If you think the two concepts are the same, then we need to sit down and have a little bit of a talk.
Love is love. It’s kind and wonderful, and it involves working together to keep a relationship alive. It’s forgiving and honest, and helps you grow and inspire.
Love-bombing is a sudden explosion of love-type feelings or actions that really have no basis other than to fool you and lead you blindly into an abusive relationship.
Good. Now we’ve got that cleared up, let’s look at 5 ways to tell the difference between the two.
#1 Real love takes time
Listen, it’s nice at the start of relationships. You get to know each other at the same time you might go on nice dates, romantic walks, day time coffee spots are found and cherished, and memories are made.
But love is like a plant. It has to grow before you even know what it is. You can’t just be in love.
It’s not that simple. You can be infatuated with somebody, and the passion can be there for sure.
But when you’re talking about love, you need to know the person fully before you decide if they align with the morals and values you’ve set aside for yourself.
Love-bombing is precisely what it means. Bombs are immediate, and they explode and cause so much chaos. One minute it’s nothing, the next, it’s everything.
Which is exactly the opposite of real love.
And so, in order to tell the difference, you should focus on spotting the signs of love-bombing.
When it gets too much, or too intense, that’s when you’re being led to view it as something that it isn’t.
Eventually that act will fall, and you will end up spotting a narcissist who has ultimately revealed themselves to you.
#2 Love respects your space
Ain’t that the truth! I will say it louder for the people at the back:
If a person loves you, then they will respect your space without guilt, fear of consequence, or blame.
Know that this is not a subjective standard. It’s not just what I think about love.
It’s the universal rule. If it’s not what you are experiencing, you need to leave. If you can live by that standard, you should never run into a narcissist for longer than two seconds.
Which funnily enough is the right amount of time to tell them to bleep off.
Space is sacred. It’s where we discover who we are and grow into our own. If we aren’t granted it, we become programmed to just go along with whoever is occupying it instead.
We all know that pretty much covers the description of a narcissist.
If you walk into a relationship with anybody holding your boundaries strongly, you should be able to maintain those boundaries without fear or guilt, or any attempt to move them.
If you can’t do that, then there’s something very wrong with the person that you’re with.
#3 Love builds trust
If trust were a bridge, love would be the individual bricks to build it. It isn’t one big brick, it’s all the little ways you can build something so strong that you value it as the most precious thing you’ve been given the chance to build.
Without trust, there can’t be any real love. Can you honestly say that you trust somebody you just met who wants to wine and dine you without even knowing his last name?
Trust yourself to take the time to build something worth having. If they don’t have the patience for it then they’re not in it for authentic reasons.
Think of it like this:
You want to be in a place where you know that person. You align with their values and you know what they love in life and about life.
Trust comes from knowing that you both want the same thing, and will work toward achieving it all together.
Love-bombing is more about how the narcissist can shower you with everything you’d possibly want and need, without actually handing over a single word of love to you.
Yes sure, they can tell you they love you, but why tell you when they can show you?
Why be the bearer of such intimate words when they can shove a dozen red roses in your face and sweep you up for a romantic vacation by the ocean?
Because it works for them, that’s why. It gets the job done.
#4 Love is generous
When I say generous, I’m not talking about money. People can be generous with their time, love, compassion, support, their listening ear, and so much more.
Love is all of those things. It makes time because it has time for love. It creates a world where you feel safe and protected, while at the same time encouraging you to grow and follow your heart and dreams in the world.
There’s no part of a narcissist that can possibly know what love is if they don’t do any of these things.
Be careful not to confuse the generosity of a narcissist in that love-bombing stage with the generosity of a person truly in love.
These are two different concepts that can feel the same when all you want is to see the narcissist do something for you.
We can all do something for anyone, right? That doesn’t mean we love them all.
Love is in the time taken to feel and appreciate, not in the bright, shining lights of a love-bomb.
#5 Love makes you feel calm
That’s the bottom line. Love wants to be friends with your nervous system. It doesn’t want to leave it in tatters, and on high alert.
Love wants to soothe and care for your body and mind, and it shouldn’t be leaving it feeling exhausted and worried about what happens next.
Too many people grow used to feeling anxious or unsafe in their relationships.
Love-bombing has this kind of overwhelming feeling that when you think about it, isn’t always the most settling.
When somebody can’t get enough of you out of the blue, it isn’t calm. While you might think, “Wow, this is amazing,” your body is saying, “What’s this? What’s going on?”
Love is calm. Love is slower than a love-bomb, and it isn’t as intense.
It doesn’t give everything to you in one moment, instead it spans across a lifetime and keeps you feeling like you’re riding calm seas with somebody you love and trust and want to be with forever.
Do you see the difference? The way love makes you feel should be regulating for you, rather than capsizing your board and pulling you to safety in the name of grand gestures.
It’s more subtle than that, and it wants to celebrate you in small yet meaningful ways.
I think these points are crucial for victims to learn the difference between if they want to make sure they are able to pick apart this difference in the future. Just because it feels great, doesn’t mean you are in a great situation.
Temporary feelings of perfection must come to an end eventually, and what’s on the other side of that is nothing but negative.
