The Golden Period
The Golden Period is that period when all is wonderful between us and our victims. This is the illusory mask that is donned in order to draw you in, bind you to us, embed you and then continue to savour the positive fuel that you pump out. Of course most people recognise that this is relevant with regards to the romantic relationship between the narcissist and the Intimate Partner Primary Source (“IPPS”). Certainly, this is the most intense, most intoxicating and most addictive of the golden periods, but the golden period applies to all appliances that we interact with. How does that manifest and how long are these golden periods?
Let us commence with the tertiary source. There are essentially two types of tertiary source. There is the Sporadic Tertiary Source (“STS”) and the Frequent Tertiary Source (“FTS”). The STS is somebody that we interact with just the once or perhaps more than once but not very often. So that could be somebody who we get in a lift with or who occasionally serves us when we go to a particular restaurant every few months. We do not know one another and therefore this person is a Tertiary Source however our engagement with them is always benign. They smile at us, do something helpful for us, compliment us, speak to us in an interested way and so forth. In that instant, the interaction may only be for thirty seconds or so, but that is a golden period. It is brief, very brief but nevertheless because we have engaged with that person in a benign way and drawn positive fuel from them they have had a golden period. We may not have charmed them but we have certainly been pleasant to them, we have impressed them, engaged with them in a way which has caused them to provide us with positive fuel. This means that they have not suffered in any way and we have drawn positive fuel.
The FTS is someone we may see several times a week but they remain a stranger to us. This might be somebody who we buy a daily newspaper from, or a ticket inspector on the train. We engage with the individual repeatedly and always do so in pleasant terms and thus we gain positive fuel from this person who greets us with a smile and compliments our choice of tie or fragrance, but there is no more to the relationship. We see them repeatedly and this positive engagement means there is a protracted Golden Period but the manner of the engagement remains brief, seconds or minutes at most.
A golden period for the STS or FTS will be brought to an abrupt end if they criticise us in some way and wound us or we see that drawing a reaction from them by way provocation and the provision of negative fuel would serve our purposes in another way, for instance in terms of triangulating them with someone who is a higher ranked source who we wish to impress or appear authoritative in front of.
With regard to the secondary sources, there are those who are Non Intimate Secondary Sources (friends, family and colleagues) and then Intimate Partner Secondary Sources (someone we are seducing who is likely to become the IPPS, someone who is a booty call or a friend with benefits).
Those who are NISSs nearly always have golden periods and those golden periods last for a long time. This is because we exhibit our attractive qualities, we charm, we are polite, good-natured, interesting and so on in order to attract this person to us and once designated as a NISS we keep them in place for a considerable period of time. The golden period for a NISS can last a long time because we only draw on their positive fuel now and again. Thus we may see a friend once a week or once a month and therefore there is no extensive reliance in terms of frequency and quantity from this person which threatens the potency. We may meet for an hour for a coffee or an evening out together and we draw positive fuel (plus other benefits) from them. Unless they challenge us, criticise us, stop fuel provision and such like, this golden period will continue unabated. We will not suddenly find their fuel stale (as happens with the IPPS) and therefore the golden period lasts.
With the IPSS the golden period is similarly extensive. There are three types of IPSS:-
The Candidate IPSS. This is someone who is likely to become the IPPS and is on that trajectory towards being crowned;
The Shelf IPSS. This person is not an immediate candidate for becoming IPPS (but that might change in the future) but they are used for fuel on an intermittent basis. Whilst the IPPS is devalued we will spend time with the Shelf IPSS even though we know they are not going to be the new IPPS, but their fuel etc remains of considerable use and interest to us, they may be used to triangulate with the IPPS (or other IPSSs);
The Dirty Little Secret IPSS. See more here Dirty Little Secret
If the person is a clear prospect for IPPS then this candidate will experience the full effect of the illusory seduction as they are drawn into our world and treated like a king or queen. The various seductive manipulations will be deployed to create this magical wonderland where the most perfect love resides. This is the intoxicating, whirlwind seduction where the love-bombing abounds. Once this candidate IPSS is embedded as the IPPS the golden period continues.
