Love bombing: what it is, phases and characteristics of this form of manipulation

Love is something that we all want in our lives. We are not only talking about the love of a boyfriend or girlfriend, but also that of a relative or a friend, since it is a feeling that we can express to anyone, going beyond the merely romantic and sexual.

However, sometimes love can be the perfect camouflage for toxic behaviors that trap us in a dynamic that makes us sacrifice our other relationships, prioritizing just one.

One of these unhealthy strategies is love bombing, a form of bonding typical of relationships of psychological abuse, present both in toxic social relationships and in sects.

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What is love bombing?

Love is a very strong emotion, sometimes so much that it is even blinding and prevents us from identifying certain behaviors that, although initially beautiful, they become manipulation, control and submission, behaviors that of course are toxic, no matter how well disguised as devotion, friendship or romanticism they may be. they can be And this is what love bombing is all about.

But let's get to the point: what is love bombing? Although the name of this practice is not well known, of course it is very present, both in family relationships, friends and couples. Sadly, toxic behaviors in social relationships are not something strange and all of us can be victims (or perpetrators) of these practices.

The term "love bombing" was first coined in the 1970s by members of the Unification Church to refer to the fact that its members were always smiling.. Ironically, it was popularized years later by various intellectuals, including the anthropologist Geri-Ann Galanti and the psychologist Margaret Singer to describe the manipulation strategies used by coercive sects to attract new adherents by going after the party weakest of the individual, her low self-esteem, and feeding her flattery and nice words in such a way that he feels bad for leaving the worship.

With the passage of time, the expression was also transferred to the field of more mundane interpersonal relationships., among them those of couples and friends since coercive behaviors can also occur in them.

In this case, love bombing is a manipulation strategy which consists of showing attention and affection in a very insistent way, using flattery, approval, details and even gifts nothing more meet. The intention behind it is not different from that of the sects: to conquer the person by gaining their trust.

How does it develop?

To understand love bombing it is necessary to understand something that many of us do not take into account about social relationships. Our behavior is, to a large extent, controlled by the consequences it has in the environment and, of course, it also applies to our social environment.

If after behaving in a way we see that this gives us social and emotional benefits, such as words of encouragement or hugs, it is most likely that we will continue doing this behavior. In other words, when the consequences of our behavior are appetizing or pleasant, they are more likely to work as reinforcers, causing the behavior that caused them to be repeated with greater probability.

And what does this have to do with love? Well, the truth is, both for better and for worse. Let's imagine that we have just met someone and this person begins to bombard us with love, whether as a couple or as a friend. The person begins to throw all kinds of nice words, compliments and even gives us gifts, gifts despite the fact that we have not done anything significant to deserve it.. Whatever we do and whatever we say, we receive some kind of reward. We are victims of an apparently sweet and pleasant bombardment.

As it is pleasant to be with this person, we begin to dedicate more time to him. We all want to be treated well and if someone behaves like that towards us, we will start to give them priority. By dedicating more time to that person, we take away the time we had for others and, over time, we will begin to delve deeper into in a dynamic in which looking for the emotional reward and recognition that it gives us, we will be more separated from our other beings dear ones

It may be gradual, or it may happen all at once, but the truth is that the love bombing is going to stop at some point. The person who at the beginning of the relationship "rewarded" us with pleasant compliments, each word and each gesture that he made, is now limited to responding with a brief "okay" or, not even that, just giving us a cold and distant silence.

The logical thing would be to think that, at this point, there will be an extinction of our behavior. If before we behaved because that person rewarded us with nice words from him, now that he no longer does so, we are going to reduce those behaviors that always had a reward. The reinforcer, which was neither more nor less than the nice words, is no longer there and, with it, the rewarded behavior would have to be reduced. But that's not how love works.

Like a drug addict, this will produce "cravings" in us, the desire for him to give us his love again. Rather than stop talking to that person or move away for a bit, what we are likely to do is try as hard as we can to get them to reward us. We will begin to interact more and more, dedicating even more time and spending more energy to make him pay attention to us.. We talk to him more, we pay more attention to him and we try to do everything we can to make him comfortable. We want him to tell us again "you are special", "I love you" or "you are the best" like he used to do before.

If right at this moment the other person rewards us again with a compliment or a nice word, what they will have achieved is reinforcing a very high behavior rate. It will generate a certain insecurity for us and, as long as this does not happen again, what the person is that we are interacting with her all the time at the cost, of course, of interacting with the the rest. He has achieved it, he has us totally controlled. We are yours.

phases of love bombing

The example we just saw is a prototypical case of love bombing. In it we can see the first two phases of this phenomenon (idealization and disapproval). In truth we can say that love bombing can be divided into three phases.

