Love bombing is a controlling and manipulative tactic most often used by narcissists and abusive people. They seek to quickly obtain affection and attention before tearing their victims down. They may appear charming and exciting in the beginning, but this usually fades away and is replaced with emotional abuse.
Not all grand displays of love are love bombing. When it's a genuine connection, you'll likely feel more positive and receptive to the grand gestures, whereas love bombing is intense and makes you feel uncomfortable — which isn't a sign of a healthy relationship.
A love bomb refers to when a narcissistic person “bombs” you with an over-the-top amount of affection, flattery, gifts, and praise early in the relationship in order to win over your attention for the purpose of being able to control you.
Because it's so intense and all-consuming, love bombing is exhausting and the “bomber” can only sustain it for about six to 12 weeks, Durvasula says. After that initial period, the gifts, compliments, and trips will dry up quickly.
Contrary to the popular assumption, not all love-bombing is calculated or intended to be harmful. The behavior ranges from being something that is relatively innocent albeit naïve, to being emotionally devastating or even life-threatening, such as when carried out by leaders of cults.
Love bombing is a manipulation technique often used by narcissists to overwhelm their victim with romantic gestures designed to make you feel more than simply flattered.
While anyone can display love bombing tendencies, this type of emotional tactic is often associated with narcissism, particularly narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). According to Simonian, it's important to differentiate between narcissistic personality traits and NPD when it comes to love bombing.
Love Bombing as a Narcissistic Attachment Style. Getting hit by a love bomb feels glorious! The lavish attention and affection seems to answer our prayers.
Relationship experts consider love bombing to be unhealthy. For many, it's a red flag, as it can make it hard to maintain personal boundaries, and pushes one person to feel dependent or indebted to the other.
Steele and Huynh say there are at least two major reasons why people love bomb: Because of a conscious desire to manipulate, or due to unconscious or unresolved attachment patterns formed over past relationships. The desire to manipulate others can be a sign of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
Love bombing occurs when someone “bombs” you with extreme displays of attention and affection. Although it can be a positive aspect at the beginning of a romantic relationship, it can lead to gaslighting and abuse.
Many people who love bomb have narcissistic personality disorder, but that is not always the case. Attachment style and other factors can also play a role.
Love bombing might make a relationship feel amazing at the beginning, but the reality is that it's often used as a form of manipulation and can lead to a toxic relationship.
"In the honeymoon phase, love is shown by a desire to focus on what the other person likes or is interested in," Spinelli tells mbg. "Gestures tend to be thoughtful and not with an intent to impress." Love-bombers, on the other hand, will shower their partner with attention and expect recognition from them and others.
"People who engage in love-bombing are often doing so unconsciously, though they may be aware of the effect their behavior has on others," Behr says. "Someone who love bombs likely experienced a form of this narcissistic abuse in their own childhood, where a parent idealized and devalued them."
Set boundaries to assert your independence. One of the best ways to save yourself from being love-bombed is to speak up. Communicate about your romantic expectations and set clear boundaries. Be clear about what you really want.
Simply appreciating that someone is in your life without having any expectations or giving them excessive praise is a great way to avoid "clingy" behavior. To handle the early stages of a relationship, instead of love bombing, just stay curious and ask the person you're dating questions to show you're engaged.
Love bombing is where an abusive partner is bombarding 'love' onto their victim and is part of emotional abuse and coercive control. It could include excessive affection, excessive compliments, declarations of love, gifts and praise.
Love bombing is a tactic some people use to manipulate someone into jumping into a relationship sooner and more seriously than they'd like to. It's typically done by people who have a history of being in abusive relationships, are narcissists, or have an anxious attachment style.
One of the cruelest realities is that an unhealthy relationship often starts out feeling like the most wonderful romance of your entire life. In some cases, that's thanks to love bombing: a pattern of manipulative, often subtle behaviors your partner performs as acts of love.
Grey rocking is a technique used to divert a toxic person's behavior by acting as unresponsive as possible when you're interacting with them. For example, using the grey rock method involves deliberate actions like avoiding eye contact or not showing emotions during a conversation.
Love bombing is when you are showered with non-stop gifts, compliments, and attention. This begins a cycle of abuse where the love bomber withholds love and attention to manipulate you. Being showered with love can feel so good! It can be an instant confidence boost to feel so wanted and appreciated by someone.
Thankfully, there are ways you can recover from the relationship, and one way is to seek therapy. A relationship counselor can help you in a few ways about love bombing, including: Helping you identify red flags and signs of an unhealthy relationship. Helping you learn what healthy relationships look like.