Sometimes the IPSS does not secure the promotion but as I have written elsewhere there is no need to devalue this person. This person is a Shelf IPSS. Their fuel remains excellent but they are not quite right. This may change and they are promoted in the future, or it may not and they remain an IPSS for a long time, picked up and put down when we decide. Thus if an IPSS accepts this role they will experience a long golden period. Yes, there will be periods when they will not hear from us and they have been placed on the shelf but this is not devaluation.
The fuel from an IPSS similarly does not become stale because they are engaged with intermittently by us. The pattern of engagement may be a weekend together and then nothing for a fortnight. It might be a week away together and then nothing for a month.
With the Dirty Little Secret IPSS the engagement is likely to be an hour in the evening or the occasional afternoon but usually once a week, sometimes more. The time together is not long but there is a greater frequency than that of the Shelf IPSS.
With all three of these IPSSs they experience significant golden periods.
The Candidate IPSS has an intense golden period which may be a number of weeks before they then become an IPPS and the golden period for that appliance is applicable;
The Shelf IPSS can have a golden period for years and years;
The Dirty Little Secret IPSS can have a golden period for years and years.
The Golden Periods for the Shelf and Dirty Little Secret IPSS is not as intense as that for the Candidate (nor the IPPS see below) but it remains addictive. The victim is treated well, future-faked a lot, given comfort crumbs, taken places, confided in, bought gifts and so forth.The narcissist recognises the value of these type of IPSSs and wishes to maintain them. If the IPSS challenges the narcissist, for instance wants the narcissist to spend more time with them, or threatens to expose their affair to the IPPS, the narcissist will devalue but does so in order to bring that person back into line. If they respond then the golden period is restored immediately. If not, the malfunctioning IPSS will be dis-engaged with and somebody else sought for the role.
The Golden Period for the IPPS is that which most people are familiar with. The Golden Period for the IPPS commences when they are a Candidates IPSS and once they have been embedded they continue to enjoy the fruits of the narcissist’s largesse. The golden period for the IPPS is the one which creates the truly magical connections, the dizzying delight and wondrous magnificence which becomes addictive. The Golden Period for the IPPS will last from months to years dependent on how long their positive fuel is potent enough, frequent enough and supplied in the desired quantities. A typical golden period will be 6-24 months.
The Golden Period for an IPPS ends because the appliance fails us. This is because the appliance has reduced the potency, frequency and/or quantity of the fuel so that it is no longer sufficient for us and thus devaluation must commence by way of altering the fuel provided and punishing the malfunctioning IPPS. Or the positive fuel no longer is regarded as potent by us because it feels stale. Again, devaluation follows for the reasons just explained. This determination is entirely down to us and there is nothing you can do about it. Devaluation always occurs with the IPPS because this person is who we rely on the most for our fuel provision and is the most important supplier. We thus engage with this person frequently, often live with this person, certainly see them almost every day, talk every day, do much together so we can draw on the positive fuel. The fuel is extremely potent to us and of critical consequence. However, this frequent reliance means that the risk of it becoming stale is very high and therefore devaluation follows. Unlike a NISS or IPSS, devaluation is not a foregone conclusion because of the lower demand placed on these secondary sources for their fuel provision.
Some people who are the IPPS do not experience the fireworks and magic of the Golden Period. Instead, they experience the Bronze Period. This is when the narcissist (usually a Lower or Middle Lesser or a Lower Mid-Ranger) does not treat them especially magnificently but what they do do is keep the beast in check so that what is seen is not going to cause the newly targeted victim to retreat. The Golden Period and the Bronze Period both serve the function of hiding the true nature of the narcissist from the victim. The full horror is kept from them. The Golden Period goes further and binds the victim especially to the narcissist, it heightens the addiction of the victim, it creates a place which the victim strives to return to (and which the narcissist will reinstate if he or she sees fit) during devaluation. The Bronze Period merely keeps the horror under wraps and there will be some favourable treatment but nothing amazing.
