10 Signs of a Husband with Narcissistic Traits

Sign 1: Infidelity wrapped up with fantasy..

We see here that we have infidelity, and this is kind of wrapped up with fantasy. For the narcissistic husband, the wife is really never good enough; she’s never attractive enough. She’s not an ideal partner; he thinks he can do better. He believes he deserves to have a better wife—again, a sense of entitlement. So, if you combine this dissatisfaction with the fantasies of success, power, wealth, and the ideal love that we see associated with grandiose narcissism, it’s a recipe for an affair.

Now, having an affair by itself is actually quite destructive, but with the narcissistic husband, it’s really beyond that. He maintains a belief that he has a right to have additional romantic partners, so he’s really not doing anything wrong in his mind. So, again here, we’re seeing that sense of entitlement being quite pronounced. At an extreme level, the husband is offended that the wife could possibly believe that she’s good enough to the extent where he would not have to have additional relationships.

Sign 2: Controlling the wife’s appearance.

The husband wants to control his wife’s appearance. He wants attention from others and, of course, has the fantasy of the ideal love that I talked about before. Therefore, he wants the wife to look a certain way—to be exceptionally attractive and appealing, even to other men. One of the common areas where the husband can become demanding is around weight management, usually criticizing an increase in weight more so than a decrease.

We see no insight here, no compassion, no recognition that weight management can be very difficult. Rather, we just see criticism, guilt trips, and a general attitude of disgust toward the wife. Interestingly, if the wife suggests that the husband do something to increase his physical attractiveness, like “I’ll work on this if you work on that” type of a situation, this is offensive to the husband.

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