Love bombing: No, it's not a good thing

It's the month of February: Valentine's Day is on the way. Whether or not you think it's one of those Hallmark card holidays, it's a good opportunity to talk about love and healthy relationships. Have you heard the term “love bombing”?

Emily Jordan Jensen is a University of Minnesota lecturer in the College of Continuing and Professional Studies program in behavioral health and addictions counseling. She’s also a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in couples therapy.

Jill Riley: What does “love bombing” mean? It sounds cute and nice…but it is anything but?

Emily Jordan Jensen: Right? It sounds like it should be really fun. The idea of love bombing is that it's this behavioral pattern where you see a series of grand gestures - maybe gift giving, excessive focus, attention - kind of in one direction. So from one partner in a dating relationship to another…and in the beginning, it can feel really flattering. But in the love bombing situation there kind of tend to be some strings attached to that behavior. So the partner who is doting and providing all this additional attention may knowingly or unknowingly be sort of creating a power imbalance in the relationship. Attempting to be someone's world can really create the illusion that the other person doesn't need anyone else.

What the signs that you could be with a love bomb? What are the personality traits?

I don't want to create a sense of skepticism around every nice thing that someone does for you. I think many of us have trouble opening up at all in the beginning of a relationship and, and so some people would connect this pattern of love bombing with narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder. So you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that trouble is afoot if there's grand gestures in your relationship, but one thing that you might want to start keying into is: are those gestures kind of creating an atmosphere in your relationship where you're feeling a little cut off from some of your other people and other things that bring you joy? Isolation is certainly a red flag, and something that we'd be more concerned about.

It really sounds like it could be dangerous to be in that kind of relationship.

The concern is that this pattern of imbalance and control can set the stage for intimate partner violence or emotional abuse in a relationship. That's the worst case scenario…but I think even in a less severe situation, if you're in a situation where you're being cut off from family, friends, social supports, it puts an immense amount of pressure on the relationship itself. It's a lot to be somebody’s everything, and quite frankly, I think relationships that don't have that outside support tend to collapse under the waiters themselves.

Yeah. And during a pandemic, during a time of such isolation, maybe it can be hard to to pick up on what actually is going on, since you're kind of used to being isolated with this person.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think the conditions that we're in now can make it even harder to kind of make that distinction. And maybe you're in a bubble with this other person that you're dating, and they're like, the only person you see, because of safety concerns. I do think that's been a real challenge in light of what's been going on recently.

There's healthy love, and there's unhealthy love. What are some some signs that this is healthy, this is going in the right direction? The love bombing thing really sounds like it can spell disaster.

For sure. Yeah, you know, when you're just starting a relationship, I think one of the most important things you can tune into is looking at the other relationships in that person’s life. Psychologists love to