The Golden Period for all appliances is an artifice which is designed to enable us to secure our Prime Aims (see The Prime Aims ) chief of which is the provision of fuel. Whether this illusion is used for 30 seconds or years, it is still that; an illusion.
37 thoughts on “The Golden Period”
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Jenna,
You are like so cheery and lovable! Lol
Hugs from afar!
I have definitely been through a very long golden period with one narc and I have been through a very short bronze period with a mid range……although I would say it was more like a “tin or aluminium period” than a bronze, as he was so cheap. Although that wasn’t the deal breaker, it was the SSS treatment……sulking….silent….sullen. Yes I know I am mirroring with the abbreviations…… I can’t help thinking when I read this particular article, that “Narc Life” is very exciting, for you as a man and you are writing it (I am assuming) from your perspective and experiences as a man. Does the exact same behaviour apply to a female narc as you have written above? …….For example would a female narc have all of these other men or women and relationships ongoing at the same time, as you have detailed in the article? Does she use, abuse, objectify, devalue and discard exactly the same as a male narc? I guess part of me believes that most non narc women and non narc men think and behave very differently…..so would that translate into that maybe a narc woman and a narc man may not necessarily think and/or behave in the same way. Diva
Everyday becomes an illusion.
Hello my dear AH OH!!💗 How r u?
Off topic – once HG called u ‘veneer.’ What does that mean? You need not answer if u don’t wish.
Hello jenna
What do you think he meant?
He knows me better now it seems than I know myself. After the many hours of consults, he has me pegged to the point he can predict an action I will have in my behavior.
I can’t say this it would be of great assistance for everyone but I have had many discoveries and/or confirmations and/or instructions in our consults. I have had more hours than most and it has given clarity for my journey of the road we call life. I could only go so far it seems with my therapist because she works from a different perspective than HG. I highly recommend the consults.
Even though I love to hate him, I appreciate all he has done.
Perhaps seek the meaning in this word Veneer and tell me what you think.
I hope your journey is a good as mine.
Hi AH OH! I just looked it up. First i got definitions of dental veneers, wood veneers lol! Then i checked ‘veneer personality.’ To summarize, the theory is that pple with dark personalities put on a physically attractive ‘veneer’ which is an effective method to create a good impression. So that means HG thinks you have a dark personality?!😧
You appear genuine to me though! 😊
But i must not contradict the master or he may become furious! 😄
I’m glad the consults have benefitted you to gain clarity. I have had four consults i believe (lost count), and i agree with you. He provides valuable insight not available anywhere else!
Ask the Master what he meant by this. I made a comment to Indy and he called out an observation that he had.
I have been very honest on here. No reason not to be myself. But do I have a dark side? Doesn’t everyone? Perhaps mine just might be a bit darker and a bit deeper than one would think as this halo over my head glows bright.
I do know I am getting to a place to make changes. I feel I am at the fork in the road. This has nothing to do with anyone other than myself.
His insight is told from a non-empathic stance. This is where he has the edge over professional therapist who are welled versed in NPD, at least the ones I engage with.
Sure. I will ask the master.
Master, master, in the UK, how is AH OH dark, do tell?
Any observations u wud like to make? Why do i feel like i am in bed with him wearing handcuffs by using the title ‘master’?! Lolllll!!
Her hair.
“Her hair” – lol stop that!! 😂
I shud have known u wud have a smart answer!! 😄
You feel you are all tied up by him because you have a very active imagination. Fantasize away. No harm no foul.
AH OH, it is not a fantasy at all! I have never been and wud hate to be tied up. I was just trying to add a little humour, that’s all. Trying to give u, the readers, and HG a good laugh! Perhaps i was not too successful?! Lol!
Hope we r good again?
Oh dear jenna, we never were bad. I was just adding to your humor and I understood the connotation with you words. He is dark. It was a compliment I gave you. Hugs my dear as you will know when I am lashing out. You are going to be one of the sister wives and I think the others will agree.
