THE TRAUMA NEWSLETTER - February 2025 Edition - (Love Bombing in Toxic Relationships)

With February being the month of love, it only made sense to focus on how romantic relationships can also be traumatic.

So let's discuss Love Bombing.

Love bombing is a powerful tool often used in narcissistic and toxic relationships, and it can be hard to recognize in the moment. It feels good at first—who doesn’t want to be adored and showered with attention?

But behind the sweet gestures and constant affection lies a deeper manipulation that can trap someone in a cycle of abuse and keep them there for months, years, or decades.

Interestingly, what you consider “normal” versus “toxic” within these relationships can be influenced by your early relationships and childhood experiences, which is all the more reason to gain a level of awareness about these cycles.

What Exactly is Love Bombing?

Love bombing is when someone showers you with excessive attention, praise, gifts, and affection in the early stages of a relationship. It can feel like you’ve found “the one” because everything seems perfect. But this intense attention isn’t about genuine affection—it’s about control. It's about trapping you in a vicious cycle where you would rationalize how wonderful they "can be" because they have showered you with so much love before.

Love bombing is a profoundly effective tactic to build an emotional connection quickly. It’s designed to make you feel special and needed, but it can also leave you feeling dependent on a person's approval and validation, especially if you carry a wound of emotional neglect.

Toxic relationships often follow a repeating cycle that can be hard to break free from. Here’s a quick look at how it typically plays out:

The Cycles of Abuse

1. The Honeymoon Phase (Love Bombing): In the beginning, everything is perfect. You’re showered with compliments, thoughtful gestures, and overwhelming attention. You feel adored, even obsessed over.
2. Tension Building: As time passes, small issues begin to crop up—criticism, subtle digs, or withdrawal of affection. At first, these may feel like just normal relationship bumps, but the tension starts to build.
3. The Explosion: Eventually, the tension boils over, and this is when you might experience emotional outbursts, gaslighting, or even more intense forms of abuse—verbal, emotional, or physical. It leaves you feeling confused and hurt.
4. Apology and Return to Honeymoon: After the explosion, the person might apologize profusely, promise it won’t happen again, and return to the “love bombing” phase. This creates a sense of false hope, drawing you back into the cycle.

And before you know it, the cycle repeats—love bombing, tension, explosion, and then the apology. Over time, it wears you down emotionally, leaving you feeling powerless and stuck. Uff, I bet that sounds familiar.

But let's get into what could convince you to view these behaviors as typical relationship patterns.

How Childhood Experiences Play a Role

What happens in our early lives—particularly the relationships we have with our caregivers—can have a huge impact on the relationships we form later on. For many, toxic relationships aren’t just random; they are directly connected to childhood trauma, attachment disruptions, unhealthy family dynamics, or even cultural norms around what healthy relationships should look like.

But how does this happen?

1. Attachment Styles: Well, first, our attachment styles, which tend to be formed in childhood based on how our caregivers responded to our needs, can influence how we behave in relationships. Those with a more secure attachment style tend to form healthier, trusting relationships. But if you had caregivers who were neglectful, inconsistent, or emotionally unavailable, you might develop an anxious or avoidant attachment style. These attachment styles can make you more vulnerable to toxic relationships that mirror that emotional instability from the past.
2. Unresolved Childhood Trauma: If you grew up in an environment where love was conditional, emotionally distant, or abusive, you might subconsciously seek out similar patterns in your adult relationships. For example, someone who experienced emotional neglect as a child might be drawn to a partner who initially gives them overwhelming attention (love bombing), because it feels familiar—even if it’s ultimately unhealthy.
3. What You Were Taught to Expect: Children learn a lot from their the adults in their lives about what’s “normal” in relationships. If you witnessed emotional manipulation, control, or volatile behavior as a child, you might come to believe that these dynamics are just part of love. As an adult, you might overlook red flags or even confuse toxic behavior with affection.

How to Break the Cycle and Heal

Well, it's a journey, I have to say. But there are some points to consider:

1. Safety is Imperative: Toxic abuse is not something to be taken lightly. It can at times be dangerous and so it's important to seek safety first, if the goal is to leave a cycle of abuse. If the relationship has already ended, the experience of safety is usually fraught and working with a therapist can help with that ongoing lack of emotional safety.
2. Awareness is Key: Understanding your attachment style, recognizing how your childhood trauma impacts your relationships, and learning to identify love bombing are the first steps to breaking free from the cycle. Awareness allows you to stop just reacting to these behaviors and start taking control of your choices.
3. Therapy and Healing Matter: Therapy, especially trauma-informed therapy, is incredibly helpful for healing from childhood wounds and breaking unhealthy relationship patterns. It can help you understand your triggers and build healthier coping strategies. At Break the Cycle Trauma Center , we specialize in trauma-responsive care, following the throws of a toxic relationship.

If you are looking to heal from toxic relationships, we are here to help. Simply text "Consult" to (201) - 755-7985 for a free consultation.

Local Resources Worth a Spotlight

Domestic violence is nondiscriminatory, meaning that it can affect anyone, regardless of age, race, gender identity, economic status, ability status, sexual orientation, or other cultural identities.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline offers help for safety and stabilization and also important resources.

They are doing such important work and can be life-saving:

I'll echo the words of the hotline, because they're so true:

"Everyone deserves healthy relationships."

If you or someone you know is in a toxic relationship, or if you’re struggling to break free from a cycle of abuse, know that...

...support is available by texting "Start" to 88788.

This Month’s Call to Action

Let's Help Create Safer Relationships

As we close out this edition of The Trauma Newsletter, share this newsletter within your professional networks. You never know what colleague or friend could use this resource.

Stay Informed

To stay updated on future issues and join the conversation:

Follow us at Break the Cycle Trauma Center and subscribe to this newsletter.

If there's anything you'd like to see in future newsletters, let me know in the comments below!

Until next time,

Dr. Mariel Buqué