An unloved daughter will have a harder life than most, no matter how rich or privileged she is in other ways.

When a child does not receive proper affection from her family, she will not develop the social skills necessary to form healthy relationships.

Even if unloved daughters find love later in life, they will always be affected negatively by their loveless parents.

If you are an unloved daughter, here are seven things you will be able to relate to.

1. You see the world as unsafe

When you go through childhood as a loved member of the family, you see the world as a safe place. Your parents are supposed to empower you, giving you the love you need to succeed in life. On the other hand, if you go through life without receiving this type of unconditional love, you will feel the opposite.

People are seen as untrustworthy because you’ve never been given reason to trust them. When you are a child your family is what you know, they are your whole world. If you grew up feeling like the world around you was untrustworthy, this feeling will only worsen with age.

2. It’s hard to develop intimate relationships

Your ability to form relationships is something you learn as a child from your environment, largely your immediate family. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your parents directly teach you as often you learn indirectly. You watch your family interact with others as well as yourself.

If you lack these experiences, developing close relationships will be very hard for you, even later in life. This study, by the National Academies Press, shows how even infants actively seek out environmental stimulation 

3. You look for love in the wrong places

Your parents never loved you sufficiently as a child, so you will long for affection for the rest of your life. With such a strong desire to fill this gap that you’ll often accept “love” from the wrong people. Unloved children are more likely to stay in abusive relationships as they view the good days as worth it.

When they haven’t received quality love from their parents, they have no healthy comparison to base their love life off of.

4. You constantly question your partner’s love for you

Even when you do find a good partner who loves you in a healthy way, you can’t seem to let your guard down. Negative relationships are the norm for you and it’s hard for you to believe that this one won’t end up a disappointment like everything else.

The lack of value placed on you, by your parents, has to lead you to believe you are not worth much. You always feel surprised that your partner actually wants to be with you.

5. Feeling excluded even when you shouldn’t

Psychology Ph.D. Beverly Amsel writes here, “When parental involvement is limited, children typically receive scant mirroring or encouragement.” Never receiving encouragement from your parents results in low self-esteem. This falsely leads you to believe you are not good enough.

It’s hard for you to interact in social situations as you feel excluded from the group. In reality, though, the group which you feel excluded from may have no negative thoughts of you at all. You don’t feel included in a social group because you haven’t made the effort to simply join the group.

Your low self-esteem causes you to feel shy. You don’t want to take a risk on this group rejecting you.

6. Feeling guilty when you shouldn’t

People always make you feel ungrateful for complaining about your below average parents. When you voice your negative reflections of your childhood, others will tell you how much worse they had it. These other people will say that at least you had a roof over your head and food to eat every day.

They will go on to say that, much of the world is worse off than you in comparison. Though you have some of your basic needs met, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you have far from all of them met without a loving upbringing.

You have the right to feel your childhood was unfair because being loved is just as important as being fed and clothed.
