Number 3: Disappointing gift-givers.
Another telltale sign of a narcissistic husband or partner is they are often disappointing gift-givers, doing the absolute bare minimum if anything at all for you on special occasions. Unless of course you’re being love-bombed and manipulated, then out comes the dog and pony show in all of its grandiosity. Otherwise, he conveniently forgets important dates and seems to enjoy ruining special occasions for you. This comes back to it being all about them. Nothing can ever be about you, because that would take the focus off of them, and they don’t like that.
For example, they cannot abide that your birthday would be a time to celebrate or spoil you in any way. So they’ll find a way to either ignore it or sabotage it. And one way or another, take the focus off of you and make it entirely about them. Even if the attention on them is negative, to a narcissist, any attention is better than no attention.
So they’ll use special occasions as opportunities to pick a fight, act out, disappoint, and hurt you. They’ll go out of their way to cause all manner of unnecessary chaos and drama, then blame you for the whole ordeal, while they siphon your vital life force energy, being the energy vampires that they are, literally feeding off of the negative energy they’ve deliberately manufactured.
Number 4: He’s controlling.
He’ll attempt to control everything: the money, how you manage your home, your time, your relationships, whether or not you work, where you go, what you do, who you spend time with, what you think, what you say, how you feel, what you believe, as well as how you look. And if you think your narcissist is controlling, I recommend you to read this book: ” Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.“
In fact, narcissists are both completely obsessed with and perpetually dissatisfied with how you look, no matter how lean fit, stylish, and beautiful you may be, no matter what you do, or how hard you try, it’s never, ever good enough. Again, unless of course, you’re being love-bombed, but that’s just manipulation.
Number 5: He has substance abuse issues.
What many people don’t realize is that when you are dealing with an active addict, you are dealing with a narcissist, period. Whether they’re addicted to mind-altering substances, such as alcohol or drugs, or they’re addicted to work, sex, gambling, or pornography for that matter, the bottom line is an active addict will be on the spectrum of destructive narcissism. They will have a destructive narcissist personality pattern to some degree, if not a large degree.
Now, whether or not you’re dealing with a full-blown dyed-in-the-wool destructive narcissist remains to be seen, if and when they get into treatment, and get some serious clean and sober recovery time under their belt, that’s when you’ll know whether or not you’re dealing with a person with genuine empathy, or with someone who is lacking in empathy and conscience, and therefore, has high narcissistic traits. If sobriety doesn’t change their demonstrable lack of empathy and conscience, you’ve got a destructive narcissist on your hands.
And make no mistake, 12-step rooms are filled with sober high spectrum destructive narcissists. And of course, that’s not everybody there, but there’s no shortage of narcissists in the rooms of 12-step recovery. So the point is, putting the proverbial cork in the bottle isn’t always enough to solve the issue that you and they are struggling with. But obviously, it can be a big step in the right direction if they’re willing and able to get the help that they need to deal with their addiction.
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