The 3 Essential Stages of Love Bombing

Love bombing refers to the experience of someone showering another person with excessive flattery and affection at a rate that is not congruent with the current stage of their relationship, attempting to manipulate the person they’re dating into committing to them quickly.

A study conducted with a sample of 484 young adults found that love-bombing behavior was correlated with people who have low self-esteem, exhibit narcissistic tendencies, or have an insecure attachment style.

Since love bombing happens quickly and is designed to make you fall for the other person rapidly, you may already be emotionally invested when you realize something is amiss. Love bombers who do not have genuine intentions and exhibit narcissistic tendencies typically have a pattern of behavior and engage in tactics that are apparent in the following three stages:

1. Idealization Stage

During the first stage of love bombing, the person pursuing you pulls out all the stops to gain your trust and affection. This pace of this stage moves quickly and typically includes:

• Grand romantic gestures. During the idealization stage, love bombers often exhibit extravagant displays of affection, such as whisking you off to luxurious vacations or showering you with lavish gifts. If these grand gestures happen very early on and don’t match the current stage of your relationship, they likely indicate an attempt to speed up the process of creating a bond with you.
• Future faking. Future faking involves discussing travel plans, meeting family members, moving in together, or getting married within the first few weeks of dating. It can create a false sense of security since you haven’t yet seen if the person’s words align with their actions.
• Excessive expressions of flattery or affection. When someone is love-bombing the person they’re dating, their goal is to speed up the pace of the relationship so that their target can become emotionally invested. During this stage, a love bomber might say things such as: “You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met," “You’re perfect—no one else compares to you," or “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” If you hear any statements similar to these examples during the first few weeks of meeting someone, proceed with caution. These statements may indicate that they are trying to prematurely speed up your connection.
• The expectation of being in frequent contact or seeing you a lot. Expectations of constant contact are common during the idealization stage. A love bomber wants to lock you down and become exclusive quickly so they may overwhelm you with frequent texts, phone calls, or time spent together. That often leaves little room for much else in your life. This tactic has two primary benefits for the love bomber: First, it secures a deep bond with you quickly, and second, it isolates you so that if others express concern about your relationship, it will be more difficult for you to end it because you are already deeply invested in it.

2. Devaluation Stage

During the first stage of love bombing, the relationship moves rapidly, and attachment tends to occur quickly. Once the love bomber knows that you are invested in the relationship, the mask starts to slip, and the devaluation phase begins as they start to display “hot and cold” behavior. This is also the stage of the relationship when you may start to notice that your partner’s actions aren’t aligned with what they’re telling you.

• Criticism/put-downs. Love bombers will initially idealize you while trying to create the illusion of closeness quickly. However, when they know you are fully invested in the relationship, that is when their true colors will start to show. Once the switch is flipped, they begin to criticize as well as nitpick their significant other, aiming to erode their self-esteem over time so that they are fully in control. Suddenly, you may feel as if nothing you do is good enough, which sets you up to work hard to win back their approval and validation.
• Hot/cold behavior. This is when the love bomber begins withdrawing their affection and breadcrumbs to their partner. You may feel like one minute you’re experiencing an amazing relationship high, and the next, you’re miserable. In this stage, the love bomber often vacillates between being affectionate and cold. Seemingly trivial things appear to trigger your partner, resulting in them withdrawing their love and affection as a way to punish you with no warning. You are being conditioned in this stage to fight for their affection and work hard to earn their approval so that the relationship can feel the way it was in the beginning during the idealization stage.
• Manipulation. During this stage, anything that goes wrong in the relationship is typically solely blamed on you. As a result, you may start second-guessing yourself a lot during this stage, as it typically includes various types of psychological manipulation (e.g., gaslighting, giving the silent treatment, and guilt-tripping) to break down your self-esteem, keep you compliant, and maintain control.

3. Discard Stage

The discard stage occurs once the love bomber either abruptly terminates the relationship or begins to maintain minimal contact with their partner. This stage includes:

• Your partner appears aloof or indifferent. They seem to be quite cold and stoic. They also appear not to care about your emotions and their actions' effect on you.
• Your partner takes no accountability. They rarely take accountability (unless used as a manipulation tactic), even when faced with evidence of their wrongdoings, and will use you as a scapegoat for the demise of the relationship.
• They move on to the next person quickly. When a love bomber reaches the discard stage, they feel the relationship has run its course and no longer serves their purpose. They quickly move on to the next person, typically restarting the same cycle over again with them. The discard typically feels cold and detached and is done without remorse or care for the other person.

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute professional or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your mental health professional or another qualified health provider with questions regarding your condition or well-being.