Thx! I like being a sister wife!! 😊👍
Ok i just looked up ‘sister wife.’ It means
“(in a polygamous society) any of the women married to the same man.” (Oxford dictionary). 😣
Maybe i don’t want to be a sister wife after all.
How abt just a sister? 😊
I hope this helps and please share what the Master tells you about his comment.
jenna
BTW I like your greeting to me and this is not being veneer. I like the heart too.
Thx!
Hg u must b travelling. I am waiting eagerly for ur return! I need the support here badly😌
I have returned.
Yay!!💃💃💃
“The Golden Periods for the Shelf and Dirty Little Secret IPSS is not as intense as that for the Candidate (nor the IPPS see below) but it remains addictive. The victim is treated well, future-faked a lot, given comfort crumbs, taken places, confided in, bought gifts and so forth”
This is pretty much where I was stuck. If I was devalued it was done most politely and charmingly. Discarding was just “oh I am busy and have a lot going on, I feel guilty blah blah blah but I love you and you are so important to me and I care about you”.
I feel like I am stuck in purgatory here. I almost wish I had a cruel and nasty devaluation/discard. The niceties are just a mind fuck. I wonder if somewhere he sat and thought to himself “Gabrielle really is a f**king idiot” yet the charm that came out of his mouth was “Gabrielle you are amazing and I love you which is why we have to not talk for awhile”. From what I have heard the guy is not nasty to anyone (except for his wife probably).
I was a secret too. I’m not sure tho if i was an ipps or an ipss. Like you said gbean, deval in the nicest ways. ‘I can’t come today but i’ll make it up to u’ etc.
I have mentioned many times before that I never received a golden period. ::Whomp whomp::
Every once in a while I find myself trying to place the exact time I noticed devaluation was starting. The frightening and sad truth is that I can’t exactly recall because he was never really that good to me.
I remember during the time period in which he was hooking up with me and was living with a girlfriend there were many ups and downs. I definitely recall way more downs. Even when the official relationship began he just gave me a little more (not much more) positive attention. He never called – in fact he tried to get away with not calling me everyday. Texts….HAHA…yeah I would get a nothing of a text once every so often. I swear, getting him to call once a day was a struggle and getting him to text from the beginning of the relationship to the very last moment was like near impossible (other than asking for something or telling me a time to come over etc).
We increasingly would spend more time together. I recall him getting a weird text on his phone in Oct 2012 (we started officially dating in Mid July 2012) and the text was from a weird number that said something about him having a cute ass. Naturally, I looked up the number and it went to a male number I’m pretty sure – it must have been – or an older woman – something that I would have dismissed because it just didn’t seem possible – so I dismissed it.
Now..I’m thinking that fucking piece of shit was NEVER faithful to me. This was the time I was giving him a ridiculous amount of sex and the sexual requests were starting to get weirder. I was giving him probably MORE attention and satisfying all the his sexual requests. We would always fight from day one of the affair to the last day we ever saw each other.
I remember at least two distinct times one being in a parking lot, and the other one in a restaurant when the relationship started and arguing with him thinking – “shit if we are fighting now….this is going to get so much worse.” The arguments were over the same thing if I recall correctly – about him telling his family and friends about me and not hiding me. Months into the relationship – well – probably maybe about a year – I would see emails from a teacher he dated( years before me) that indicated an identical argument had occurred regarding the exact situation. She said the same things I did…he reacted…the same way.
I think what continues to make my mind explode is that there was like physical evidence of the same pattern in the women he dated. The same situations replayed over and over again – the women saying the same fucking things I did and here I am thinking I’m fucking unique – that what we had was “special”.
How the fuck can he not see that he is the fucking problem?????!!! Does he know and he just actively tries to be like nahhhh lets live in denial or like I know I’m an asshole but lets keep repeating the same fucking pattern….
Identical …FUCKING….IDENTICAL…conversations and issues were discussed between all of the girlfriends I could find.
