The love-bombing Lie

Constructive fraud of intimacy is the term Daniel Ryan Cotler uses in Voiceless No More: The Legal War on Narcissistic Abuse to describe how false intimacy is deliberately manufactured to obtain access, compliance, and control.

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It is not a misunderstanding about feelings. It is not moving too fast. It is not optimism gone wrong. Constructive fraud of intimacy occurs when one person knowingly presents a false relational identity in order to induce emotional trust, attachment, or vulnerability that would not have been given had the truth been known.

The word constructive matters. In law, constructive fraud does not require overt lies. It exists when a relationship of trust is created through concealment, omission, or misrepresentation of intent, and that trust is then exploited. In narcissistic abuse, intimacy itself becomes the instrument of fraud.

The abuser constructs a persona of safety, alignment, and shared future. Deep disclosure is encouraged. Emotional dependency is accelerated. Promises are implied rather than stated outright, which allows deniability later. The survivor consents to closeness based on a reality that does not exist.

Once attachment is established, the conditions change. Care is withdrawn. Reality becomes unstable. The survivor is blamed for expecting continuity. At that point, the fraud is complete. The intimacy has already done its work by bypassing defenses and embedding attachment before harm begins.

This is why survivors often say, “If I had known who they really were, I never would have opened myself.” That statement is the definition of fraud. Consent was obtained under false pretenses.

Constructive fraud of intimacy explains why narcissistic abuse is not simply emotional harm but a violation of agency. The survivor did not consent to a relationship as it actually existed. They consented to a fabricated version designed to secure access and control.

It also explains why outsiders minimize the harm. Because no single promise can be isolated and proven false, the deception is dismissed as subjective. But fraud is assessed by pattern and outcome, not by isolated statements. The pattern shows intentional misrepresentation followed by exploitation.

In Voiceless No More, this concept is critical because it reframes love bombing, future faking, and mirroring as preparatory acts of harm rather than romance gone wrong. The intimacy was never mutual. It was instrumental.

Constructive fraud of intimacy is the gateway injury. It enables neurological battery, coercive control, and eventual psychological collapse by stripping the survivor of informed consent at the very beginning.