DALLAS, April 13, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Daddy Dilemma: Healing the Father Wound and the Patterns It Left Behind Introduces the Father Wound Cycle™ Framework and Helps Women Finally Name, Understand, and Break the Patterns Daddy Issues Leave Behind.
Stephanie King, Army veteran, entrepreneur, and author, has released her debut book, Daddy Dilemma: Healing the Father Wound and the Patterns It Left Behind, now available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions.
The book addresses one of the most pervasive yet under-examined forces shaping women's lives today. What many call daddy issues, King defines more precisely as the Father Wound. Drawing from her own deeply personal journey and years of walking alongside women in healing spaces, King introduces the Father Wound Cycle™, an original eight-stage framework that maps the progression from early paternal wound to adaptation, identity formation, repetition of patterns, and ultimately, restoration.
"What has long been dismissed as daddy issues is not a weakness or a failure of character. It is an emotional and physical response to an unmet childhood need. And it is still running millions of women's lives today, in how they love, how hard they work, how little they rest, and how much they give." - Stephanie King, author of Daddy Dilemma
The book identifies three distinct father archetypes at the root of daddy issues. The Ghost is the absent father who left only silence and unanswered questions. The Guest is the inconsistent father whose warmth was real but whose presence never was. The Monster is the father whose presence itself was something a child had to survive. Each archetype, King argues, produces specific patterns in adult women that repeat across relationships, careers, and identity, often without the woman ever connecting her daddy issues back to their true origin.
King writes from lived experience. She grew up in a home defined by instability and the absence of a safe, present father figure. At fourteen, she discovered she had been conceived through a sperm donor, leaving half of her identity unknown. At thirty-four, DNA testing led her to her biological father, who declined to meet her. It was the convergence of these experiences, combined with decades of personal work and ministry, that gave rise to the Father Wound Cycle™ framework and ultimately, this book.
"I did not write this from a clinical distance. I wrote it from the inside. For the woman who has spent her life outrunning a shadow she could not name." - Stephanie King
King's professional background spans military service, executive leadership in the Department of Defense, nonprofit founding, real estate, and a Vice President role at a major relocation company. She currently leads a monthly women's ministry in her home in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Daddy Dilemma is positioned as a timely and necessary resource as conversations around daddy issues, generational trauma, attachment, and emotional healing continue to grow in cultural relevance. The book is written in an intimate second-person voice, speaking directly to the reader, and bridges the gap between clinical insight and deeply personal narrative.
Daddy Dilemma: Healing the Father Wound and the Patterns It Left Behind is available now on Amazon in paperback ($16.99), hardcover ($24.99), and Kindle ($9.99).
Purchase HERE on Amazon
For more information or interview requests, visit www.DaddyDilemma.com.
Media Contact
Stephanie King, Daddy Dilemma, 1 9729003753, [email protected], www.DaddyDilemma.com
SOURCE Daddy Dilemma
Share this article