card

Pay by Credit Card

Benefit From Our Cheapest Readings

text

Or Text your Questions

0419 700 797

Receive No Nonsense Answers

Live Readers Launch Messenger

Psychics Mediums Tarot Horoscopes Blog Videos SMS Contact Us

CALL OUR PSYCHIC TEAM TODAY

(03) 9961 0200

Call for Immediate Answers to Your Questions

CLICK HERE TO BUY MINUTES ONLINE All Live Readers

Home >>Blog >>Love >>What Is Love Bombing?

Published 14/10/2024 by Sarah Lutterloch

Love Bombing

Love bombing is a power play and emotional game developed by those with certain personality conditions or mental health problems, such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Love bombing is flooding a person with excessive care, affection, and gift-giving early in a relationship to gain control of the relationship and the partner's emotions.

Giving obsessive love and affection then taking it away, only to swap with criticism and negativity until they decide it's time to love bomb again, to bring back the feelings of intimacy and keep the other addicted are classic signs of emotional manipulation.

Although love bombing can seem appealing and feel fantastic in the honeymoon phase of a relationship, it frequently disguises insecurities and coercive intentions. Knowing and recognising the warning signs can save you from the psychological assault that is love bombing.

What Is Love Bombing?

Love bombing is used as an attempt to influence, dominate or control someone in a romantic relationship.

Being love-bombed is when your partner showers you with too much affection and too many compliments and shows obsessive attention in everything you do is a sign of narcissistic love bombing.

For someone with an insecure attachment style (particularly those with NPD), love bombing is used to forge rapid emotional connections. It tries to make the recipient think they've found the perfect partner so much that it's difficult for them to see through the manipulation tactics.

Love bombing can signal abusive habits, with affection fading to control, obsessive attention turning to intrusiveness and emotional violence when trust is established.

Read our guide on Twin Flame Connections.

4 Signs of Love Bombing

Spotting the signs of love bombing in relationships requires a combination of emotional awareness and the ability to observe certain red flags. While it's natural to feel flattered by intense affection, flattery, and fantastic gifts early on, distinguishing between genuine love and manipulation is critical.

There are several different kinds of love bombing, but these are the most common warning signs to look for in a new relationship. Here are four typical love bombing manipulation behaviours:

1. Soulmate Status

The most obvious instance of love bombing occurs when the other person instantly states that you are the "soulmate" or have "never felt this way about anybody." This sudden, shocking announcement of emotional closeness may seem romantic at the time, but it is manipulative. This is what narcissists, particularly undercover ones, exploit to create a fairytale vision and get you to brush away any warning signs.

2. Over Exaggerated Compliments

A true hallmark of love bombing is exaggerated, high-pitched, false compliments leading to emotional confusion.

Although initially flattering, these overwhelming compliments can reveal manipulative intent if they grow excessive or unfounded. The person may seek to boost your pride and make you dependent on their praise (when and if they choose to give it.)

When a Narcissistic Personality Disorder patient receives too many compliments, the relationship is maintained as one of unappreciated validation, not emotional authenticity.

3. Manipulative Gifts

Extravagant gifts can be a natural element in relationships. Who doesn't like the thrill and excitement of getting a gift? But excessive or repetitive gift-giving can also signal narcissistic love bombing.

Perhaps it seems like the person is just being nice and loves you, but maybe the intention is to feel as if you must reciprocate the affection or now owe them commitment. Narcissists leverage these displays of affection to take over and create a sense of reliance on them.

4. Excessive Communication

A love bomber will communicate excessively, texting, calling, or tweeting all day. They want to know you feel their flattery and praise and enjoy it. This can be exciting because it sounds like they care a lot about you and are totally devoted. But too much attention is also a part of the strategy for keeping you emotionally engaged and reliant on them; this emotional manipulation will eventually turn into possessive or controlling behaviour.

People with unconfident attachment styles, such as Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, might use this form of frenetic communication to protect them from abandonment issues and anxiety.

Can Your Relationship Survive Love Bombing?

Relationships that start with love bombing have unsteady foundations, but with awareness and self-knowledge, they can be reclaimed, and the narcissistic abuse cycle can be stopped.

Confronting the narcissist with their manipulation tactics may not get you very far as they are not likely to admit to them and work to overcome them. So, you will need to work on recognising when he is love bombing, making boundaries, taking back control, and even seeking therapy for manipulation can help.

If the love bomber has narcissistic personality traits, they won't accept blame or change their ways.

