Is my husband a narcissist?

[Daisychain88]

I am struggling to understand if he is. I have always suspected it. But then I have also given him excuses because he has an avoidant attachment style aswel.
I've felt fuzzy headed & confused for a decade ever since I saw him for truly who he is... we're married.
He's struggled massively after I've birthed 2 kids. He hates the attention going off him & resents me and puts unreasonable expectations on me. He wants me to do everything & is always complaining about me when I try my best for him.
It was my birthday recently & he made the whole day about him. What happened was I read his birthday card & the message inside was like it was written to a friend. I laughed & said ah ok I would've expected something more romantic. For this reason he made my whole day hell. He carried through with all the plans but it was all done passive aggressively. I felt like crying at dinner it was awful. He says he cannot believe after all the effort hes gone through that I'm so ungrateful and he ripped the card up. I was just shocked. I never want to spend my birthday with him. He said on his birthday he wants no gifts from me its in a few weeks & it makes me sick to my stomach. It's like can't do right can't do wrong. I find him to be emotionally abusive along with his narcissistic traits. Am I missing something here? Is it me that's wrong?

Ultimately it does not matter if he could be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder or just has narcissistic traits. He makes you miserable and treats you like crap. You don't need a diagnosis to realize that this man is just not suitable for a relationship. Make you preparations to get out of that hell.

I would agree with the first poster. Definitely consider your options for leaving him. You have a journey ahead but don’t waste your life feeling miserable and abused. What was his upbringing like? And have you already considered leaving him?

what a twat.

His father was quite controlling towards his mum. This is something I've discovered and my husband has admitted he has issues due to this.
He's getting therapy at the moment we had a horrible patch and I told him I don't want to be with him. He said he will get therapy and although I see a few changes it's just not good enough. I don't know whether to wait and see as he has these sudden outbursts and then expects me to be emotionally close to him. He acts like a d*ck and then blames me for the failure of our marriage. He says I don't do enough but I'm so drained with his constant demands and criticisms.
Because he's getting help i decided to stay and see and if he still can't change ill have to consider my options.

Love, real change is hard and it takes years of work, if it happens at all. Are you ready to put your life on hold for years on just a vague possibility, knowing that he will continue to be a dick throughout the process?
If he is indeed a narcissist or has any other personality disorder, he will not change at all. Those disorders are notoriously resistant to treatment.
I just wanted to let you know what you're in for. Good luck.

Hello OP. Happy Birthday to you.

Ex-DP was exactly like what you describe above. One birthday, my lovely neighbour made and brought over a small cake for me (lovely). She came over to drop the cake off while we were on our way out (we had no reservations or timeline to be anywhere in particular so the 5 mins I spent chatting to her was no big deal).

Well...he was huffing and puffing and so annoyed to the point where he literally walked out of the apartment and mumbled something about waiting in the car and for me to hurry up. I was mortified, apologised to my friend, made up an excuse that we were running late and left.

The entire car ride he was in a sulk (and no, there was no surprise from him or anything in case readers think this is why he was in a sulk).

Another time, I was travelling alone (had gone to see my ill father abroad) and on the way back to.the UK, the airline upgraded me to a business class seat. I was so grateful. I called him to tell him and all I got was 'why they'd do that for? I never get upgraded? What's so special.about you?'

They never change. This will be your life

He is very much a product of his own upbringing ie like father like son.

Is he currently in therapy or is he going to get therapy?. I ask only as you’ve written both. Regardless of why he is like he is it’s not your fault and you do not have to hang around waiting for him to have some epiphany that is unlikely to happen. He does this too because he can. He is likely to need years of therapy in any case.

You can always change your mind about staying, staying with him is not easier for you.

don’t waste your life on him and plan your exit from this awful sounding marriage,

My ex was a narcissist and very very similar. Therapy won’t change him as he won’t continue with it. Facing the truth is too painful. His childhood was a large part of why he was who he was but he tried therapy several times - including lying about going for months!- and literally no difference. They think they know better than everyone so cannot be “fixed”. Run!!! I wish I had the first time instead of the last time when so much damage had been done

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. You want your kids to grow up thinking their dad’s treatment of you is acceptable and that this is how couples behave in relationships?. You’re currently showing them this is acceptable to you.

It can be quite difficult to diagnose a narcissist as separate from your ordinary garden variety unpleasant, selfish person.

I think one distinctive feature about narcissists is how much energy they get from conflict and seem almost bored when things are quiet or peaceful. They can go to great lengths to deliberately engineer conflict and keep going past when most people would be exhausted. For example they might send you 100 text messages in a day or write a stream of extremely long emails detailing what they see wrong with you. They go to a lot of effort, for example telephone all your mutual friends as part of a smear campaign. Most non narcissistic people don’t have time for that, even the unpleasant ones. Similarly, narcissists will often love bomb and charm their subjects at the start of a dating process. The relationship is then typically moved very fast to engagement, pregnancy, living together or marriage.

In essence, they can have very low self worth, masked by a very strong sense of entitlement and grandiosity. So rejecting them can send them off the rails.

Your partner is at least open to therapy. Many narcissists on the other hand do not often go to therapy, because they do not see anything wrong with them or what they do.

My understanding is that Narcissists can't change
They can learn by rote how they are expected to be and if they choose to take on board those lessons, they can become the 'rote person' but they can't actually STOP being a narc and become an empath (for example) or "normal" (for example)

Narcissist is who they are

Proper Narcissists , not just people with some narc tendencies, are DNA deep Narcissists

Your husband definitely sounds as though he's a dna deep narc

He won't change. Therapy won't change him. But he might decide to try on some of society's expectations and norms for size, learned through therapy

There's a guy on urube who explains Narcissists and all the levels of Narcissism.....he's a narcissist himself apparently.......HG Tudor

THIS