Are You Being Love-Bombed? Experts Explain the Signs
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Maybe your new partner keeps buying you expensive gifts and plans over-the-top date nights. Or the person you’ve only been out with a few times is showering you with a suspect amount of love and affection so early on in your time together. It may have you wondering if love bombing is at play.
Sure, it could just be innocent romantic gestures, but if the relationship red flags are getting harder to ignore, you may be dealing with a love bomber.
“It feels good to be admired, loved, and wanted, so it can be hard to see the love bombing,” explains Chelsie Reed, Ph.D., L.P.C., a mental health counselor and author of Sexpert: Desire, Passion, Sensations, Intimacy, and Orgasm to Indulge in Your Best Sex Life. “Though it is out of balance to the experience and timing of the relationship,” which is generally the key aspect to consider when determining if someone’s efforts are genuine.
Meet the experts: Chelsie Reed, Ph.D., L.P.C., a mental health counselor and author of Sexpert: Desire, Passion, Sensations, Intimacy, and Orgasm to Indulge in Your Best Sex Life and Samantha Burns, L.M.H.C., couples therapist and author of Breaking Up and Bouncing Back
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. Ahead, experts explain what love bombing is, signs to look out for, examples of love bombing, and why it’s concerning.
What is love bombing?
“Love bombing is when the partner you’re newly dating comes on very strong with praise, affection, and grand gestures, that make you feel like the biggest catch in the world, creating an intense connection [quickly],” explains Samantha Burns, L.M.H.C., couples therapist and author of Breaking Up and Bouncing Back. The next step often involves “manipulative behaviors and emotional abuse, such as gaslighting,” meant to break you down after building you up— “you can go from intense highs to low lows by being belittled, and controlled,” Burns continues.
If someone seems to say “I love you” a little too soon, and frequently gives strong (seemingly unwarranted) compliments, or makes intense claims about the connection—love bombing may be at play.
But how soon is too soon for such a passionate display of romance and affection? It all comes down to time and experience and varies from relationship to relationship, according to Reed, but in general, it’s “usually very early, such as in the first three months” of a relationship—which is almost always too soon to be “spouting everlasting devotion, connection, and admiration.”
Signs of love bombing
So, how do you know if you’re being “love bombed,” so to speak? Aside from saying “I love you” only days or weeks into your connection, there are a number of red flags that indicate the manipulative technique is at play. Below are a few tell-tale signs, according to Burns.
Romantic gestures that occur before you both get the chance to get to know each other, like receiving a “good morning, beautiful” text before meeting in person or an extravagant, over-the-top first date.
Asking you to delete a dating profile after meeting only once, or forcing the idea of exclusivity very early on.
Attempting to make you feel guilty for not being ready to say “I love you” back, even after only a few dates.
Texting (or calling) you all day, every day, which is often an attempt to “build a false sense of connection.”
Using your insecurities against you, such as during an argument—“they’ll pour salt in this wound, make you feel deserving of poor treatment, or validate your fears,” Burns says.
Controlling your time and expecting you to always be there for them, often using manipulation to make you feel guilty. Some examples: “I just love spending time with you and really don’t want to be apart today. Don’t you want to spend time with me? Can’t you blow off your meeting and lay in bed with me?” Burns notes.
Oftentimes in relationships that involve love bombing, “you’ll experience intense highs and very low lows,” explains Burns. Things will seem amazing and perfect in the beginning, but eventually, the facade will crash as the relationship cannot withstand the pressure placed upon it.
The three phases of love bombing
According to the Cleveland Clinic, there are three distinct phases of love bombing:
The idealization phase
In the early stages of love bombing, your partner is doing all the right things to make you fall head over heels while simultaneously placing expectations on you. They will make assumptive declarations of your character and how positively they see you. “These declarations say more about what the love bomber wants and expects of the relationship than of what they truly think of you,” Reed explains.
The devaluation phase
Next, a person being love-bombed goes through a shift from feeling adored to criticized and insecure. In this phase, controlling boundaries are often created, and gaslighting frequently occurs, according to Burns. These are signs of emotional abuse that may be difficult to recognize because of the intensity of the phase prior.
The discard phase
In this phase, the stress of love bombing on the relationship will be unavoidable. “It can and will lead to the fall of the relationship,” Reed explains. The love bomber will almost always evade accountability while the person being love-bombed will be left feeling confused. At this point, at least one partner will likely realize they cannot continue the relationship.
Why is love bombing concerning?
Bottom line: Love bombing has the potential to turn into an emotionally abusive situation, fast. Being love bombed can make a person “feel suffocated, pressured, or overwhelmed by the time spent together,” and it can damage one’s self-esteem leading to feelings of neediness, insecurity, anxiety, or depression—“which usually comes in the form of gaslighting,” Burns explains.
Love bombing can lead to a number of repercussions for the relationship and those involved too. “It creates controlling boundaries,” Reed notes, and puts pressure on both parties: “The bombee [person being love bombed] can feel overwhelmed by feeling pressured to be so good and so perfect, while the bomber is stressed about creating a romance that keeps this perceived perfect person around,” leading to a sort of vicious cycle.
What to do if you’re being love bombed
If you feel like you might be love-bombed, be sure to “check in with yourself and reflect on whether the relationship feels healthy and if it’s going at a pace that’s comfortable for you,” explains Burns. “Sometimes when you’re desperate for love and so badly want to feel something real with someone, you get caught up in the excitement and potential for connection, and invest in the idea of someone rather than the reality of them.”
However, “communication is key in all relationships,” Burns continues. “If you’re unsure if it’s love bombing or just an intense attraction, try slowing things down. You can let your partner know that you’re excited about them and to see where it’s going, but that you need a little time and space to process all of these feelings.” If you need to text a bit less throughout the day or decrease the number of days you hang out each week, an understanding partner should be respectful of that.
How to cope with being love-bombed
If you’d like to make things work with your partner, be sure to have a serious conversation about your feelings and set clear boundaries and expectations moving forward.
At the end of the day, it’s important that you feel good about yourself and your relationship. If you don’t, you may want to think about taking a break in the relationship so you can both think about exactly what you need from each other and try to figure out a way to make things work.
When in doubt, try relationship therapy or speak with a licensed mental health expert.
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