Egocentric DH - now what?

[Petrarch]

DH had a difficult childhood. His sibling had serious mental issues from a very young age and DH's parents put a lot of time and energy into sibling. Then the mum died young from a severe illness.

I don't remember it being that bad but lately I've noticed more and more that DH always puts himself first, even ahead of the kids. A few examples:

1. DH never eats leftovers but is happy for everyone else to eat leftovers. He will cook something else for himself or eat a takeaway.
2. If we share food, he takes his whole share first. E.g. order a pizza, he will take "his share" of half the pizza or whatever and pile it up on his plate. Everyone else does the normal thing of taking a slice or 2 at a time.
3. DH pays private medical for himself but only for himself.
4. DH is a hyperchondriac, he is ALWAYS "feeling ill" and seeking attention, and fears the worst from the tiniest thing.

I could go on but the situation I exhausting for me. This is becoming more of an issue now when the kids are getting older and they are pointing out at the inequalities.

I've tried to address but I have not got very far. What do I do? Counselling? Please help.

No matter what the issue is, a person has to seek treatment themselves, because they really want it for themselves. Maybe your family can gather together and everyone can share with him what they see, and express their love and concern, like an intervention type thing but not so dramatic or confrontational. Just openly talking about it. Depends on your family dynamic of course. My ex is very selfish, like a spoiled child, probably a lot worse than your DH really. So I know how that feels, and it's not nice. At least you can talk to your kids about it and they can see the value in therapy, working on issues from childhood, etc. It's very difficult if not impossible to convince another adult they should get therapy though. Especially men :/

The leftovers thing wouldn't bother me - if he can be bothered to make something else, perhaps he thinks the leftovers are being saved for someone else.

Pizza thing wouldn't bother me either. Why does it bother you? There isn't a correct way to do it. Why do you think your way is the "normal" way?! He might just not want to have to get up again and get it from the box/might not want other people touching/breathing germs all over it.

The things you list seem to be more indicative of a germ phobia than of selfishness.

1. I don't like leftovers, and generally won't eat them. I'm hair for the rest of the family to have leftovers if they want. I found think that makes me egocentric.
2. I wouldn't take my entire "share" of something like a pizza at once, but we also don't divide things into shares. We each eat as much as we want. But if we decided that each person's share is 3 pieces or whatever, I wouldn't have an issue with everyone taking their three pieces up front.
3. My parents both died young, and I wouldn't say I'm a hypochondriac, but I do make sure I visit my doctor for all my checkups and whatnot, so I can kind of understand that.

happy not hair 🙄

If my husband thought he was the only family member who was worth health insurance, he would be gone

1. DH pays private medical for himself but only for himself

and it’s not a work benefit?

tbf im not sure it’s worth it for dc

Re medical insurance, has DH always had it and it's just rolled over from when he was younger, is it a work benefit or has he recently said "I'm going to get private medical insurance but I only want to insure myself and not the rest of you"?

If you want private medical insurance, why don't you have it? Do you not have equal access to the family finances? Many places offer insurance for married couples. Some let you list dependents too.

If they are the worse things that you can think of then I don’t think he sounds that bad.

If he was taking more than his fair share of the pizza then that would he selfish, but he is allowed to take what he is going to eat, I don’t think that you can dictate the “normal” way to eat pizza.