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

Love bombing is a dynamic that occurs in some dysfunctional relationships. Let's see what it looks like.

Love is something we all want in our lives. We are not only talking about the love of a boyfriend or girlfriend, but also that of a family member or a friend, since it is a feeling that we can manifest 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 only one.

One of these unhealthy strategies is love bombing, a form of bonding that is typical of psychologically abusive relationships, present in both toxic social relationshipsIt is present in toxic social relationships as well as in cults.

What is love bombing?

Love is a very strong emotion, sometimes so strong that it becomes blinding and prevents us from identifying certain behaviors that, although initially beautiful, turn into manipulation, control and subjugation, behaviors that are certainly toxic, however disguised as devotion, friendship or romanticism they may be. And this is what love bombing is all about.

But let's cut to the chase: what is love bombing? Although the name of this practice is not very well known, it is certainly present in family, friends and couple relationships. Sadly, toxic behaviors in social relationships are not uncommon and we can all 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 several intellectuals, including anthropologist Geri-Ann Galanti and psychologist Margaret Singer to describe the manipulative strategies used by coercive cults to recruit new followers by going after the weakest part of the individual, their low self-esteem, and feeding it with flattery and nice words so that they feel bad about leaving the cult.

With the passage of time the expression was also transferred to the field of more mundane interpersonal relationships, including those of couples and friends.The expression has also been transferred over time to the field of more mundane interpersonal relationships, including those with partners and friends, where coercive behavior can also occur.

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 as soon as you meet. The intention behind it is not different from that of the sects: to conquer the person by gaining his or her trust..

How does it work?

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 on the environment and, of course, it also applies to our social environment.

If after behaving in a certain way we see that this gives us social and emotional benefits, such as words of encouragement or hugs, we will most likely continue doing this behavior. In other words, when the consequences of our behavior are appetitive or pleasant, they are more likely to function as reinforcers, making the behavior that caused them more likely to be repeated in the future.The behavior that has caused them is more likely to be repeated.

And what does this have to do with love? Well, it has a lot to do with love, both for better and for worse. Let's imagine that we have just met someone and this person starts bombarding us with love, either as a couple or as a friend. The person starts throwing all kinds of nice words, compliments and even gives us gifts, gifts even though 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 a seemingly sweet and pleasant bombardment.

Because this person is pleasant to be with, we begin to spend more time with him or her. We all want to be treated well and if someone behaves this way with us, we will start to give them priority. By devoting more time to that person we subtract the time we had for others and, as time goes by, we will start to get into a dynamic in which looking for the emotional reward and recognition it gives us, we will be more detached from our other loved ones.

It may be gradual or it may happen all at once, but the truth is that the love bombardment will stop at some point. The person who at the beginning of the relationship "rewarded" us with nice compliments for every word and every gesture he or she made now merely responds with a terse "okay" or, not even that, simply giving us a cold and distant silence.

It would be logical to think that, at this point, there will be an extinction of our behavior. If before we behaved because that person rewarded us with his nice words, now that he no longer does so, we are going to reduce those behaviors that always had a reward. The reinforcer, which was nothing more or less than the nice words, is no longer there and, with it, the rewarded behavior should be reduced. But that is not how love works.

Just like a drug addict, this will produce cravings, the desire to receive love again. Instead of stopping talking to that person or distancing ourselves a little, we will probably try everything we can to get him to reward us. We will start interacting more and more, spending even more time and energy trying to make him/her pay attention to us.. We talk to him more, pay more attention to him and try to do everything we can to make him feel at ease. We want him to say "you are special", "I love you" or "you are the best" as he used to do before.

If just at this moment the other person rewards us again with a compliment or a nice word, what he/she will have achieved is to reinforce a very high rate of behavior. It will generate some insecurity and, as long as this does not happen again, what the person will achieve is that we are interacting with him/her all the time at the expense, of course, of interacting with others. He has succeeded, he has us totally controlled. We are hers.

Phases of love bombing

The example we have just seen is a prototypical case of love bombing. In it we can see the first two phases of this phenomenon (idealization and disapproval). In fact, 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/she has met someone perfect, someone who knows how to value everything he/she does, no matter how unimportant it may be. The relationship flows and is easy. Everything is too good to be true, but he likes to believe it, and this naivety is a risk for him to fall into the "love bomber" trap.

2. Disapproval and punishment

Once the dynamic has been established the manipulator begins to resort to another technique in the event that his victim punctually deviates from the behavior the manipulator desires.. If the victim hangs out with friends, sees other people or shows some autonomous behavior, a small glimmer of freedom, the love bomber begins to show his displeasure. This is where love turns into control and the phase of disapproval and punishment begins.

The manipulator takes it upon himself to show his victim what behaviors he does not like and induces guilt. He can say victimizing phrases such as "with all I am doing for you and you go and do this to me" and other toxic pearls or, simply, silence as we have mentioned in the extended example.

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

3. Exhaustion and discarding

For better or worse, it is common that, after some time has passed, a third stage appears: exhaustion. In this stage the manipulated person can manage to free him/herself from this toxic dynamic or, on the contrary, fall back into a loop formed by the other two phases. formed by the other two phases. It all depends on whether you do not let yourself be cajoled 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 become very upset by saying or doing things that may upset the lovebomber. Everyone likes to be told "you are amazing, you are the best" or "you are great and perfect", we all like that someone seems to appreciate and love everything we do, but if we become addicted to that person we give him or her a very great power over our lives, even running the risk that our self-esteem depends exclusively on what he or she tells us.

As we have already mentioned, this strategy is quite common, but this is not to say that most people who do this do so by hatching a refined and evil plan to control the will of others..... There are people who, unwittingly and without being aware of it, are very toxic and they do it because it is the way they have learned to relate and they have seen that they are good at it. For them love means extreme idolatry, and if someone does not pay attention to them they can interpret it as not loving them anymore, they get angry and hyperpolarized, in the sense that everything is black or white: either you idolize me or don't talk to me.

On the other hand, we have the fact that although we do not live in a perfect society, we should not be suspicious of everyone.. There are people who, fortunately, flatter their loved ones without ulterior motives or manipulation. If we have a friend, boyfriend or family member who is very attentive, loving and kind, who compliments us without asking anything in return, we should be grateful because we have a treasure of a person in him or her.

With this in mind, we may find it somewhat difficult to differentiate people with genuinely good feelings from those toxic beings that we should unfortunately keep away from our circle. It is not easy, especially at the beginning of the relationship since we would be in the idealization phase 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 is easy to confuse the love bombing of a manipulative person with the details and flattery of a really nice person..

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

With frequent, exaggerated and sudden flattery and gifts, it is not difficult for the victim to feel that he or she owes you something, that he or she can't say no to someone, that he or she can't say no to the person.that he or she cannot say no to someone who is behaving so generously. This is why we must not lose our bearings. If we have only been with the person for a short time, it makes no sense for him or her to be so generous. Although the principle "think wrong and you will be right" is a bit sad, in these cases it is better to avoid the risk of falling into such a toxic dynamic.

As a final recommendation the best thing to do is to have a varied group of friends, friends that in case they see that we are moving away because our boyfriend, another friend or even a family member is soliciting us they can give us a wake up call. If they are a critical group they will make us value our freedom and individuality. Good friends are the ones who are there through thick and thin, but also the ones who make us see our mistakes and who value us for what we are really good at. Better sincerity and growth than lies and subjugation.

Bibliographical references:

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