Where covert narcissism or extreme manipulative strategies are present, extricating yourself from the toxic relationship might be the healthiest solution.

The Impact of Love Bombing on Your Mental Health

When compliments are showered on you every day, they stop having a real effect and when you stop appreciating this attention, it's then that the controlling behaviour is taken to a different level.

Arguments will be started over nothing, and you will feel like you’re walking on eggshells to avoid a barrage of name-calling and abuse. This cycle of abuse causes confusion, low self-esteem and often depression due to the way you are being treated.

You may also feel high levels of stress and anxiety due to threats that are often made if you even consider leaving of your own accord. You may feel unable to leave the home due to being fearful of others finding out what your perfect relationship is really like.

The effects of love bombing can take over your emotions, making it very difficult to face what is happening as you start to self-doubt your own feelings, which can cause long-term mental health consequences.

Rely on your gut instinct and talk to someone, either a close family member or a loyal friend, even though you may feel embarrassed. This is the first step in recognising and stopping love bombing.

Love Readings

Is your partner one of the covert narcissists? Is your partner using love bombing tactics to manipulate you or control the relationship? Do you feel totally emotionally dependent on your partner to feel good about yourself?

Love bombers often lavish their partners with excessive amounts of attention and exaggerated flattery or constant gifts, making it difficult to see their true intentions.

Love readings with Trusted Psychics Australia can help you detect love-bombing tendencies in your partner, help you break the bombing cycle, create clear-cut boundaries, and find out if your relationship can stand the test of time, even with your partner's manipulation tactics.

Sometimes, we love a person so much we are willing to accept them and overcome their annoying traits or bad behaviours. A love reading with a live psychic reader who is an experienced expert in love and relationships can help you see the signs of love bombing to save your relationship or end it.

FAQs on Love Bombing

How Do I Know If I Am Love Bombing My Partner?

If you're not planning to love bomb, it's hard to tell if you're doing it intentionally as it could be a part of your unconscious behaviour patterns, you could unknowingly be a narcissistic partner, or you may just have affectionate behaviour patterns.

If you find yourself inundating a new partner with excessive attention, communication overload, lavish gifts, or constant compliments too early on in a relationship to get them emotionally invested, it may be love bombing.

The real tell-tale sign of love bombing is if you are using this type of behaviour to control them or simply love them. If you find yourself constantly trying to make the relationship your perfect version, exclaiming feelings over the top, or holding out for a match, these are more behaviours for your benefit rather than for a healthy relationship.

What Is a Narcissistic Love Bomb?

A narcissistic love bomb is a form of manipulation and coercive control typically found in relationships with domestic abuse.

It is a common manipulative tactic used by a sufferer of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) to push their partner into emotional dependency.

Narcissists begin bombing relationships by offering extravagant amounts of love, verbal seduction, and swooning lavishness to instil ecstasy and a sense of attachment. But this almost perfect behaviour conceals their deep-seated hunger for control and respect.

After the narcissist thinks they've won your love and own your heart, they'll start their controlling behaviour by treating you like you mean nothing, criticising or emotionally abusing you, making you question everything they once paid you.

The love bomb, after all, aims to squish your power and keep you under their control.

What Comes After Love Bombing?

Once the love bombing stage is over, the relationship tends to contain a cycle of violence or verbal abuse; this is called the devaluation stage.

As soon as the narcissist has secured their partner's affection, interest and love evaporate. The process tends to be devalued as the narcissist will begin criticising or dismissing their lover, leading to confusion and self-loathing.

The love bombing stage of intimacy and feelings of ecstasy makes the abrupt disengagement painful because the other partner will always seek to rediscover the initial love. That process can be repeated with frequent intervention; when the relationship is at a breaking point, the narcissist will bring back his charm and floods of excessive flattery and affection to keep the partner addicted.

Your love life becomes a rollercoaster-induced emotional attachment, making it difficult to get out of the relationship.

How to Love Bomb a Guy?

Though the love bombing meaning is predominantly about manipulation and emotional control of a relationship, it's worth remembering that you can use similar techniques to improve a good relationship.

For example, you could show a person you love, care about and admire that you appreciate them, but the key is not to use that love and trust as a weapon for control.

You must share powerful emotions early on in a relationship and do it with integrity and synchronicity.

Give genuine compliments, spend time, and show your partner that you care while never overselling him or being false. What matters is your intention: act out of care rather than to dominate or claim emotional control.