STOP!!! LOVE BOMBING – The First Phase of a Toxic Relationship!

In this article we explain to you what it means when your partner showers you with love, because what sounds great at first, can actually have a completely different motive. Maybe you know the phenomenon, you've met someone and everything is perfect. You feel like you're on cloud nine, you receive so much affection, attention and appreciation from the other person that you think you've hit the jackpot. A person who is like a soul mate, who finds every quirk endearing and even the strangest hobby great about you. You are adored all around, showered with flowers and gifts. Simply a fantastic feeling. It is, in fact, too good to be true. As long as your togetherness is harmonious, the world is fine. But soon your partner changes. You want to spend an evening alone with friends or, as in all the previous years, a wellness weekend with the girls, or you suddenly have a different opinion than your partner. You are reproached and labeled as an egoist. Your partner withdraws until you behave again the way he wants you to. This phenomenon is called love-bombing and is a manipulation technique to keep you attached to him and take the lead within the relationship. Your partner first showers you with love and then shows his true colors. The problem: Despite the change from being adored to being devalued, which seems almost unbearable for you, you continue to stay in the relationship. You don't break away. He has managed to bind you to him because perhaps your longing for love extends into neediness, which your partner now takes advantage of. Euphoria at the beginning of a relationship, wearing rose-colored glasses, are generally normal things that happen when you are newly in love. The bad thing about it is that your counterpart uses exactly this rosy view for his game. Who is most likely to become a victim? Most often it hits the people who have been hurt before and have problems approaching others. They have problems building trust because they have already had bad experiences. And then they meet someone who shows such great interest in them. Someone who knows what they want and even makes joint plans for the future. What kind of people are they? Who does this kind of thing? People who behave like this often have very pronounced narcissistic personality traits. You are chosen and tested to see if you are suitable as a partner for him as a narcissist. He tries to isolate you from family and friends in order to control the relationship more and more. Often these are people who suffer from attachment anxiety. Traumatic experiences in the past or in early childhood relationship experiences can also be the cause. Narcissists are filled with the desire to convince their partner of themselves. But when a relationship actually comes within reach, they fear the loss of their autonomy and withdraw. Something typical you might hear from a narcissist in a relationship is this: "My former partner only took advantage of me, with you everything is different.” And then, once the phase in which you are showered with love is over, you are criticized and devalued.

What can you do to protect yourself?

Often, those affected only realize what is happening to them after a few weeks. If you initially say to yourself, "It's too good to be true," your alarm bells should be ringing. Even here, your intuition shows you that something isn’t right. As with everything else in life, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Your gut feeling as an early warning system can be a good decision-making aid. Observe your counterpart very closely, ask yourself questions about why he is trying so hard for you. Are there perhaps fears behind it? Usually narcissistic people have a very low self-worth that is not obvious, at first. Also try to shed light on their relationship history. A person who makes such an effort to find a partner, but has never had a really stable relationship before, simply cannot be the perfect partner. It’s also a bad sign if it’s always only about the fulfillment of his wishes and needs. Then after the great phase a completely different person than you thought you had met is suddenly standing before you.