Patterns she names
The patterns, in plain words.
Once is a moment, twice is a signal, three times is a pattern. These are the ones Bondary watches for, with what each looks like, what it is not, and what to do.
Attention that doesn't add up
Interest you can feel but cannot count on.
Breadcrumbing
Minimal, inconsistent attention that keeps you hooked without ever adding up to a relationship.
Future faking
Big promises about the future, the trip, the keys, meeting his parents, with no follow-through on any of them.
Love bombing
Extreme early intensity: an unrealistic pace, overwhelming affection, and certainty that arrives before he could possibly know you.
Hot and cold
Intense warmth alternating with cold distance, over and over, so you are either basking or waiting.
Ghosting
Contact that stops with no explanation. Bondary counts it as ghosting once the silence has lasted two weeks.
Hoovering
Pulling away, then pulling you back in after a breakup or a cold stretch, to regain the hold rather than to rebuild anything.
Situationship enforcing
Keeping the closeness of a relationship, the time, the intimacy, the access, while refusing to let it be called one.
Emotional unavailability
Severe emotional unavailability: he cannot engage with feelings, yours or his, in any real way, however long you wait.
Honesty and accountability
What happens when something needs to be talked about.
Stonewalling
Active withdrawal: refusing to engage with something you raised, and letting the silence do the punishing.
Gaslighting
Reality distortion: denying things that happened, rewriting what was said, and leaving you doubting your own memory.
Blame shifting
Refusing accountability by turning it around: you raise something, and somehow the conversation ends with you apologizing.
Triangulation
Bringing in a third person, an ex, another woman, a friend, to create jealousy or competition for his attention.
Lying
Core-fact dishonesty: lies about where he was, who he was with, whether he is single. The things a relationship stands on, as opposed to the harmless kind.
Cheating
Confirmed or strongly evidenced infidelity, physical or emotional, in a relationship that was supposed to be exclusive.
Boundary violations
Repeated disrespect of a limit you stated clearly: the thing you asked him not to do, done again.
Safety
Control, threats, coercion and force. She names these directly and does not weigh them against the good weeks.
Controlling and monitoring
Tracking where you are, checking your phone, demanding an account of your time, or deciding where you can go.
Isolation tactics
Cutting you off from friends, family, or anyone who might see the relationship from outside.
Verbal threats
Threats, intimidation, or ultimatums used as punishment: “if you do that, I will,” said to control what you do next.
Sexual coercion
Pressure for sex, or for something you said no to, until the no stops counting.
Physical violence
Any physical force, or a threat of it: grabbing, blocking a door, throwing something, a hand raised.
Tell her about someone.
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