He disgusts me and it honestly disgusts me that I let someone manage down my expectations (because I was trying to be understanding) and abuse me the way he did.
I still laugh to myself when I think of what my ex would say when we would fight sometimes because he would mention a time when we were oh so happy – how we had happy times – I looked at him like he was out of his mind because I DON’T REMEMBER ANY “HAPPY TIMES” – what happy times is this douche rocket trying to refer to????????????????????????????????
You know what…things started getting way worse when I started say no sexually. The sexual requests were getting weirder and like he was getting whiny and pushy and slowly I started avoiding sexual…ANYTHING with him. That is when things got SO MUCH WORSE. I wanted to him to do normal things like call me and text me or do something I WANTED to do for once or I wouldn’t let him insult me or put me down.
THE SIMPLEST OF THINGS like a damn text message was a fight. How useless are you that you can’t even manage to send a text occasionally to make me happy?????????
I figured it out…. I kept giving and giving hoping for some kind of return because I realized he just got out of a relationship and broke a lease etc. I wasn’t seeing any improvement in the way he treated me. He started then TAKING ADVANTAGE of how I was giving – taking more and more. That is when the sexual requests became weirder and weirder. I started getting more irritated because he was asking more of me and giving me the bare minimum. I started feeling used and taken for granted…so I started saying no and I didn’t let him put me down all the fucking time because quite honestly that’s all he did in passive aggressive ways….- Then I started saying no to sexual things…more and more…he got nastier and nastier….
That is what I remember….
I remember he would say “why can’t you give me what I want (sex)?” “That is all I ask of you” “It is so easy to make me happy and it’s like you do it on purpose to punish me”
Doc, he sounds horrible! Glad ur done w him! And u gave him too much sex 😅
Jenna,
In so glad it’s over. I don’t miss anything about him. He was just miserable to be around. He would either whine, bitch, criticize, yell, ignore, or pressure me into something I really didn’t want to do. The level of passive aggressiveness was just unreal. I was constantly in a state of anxiety which explains why I have CPTSD now.
I remember one of the last things he said to me was something about only being able to connect emotionally through sex – something like that.
He would fight with me or upset me and then he would try to have sex with me – constantly pressuring me even when I was crying and yelling at him (usually over something fucked up that he said)…
I mean at the time I thought it was completely messed up but now looking back (after the time and space) I see truly how demented it all was. It was so insensitive, manipulative, mean, and just sexually abusive.
Thank you for including a description of a ‘Bronze Period’. I could never reconcile my experience to anything ‘Golden’!
You are welcome Louise G.
Do you think it’s possible HG, that some narcissists lower mid range for example do not know that they are incapable of love and actually believe that loss of fuel or primary sources leaving them again loss of fuel is actually heart break or do they know that they are faking everything ?
“Do you think it’s possible HG, that some narcissists lower mid range for example do not know that they are incapable of love and actually believe that loss of fuel or primary sources leaving them again loss of fuel is actually heart break ” – correct.
But they would not ‘feel’ heartbtreak, correct? They would more feel uneasy, irritable, restless, etc. mistaking it for heartbreak? Ty
Absolutely correct.
Woohoo i’m correct, said by the expert himself!! 💃💃💃👯👯👯
I reread DE & DEMB and I think that I was the DLS IPSS and I am a NISS to my “friend”and mother. And I was an STS for someone until he tested me and I failed. He discarded me this past April. (I knew it was a discard; it was awesome to recognize it!) You don’t realize that you are an appliance to many narcissists and it is posts like these that remind you that we are all just objects. And for me the GP was one of the worst weapons because it worked so well.
Absolutely right.
my golden period was magical I could not believe my luck in landing such a greatlooking sexy charming and kind man I truly thought I finally found my soul mate I dedicated the song feels like home to him cuz that’s how I felt like I had come home at last it’s kind of funny now looking back on it how good he was at seducing me and charming me in such I way that I fell in love but not so over the top that it seemed at all fake