At a glance
Love bombing is a rush of attention at the start that builds dependence faster than trust, and is then withdrawn or switched on and off. Plenty of good relationships begin fast and stay warm, so what matters is what came next. You find out by slowing down and watching what one small refusal produces.
Clinical insights from 22 years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 22 years of full-time, face-to-face clinical practice.
- The beginning was faultless. Clients arrive telling me the start was perfect, butterflies and all, and that they still cannot work out what they did to lose it.
- The editing is the signal. What tells me most is how much a client softens and qualifies their own account while they are giving it to me.
- A label ends the thinking. Settling on what somebody is closes the work down, so I stay with the sequence of what happened and what it cost each of them.
Clinical notes: My observations are anonymised and compounded from my session notes since 2004.
What is love bombing?
Love bombing is a campaign of attention at the start of a relationship that produces closeness and dependence faster than either of you could honestly build them. On the receiving end it is lovely and slightly too much at once. You feel chosen, and underneath that you feel hurried. Your sleep goes, your phone stops being yours, and you catch yourself explaining to a friend why none of it is as fast as it sounds. What makes it love bombing is the job the attention is doing, not the size of the gestures.
- Access. The attention takes a place in your days, your plans and your phone before you have agreed to give one.
- Speed. A shared future gets sketched out before either of you has met the friends.
- The benefit of the doubt. The gestures buy your willingness to overlook the next thing.
- Then the reversal. Once you are attached, the warmth is withdrawn, or switched on and off.
Is an intense start always love bombing?
No. An intense beginning on its own is evidence of nothing. The word gets reached for the moment somebody disappoints, and used that way it turns ordinary keenness into a diagnosis. The difference is direction: a fast start that is simply love settles into something steadier, and this pattern reverses. The second difference is room. Love leaves room for your friends, your work and your own judgement, and this competes with all 3 of them. Watch what a declined evening does, because somebody who is only keen is disappointed and then fine.
Not all of it is calculated. Some of what looks like a campaign comes out of fear of being left, with no manipulation anywhere in it, and the effect on you still needs slowing down. Intent is the hardest thing to establish from inside a relationship, and it is not what you need in order to act.
What happens after the first phase?
In the accounts I hear the warmth rarely just stops. It becomes unpredictable, and that is the part that holds people. This is a shape I recognise in what clients describe rather than anything to measure yourself against.
- Idealisation. Grand gestures, rapid escalation, and plans for a shared future very early on.
- Devaluation. The warmth comes and goes, small deniable criticism appears, and you start working to get back to how it was.
- Why the middle holds you. Unpredictable warmth grips harder than steady warmth, because each return of it arrives as relief. That is my clinical judgement rather than a research finding.
- An abrupt ending. The relationship stops with very little engagement and no accounting for any of it.
- A restart. A fresh round of attention arrives months later, as though nothing had happened.
In the Masterson Approach, one of the traditions I work from, idealising and devaluing are read as 2 faces of a single position rather than 2 separate phases, which is part of why the swing between them is so fast. Plenty of difficult relationships never run in that order, and running in that order settles nothing about what anybody is. Read more about why a partner runs hot and cold and gaslighting in a relationship.
Who love bombs, and why?
The question I am asked is what kind of person does this, and it is the least useful question in the room. The partners described to me do not sound like one type. Some are frightened of being left and move fast to secure somebody. Some enjoy the effect they produce and lose interest once it is produced. Either way you are the one living inside the result, and you can weigh that without settling which it was.
The research is thin. One survey of university students found love-bombing behaviour went with narcissistic traits and insecure attachment, and with lower self-esteem, while some of the same behaviour turned up among securely attached students too1. A second study found narcissism predicted intentions towards infidelity, and that the strength of that link moved with attachment style rather than running the same way for everybody2. Both are self-report from young adults, which makes them a poor basis for any conclusion about one particular partner.
- What you can weigh. The effect this relationship is having on your life is in front of you, and it needs no diagnosis.
- What I do in the room. I look with you at what happened, in order, and at what it cost you, and I do not tell you what your partner is.
If you are years into it and still explaining away the early part, take that seriously. The beginning was good enough that it seems to disprove everything that came after it, and that is how people in this position stop trusting their own account.
How do you tell love bombing from love, and what do you do?
You stop asking whether they mean it and start watching what happens when you say no. Use what follows to think with. None of it is a test and none of it diagnoses anybody, and the one move that tells you anything is slowing the relationship down.
- Disagreement. What happens when you disagree about something as small as which restaurant?
- Your world. Has it got bigger or smaller since this began? Count the people you have actually seen lately.
- The invoice. Do the gestures arrive with obligation, reminders of what was done for you, and an expectation of gratitude?
- Your story. Are you told that you alone understand them, and that everybody before you was mad or cruel?
- Decline one small thing. An evening, a call, a plan you never agreed to, and then watch what the response is.
- Keep your own life running. See your friends, keep your work going, and keep your own judgement in use.
- Say the timeline out loud. Describe what happened, in order, to one person you trust, and notice where you start softening it.
If several of those sit uncomfortably, you have enough to slow down without deciding what the person is.
None of this is the right instrument where the first phase was followed by being controlled, monitored, isolated or frightened of your partner. No set of dating questions reaches that, and joint sessions are the wrong room, because they ask you to be honest in front of somebody you then go home with. What belongs there is your own hour, with a therapist who is not also treating your partner. It is the wrong instrument too when you edit your own account as fast as you give it, or when the warmth comes back and the questions quietly stop. Whether the early phase was calculated or frightened can stay unsettled for good, and it is not the part that governs what happens next. What it did to you is. A session, or the free 30-minute call, is a reasonable place to start.
Questions people ask
Can I bring this to therapy if I am not sure it was love bombing?
Yes, and not being sure is the usual starting point. We look at the sequence of what actually happened rather than at which label fits it best.
Will you tell me whether my partner is a narcissist?
No, I do not diagnose somebody I have never met from a description. What I work on with you is what the relationship is doing to you, and why it is hard to leave or to trust.
Should I come on my own or as a couple?
On your own, where the first phase was followed by control or fear. Otherwise either is workable, and I would still rather hear your own account first, without it being managed in the room.
What does therapy do about the pull to go back?
It slows that pull down enough for you to look at it instead of obeying it. Unpredictable warmth builds a strong habit, and seeing how it was built is what loosens it.
Is it worth starting therapy if the relationship is already over?
Yes, and much of this work happens after the ending. You go through the sequence in order, so that the same beginning is recognisable to you next time.
If an intense start left you confused and hurt, I help you untangle what happened in therapy after narcissistic abuse.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- Strutzenberg, C., Wiersma-Mosley, J. D., Jozkowski, K. N. and Becnel, J. N., Love-bombing: A Narcissistic Approach to Relationship Formation, Discovery, 2017
- Altinok, A. and Kilic, N., Exploring the associations between narcissism, intentions towards infidelity, and relationship satisfaction: Attachment styles as a moderator, PLOS ONE, 2020
How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.
