How Long Does Love Bombing Usually Last?
Love bombing is a phrase used to describe patterns of excessive adoration or affection early in a relationship.
Signs of love bombing might include:
Grandiose gestures such as surprise holidays.
Lavish and expensive gifts or constantly sending flowers.
Constant texting or phone calls, often combined with demanding lightning responses.
Wanting to spend every minute with you, ignoring the fact that you might have other plans or commitments.
Constant complimenting and hyperbolic compliments for example saying you are the most beautiful person they have ever met.
Constant love notes that feel excessive or intrusive.
Telling you they love you very quickly before they could really know you well enough.
Sharing intimate secrets when you barely know them.
Promising you your dream life and talking about your future together.
Rushing into talking about moving in together or marriage.
All these things along the phases of love bombing are designed to hook you in and create an attachment. All these things can make you feel like you’ve found the perfect fairytale romance, which can be hard to walk away from even if it does all feel a bit too much. The problem is that love bombing is a finite stage in a relationship and what happens yet isn’t much fun.
How Long Is the Love Bombing Phase?
So if the over-the-top idolization isn’t going to last forever, how long can you expect it to last?
The answer to that question is that there are no hard and fast rules. Generally, love bombing will last for a few weeks to a few months. Love bombers tend to continue until the person is either sufficiently seduced or makes it clear they won’t succumb to their efforts.
Many people will see the exaggerated gestures and declarations as a red flag and get out. Others, however, especially those that are particularly empathetic, people-pleasers, have low self-esteem or have previously been abused are more susceptible to falling for the fairytale.
In this case it will often it will be friends or family looking in from an outside perspective that spot the signs of love bombing and want to know how long it is likely to last and what they can do to help the person see that this might be manipulation rather than the true love they are hoping for.
What Happens Next?
Generally love bombing is a manipulative tactic with a hidden agenda. These are not true expressions of love but ways of establishing a toxic dynamic that hides the love bomber's flaws long enough for you to genuinely fall for them. Love bombing is often a tactic used by narcissists as a way of establishing control dependency.
Unfortunately once the love-bombing phase ends the devaluing stage begins. They may suddenly start to withhold the love and affection that was given in such excess at the beginning of the relationship. Compliments become backhanded and any expression of a desire to leave the relationship will be met with threats or rage.
After the devaluing stage the next stage is the discard. This can often happen quite out of the blue generally because the narcissist has stopped getting what they want from the relationship and moved on to their next victim.