1. Idealization of the relationship

In this first stage everything seems to be idyllic, making the victim think that he has met someone perfect, someone who knows how to value everything he does, no matter how unimportant it may be. The relationship flows and is easy. It's all too good to be true, but she likes to believe it, and this naivety is a risk for her to fall into the "love bomber" trap.

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2. disapproval and punishment

Once the dynamic is established the manipulator begins to resort to another technique in case his victim gets out of the behavior that the manipulator wants. If the victim hangs out with her friends, sees other people, or displays some autonomous behavior, a small breeze of freedom, the love bomber begins to show disgust. This is where love turns into control and the phase of disapproval and punishment begins.

The manipulator is in charge of showing his victim what behaviors he does not like and leads him to feel guilty. He can say victimizing phrases such as "with everything I'm doing for you and you go and you do this” and other toxic pearls or, simply, silence as we have mentioned in the example extensive.

The manipulated, already addicted to the "love" of his emotional jailer, feels this show of disdain and disapproval as something very painful., you feel a lot of guilt because you really believe that you have done something wrong, even though rationally it is not so. This is why the manipulated rectifies and, once he does so, the manipulator rewards him by returning the affection.

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3. depletion and discard

For better or for worse, it is common that, after some time has passed, a third stage appears: that of exhaustion. In this The manipulated person can manage to free himself from this toxic dynamic or, on the contrary, fall back into a loop. formed by the other two phases. It all depends on whether or not they allow themselves to be tricked again by the manipulator, who will use both the techniques of the first phase, such as extreme flattery, and the second, using emotional blackmail.

How to detect and break this dynamic in personal relationships

Breaking a love bombing dynamic is not easy because the victim can feel very bad saying or doing things that may upset the "lovebomber". Everyone likes to be told "you're amazing, you're the best" or "you're great and perfect", we all like someone to seem to appreciate and love everything we do, but just in case becoming addicted to that person we give him or her great power over our lives, even running the risk that our self-esteem depends exclusively on what he or she gives us say.

As we have commented, this strategy is quite common, but This does not mean that most of the people who do this do so by hatching a refined and evil plan to control the will of others.. There are people who, without wanting to and without being aware of it, are very toxic and they do it because it is the way they have learned to relate to and have seen that they are good at it. For them, love means extreme idolatry, and if someone doesn't listen to them, they can interpret it as no longer loving them. they want to, they get angry and hyperpolarized, in the sense that everything is black or white: either you idolize me or you don't. talk.

On the other hand, we have the fact that Although we do not live in a perfect society, we should not mistrust everyone. There are people who, luckily, flatter their loved ones without ulterior motives or manipulation. If we have a friend, a boyfriend or a relative who is very attentive, affectionate and kind, who flatters us without asking for anything in return, we should be grateful because we have a treasure of a person in him.

Taking this into account, we may find it somewhat difficult to differentiate from people with genuine good feelings from those toxic beings that unfortunately we should keep away from our circle. It is not easy, especially at the beginning of the relationship since we would be in the phase of idealization of the relationship. In fact, if it were easy to identify a person who is love bombing us, toxicity in human relationships would not be so frequent. It's easy to confuse the love bombing of a manipulative person with the details and flattery of a genuinely nice person..

However, there are some aspects of the love bomber that can serve as a warning signal and keep us cautious. Among them is the exaggerated presence of compliments, gifts, details and undeserved over-attention, which can imply a level of commitment that is too high compared to the time we have known that person person.

When dealing with frequent, exaggerated and sudden compliments and gifts, it is not difficult for the victim to feel that she owes him something, that you cannot say no to someone who is behaving in such a generous way. For this we must not lose the north. If we've been with that person for a very short time, it doesn't make sense for her to be so generous. Although being guided by the principle "think wrong and you will be right" is a bit sad, in these cases it is better to avoid risking falling into such a toxic dynamic.

As a final recommendation, it is best to have a group of varied friends, friends who, in case they see that we are moving away because our boyfriend, another friend or even a relative is asking us to give us a touch of attention. If they are a critical group they will make us value our freedom and individuality. Good friends are the ones who are through thick and thin, but also those who make us see our mistakes and who value us for what we do really well. Better honesty and growth than lies and submission.

Bibliographic references:

• Archer, D. (February 19, 2021) The danger of manipulative love bombing in a relationship. In Psychology Today. Recovered from https://www.psychologytoday.com/es/blog/el-peligro-del-manipulador-bombardeo-de-amor-en-una-relacion