Love bombing !

[Willowmartha1]

Never heard of this before Mumsnet !! Please share your experiences......

@ravenmum not sure if I've been love bombed as haven't received gifts etc but I met someone before lockdown and we had a couple of dates, he told all his friends about me after one date which I thought was odd as he didn't know me and was very affectionate in his messages and talked about where he would take me after lockdown etc etc. Now he has gone awol and I have heard nothing for three days. Someone on here mentioned love bombing but I think he's just ghosted me because he is seeing someone else.

You can lovebomb someone before you ghost them, sure.
I had one guy who lovebombed me, and like you I thought it was pretty weird. After about four dates he said that he could really imagine marrying me one day. I remember trying to come up with something polite but disencouraging :)

Yes. Told me he loved me within two weeks, gave me a key to his house not long after, talked about marriage, about me and my kids moving in with his kids, told me on our first date how I 'ticked all the boxes', how we'd had a special chemistry the firs time we had met (a chemistry I absolutely hadn't picked up on!) and then the mask slipped just a few months into the relationship. When it ended I spoke to his ex and she said he'd done the same to her, to the letter. Seems ridiculous now but at the time, after initial resistance, I kind of just went with it and told myself it was 'whirlwind' and romantic.

So you've never heard of love bombing, but you do know what it means to be ghosted?

Yes I've heard of ghosting in the past but love bombing was a new one on me!

But does lovebombing ever turn out to be genuine, as in coming from a man who means it and definitely isn't abusive.

Compliments on everything. I was so clever, funny, pretty. He loved my confidence. Impromptu drives down to Brighton for chips because I said I liked the sea. Liked all the same music I did, the same kind of food, films, everything.
I had a bad childhood and made the huge mistake of telling him, so he used that. Big effort for my birthday, would randomly be waiting outside work to drive me home.
It lasted six months. Took me over two years and him forcing me to work on adult work before I left.

I've seen love bombing loads and only one of those times did it involve offers of gift giving. Usually it's more just that they want to spend every waking moment texting you ect. Half the time it includes over complementing and 'we gave so much in common. Often they rush you for intimacy. If they are giving it 'I've told all my friends about you...' ect after like 2 dates then that's a big sign of it too.

• ' we have so much in common'

To the person who asked if it can be genuine: heres the thing, normal relationships form organically over time. They are not rushed, they don't feel forced or smothering or 'a bit too much', or like whirlwinds. People dont love you or think you are their 'soul mates' when they actually barely know you because they met you like, last month xD so no.

Love bombing, I would say, is always the calling card of an abuser.

Oh yes.

Started to speak to me on Facebook, declaring how beautiful he found me, how he couldn't wait to take me away for weekends

Texting me constantly everyday

Then when I wasn't reciprocating......he dropped me and moved on to the next victim

I think this is fascinating. I'm a normal intelligent human being and I was completely duped.

Same here .. still can’t believe I fell for it . He gave me a key with weeks of meeting . Told me he had never had feelings like this before. Offered to do DIY on my house , helped me buy my car, sent texts all the time, would get upset if I didn’t reciprocate the same amount of kisses at the end of the texts etc etc. I was flattered I had never had this much attention before .. but it became suffocating and If I didn’t respond quick enough I would get a phone call or an email asking why I was ignoring him ...
Every time I tried to end it he would buy me gifts and declare how much he loved me and he couldn’t live without me and how could I treat him like this .. I gave In as it was easier thaN the constant harassment... the cycle just continued continuously. Then I found out he had been on dating apps for 4 of them 6 years we were together ..he had met and slept with many women. Even when I confronted him he denied it - he blamed me as he didn’t know where he stood etc etc. He threatened to hurt himself and blamed me for having trouble with work .. but still denied being on dating apps . My friend set up a Fake profile and messages him and still he denied it and told me he would marry me etc . I blocked him on my phone and he would send me emails and call withholding his number and send texts from a web account. He set up fake accounts on social media to see what I was up to.
I was exhausted with it all it was draining .
I arranged to go on holiday with my friend who has just split from her partner ( who i knew from school and he worked with) and he hounded me about going. I was too embarrassed to tell my friend what was going on and just kept putting it off and in the end I said I couldn’t go ... found out that he Offered to step in my place ... they both kept it a secret!
She was no longer a friend ... you would think at this point he would have given up ... nope he messaged me While on holiday with her asking why I was ignoring me ...
Then when he got back he threatened suicide ../
I’d had enough by then ... never spoke to him again ..took me 2 years to get over him ! I was a fool

A lot of men love bomb in the beginning. It's not always sinister. Just part of them trying to win you over. You just smile and nod and see if they show up consistently. My dh was asking for exclusivity and was very full on straight away. Lots of gifts for me and even my mother for babysitting for me so he could take me out. I just took it all with a pinch of salt until he'd been doing it for 6 months straight and asked me to marry him

You can weed the insincere ones out by holding your boundaries. He calls all the time. Pick up once a day and talk for ten mins. He wants to see you every night? You just say no you're only available one night. He says he loves you? Smile and say thank you but don't return it. He wants to be exclusive after 4 dates? You say No I need to get to know you better. He wants to talk marriage and moving in after a month. Just laugh it off. Narcissistic men and psychos will see you're too hard a nut to crack and move on to someone more pliable. Or they'll get aggressive in which case you block and move on. The good guys will keep trying and back up their declarations with consistent actions and time invested

@skinnyhotchoc
Yes it’s the consistency. To give it time and stay a bit emotionally guarded to see if they are serious. If they aren’t they would tire and move onto the next.

@LittleWing80 a lot of women don't do this though. They allow men to pace the relationship. You have to set the pace yourself. Most men want to heat things up really fast. One of the reasons being it's the easiest way to get you into bed. It baffles women that men can go so far and say so many romantic things just for sex but they do! I don't even think half the time the men realise they're not sincere until after the fact

This is all so scary for me as I about a year ago came out of a narcissistic relationship thats was awful.....but there was no love bombing!
Makes me scared for the future as I don't want to fall for another pr**k

I noticed that many of the ones that dont love bomb, sometimes put themselves on a pedestal instead of you. It's like an 'impress me' attitude and a sort of arrogance that comes off them.

A really good example is Gemma Colin's, when she was on celebs go dating.

*not to say she is one of course as you know, its tv lol. But she certainly acts the part well in that.

God yes did he put himself on a pedestal....he was amazing and the best at everything 🙄

Love bombing . I had maybe three months if this ...

Texted me on average 150 times a day (he told me every Sunday how many texts he's sent that week)
Phone calls up to seven hour a day ( mostly around the three hour mark)
Dates whenever he could see me
He would text and say he's in my town waiting for me , as a "surprise". I gave up plans but didn't tell him because I thought he was lovely.
Said he loved me in just over a week
And then said it over and over and over until I reciprocated
Said I was beautiful (I'm not)
Said I was kind and liked that I worked/volunteered in social care , said that ticked a box. ..
All my problems he wanted to solve . Every single one .
I thought I had won the lottery
.

I think the very first time I worried about anything .... He said I love you a lot , I took longer to say it back but I did start to say it back , over and over .

And after a little bit of time passed he started saying I'm obsessed with you , I'm infatuated with you . Straight away i was like no...you're in love with me ......I don't want you to be infatuated or obsessed . It gave me anxiety , but he never stopped saying it . Even though I told him I didn't like it.

What was the outcome? Did you break up?

Yes , I sent the last email last Wednesday night and haven't contacted him since . I'm not really in a great place at the moment but it was the most fucked up relationship I could even imagine and there is no way I'm going back . Still struggling to get my head around it though .

Sorry for swearing !