're no longer making decisions entirely from guilt, fear, obligation or the need to keep someone else okay.

Therapy for Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers

Therapy isn't about spending every session analyzing your father. The work becomes much more about you.

What did you learn about love? Conflict? Anger? Responsibility? Being believed? Having needs? Saying no? Trusting yourself?

And what happens inside you now when those old rules are challenged?

For some women, attachment-focused therapy helps make sense of why these relationship patterns have been so difficult to change even when they understand them intellectually. Parts-informed work can help explore the different responses that show up—the part that is furious, the part that feels guilty, the part that still wants Dad's approval, and the part that wants nothing to do with him.

When appropriate, EMDR can also be used to process distressing experiences and the beliefs or nervous-system responses that remain connected to them.

The goal isn't to decide whether your father deserves forgiveness, whether you should confront him, or whether you should stay in the relationship.

It's to help you understand what you learned to do in order to stay connected—and whether you still want to live by those rules now.

About the Author

Sheena McRae is a Registered Psychotherapist and founder of Women's Therapy Centre. She works with women navigating attachment wounds, relational trauma, emotionally immature parenting, narcissistic and unhealthy relationship dynamics, and the lasting patterns these experiences can create in adulthood.

Sheena has completed specialized training in Dr. Lindsay Gibson's Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents model and integrates attachment-focused, parts-informed, somatic and EMDR approaches into her work.

FAQs

How do I know if my father is actually a narcissist?

Only an appropriately qualified professional assessing your father could determine whether he meets criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. You don't need his diagnosis, however, to recognize patterns such as chronic invalidation, manipulation, entitlement, lack of accountability or controlling behaviour—or to explore how your relationship with him has affected you.

Why do I feel guilty setting boundaries with my father?

If maintaining connection once depended on keeping your father happy, accommodating him or avoiding conflict, a boundary can feel emotionally dangerous even when you know logically that it's reasonable. Sometimes the guilt isn't evidence that the boundary is wrong. It's an old response to doing something different.

Can a narcissistic father love his daughter?

Relationships aren't always easily divided into loved me or didn't love me. A father may experience love for his daughter while still behaving in ways that are controlling, invalidating, self-focused or harmful. Acknowledging the good parts of your relationship doesn't require you to deny the painful ones.

Can therapy help if I still have a relationship with my father?

Yes. Therapy doesn't require you to end the relationship. It can help you understand your patterns, strengthen self-trust, explore boundaries, process painful experiences and become clearer about what kind of relationship—if any—feels workable for you.

You Don't Have to Prove It Was Bad Enough

One of the lasting effects of growing up in a relationship where your experience was regularly questioned is that you can become very good at questioning it yourself.

Maybe someone else had it worse. Maybe your father had a difficult childhood. Maybe he provided for you. Maybe there were wonderful moments too.

Those things can all be true. And something can still have hurt you.

Healing doesn't require turning your father into a villain or pretending there was nothing good in the relationship. It means making enough room for your experience to matter too.

If you're beginning to recognize these patterns in your own life, Sheena offers virtual therapy for women navigating narcissistic and unhealthy relationship dynamics, emotionally immature parenting, attachment wounds and relational trauma through Women's Therapy Centre.

When to seek immediate support: If anxiety, trauma symptoms, or emotional distress are contributing to thoughts of self-harm, seek immediate support. In Canada, please call or text 9-8-8 for free, confidential crisis support. In emergencies, call 911. This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace medical or psychological care.

Learn more about working with Sheena or book a free virtual consultation with Women's Therapy Centre.