10 Signs of a Husband with Narcissistic Traits

Sign 3: Emotional needs are not attended to.

So, whenever the wife might be upset about something, no matter how legitimate the feelings are, the husband is not going to be supportive. We see a lack of empathy, which, of course, is very common with narcissism. We also see an unwillingness to even get involved with the exploration of feelings. Part of this comes from a lack of depth, but also this comes from self-centeredness. If the emotions that the wife is experiencing interfere with something the husband wants, then his behavior might be even more destructive than just simply ignoring the wife and not engaging her in a conversation. He might also go on the offensive; he might criticize her for being weak and emotional. So, again here, we really see no true connection. The husband is callous and emotionally distant.

Sign 4: Encourages children to disrespect the wife.

This applies to a marriage or a long-term relationship that involves children. We see with this sign that the husband encourages the children to disrespect the wife. The husband not only tries to manipulate the wife directly—which we would expect from somebody who’s narcissistic—but he also tries to manipulate her indirectly by manipulating the children into disrespecting the wife. So, he’s really encouraging the children to take sides with him against the wife. Some of this could be just plain envy; he wants the admiration, and the kids admire the wife.

For the husband, this means he’s not getting as much admiration as he believes he should be getting. Narcissists do not like to share, even if we’re talking about a resource that really cannot be depleted. For example, children could admire both a mother and a father; it’s not like they use all their admiration up on one and don’t have anything left over for the other.

Sign 5: When choosing activities to do together, the husband really only wants to do things that are enjoyable to him.

The selection of television shows, movies, restaurants, vacation destinations, and even something like choosing which friends to hang out with—there’s no give-and-take. He’s always going to have a reason why the wife’s selections don’t work and why his selections make sense. So, in this situation, the wife might find herself really going out and engaging in activities alone. She finds herself going places alone all the time. But when the husband wants to go somewhere, she goes with him because he demands that. Again, this is very consistent with narcissism.

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