NPD- Narcissistic Personality Disorder Part 2

So I learned from my husband how to be self sufficient. I am not completely so but in any situation I always take the option that requires the least intervention from others. I don't allow myself to wallow in self pity or to sit wondering why did I not marry someone who was normal, loving, empathetic and kind. There is no point. It does not serve me or others to do that.

I was going to relay what I discovered about him that made me understand him completely. One of the reasons I am documenting all this here is so that others can benefit. One thing I will say for my husband is that he is consistent. His behaviour is always the same in an argument to the point where even the names he would call me would be the same each time.

It was this among other things that made me realise there is something wrong with him. Don't get me wrong, it took along time of seeing the same pattern in our arguments to trigger that he behaved exactly the same way each time, regardless of when, where or what the argument was about. I found this odd but when you have so much invested in a relationship, you turn your natural survival instincts off or ignore them in order to save the relationship. I know because I did that for a very long time. If you did too, don't blame yourself!
Arguments would always go the same way, I have a problem that I wish to discuss so we can come to a solution. He is offended that I have a problem and refuses to listen. Instead begins to list the multitude of problems he has that he has kindly kept to himself. But since we are talking now, he will tell me all about it. I ask if we can focus on my concern since I opened the discussion, he goes into a tirade of name-calling which always focuses on telling me I am crazy or mental. He does not allow me to get one word in and is totally stone walling me. He becomes loud and aggressive till I can no longer continue. I accept nothing will change and I walk away, he feels vindicated and carries on with what he was doing as if nothing ever happened.
These are the things I have learned about him...
He is always right.
He never needs to apologise.
Don't ever criticise him or put him down especially in front of others, however he can and will do that to others without remorse.
Don't expect him to say "Thank you"
He does not do commitment but expects you to be committed.
He does not talk about his emotion, possibly because he does not have any.
He will however discuss his love for himself continuosly.
He is amazing, always remind him of his beauty, skill, charm, basically feed his ego or it will die!
He will never self reflect but you should always being doing that so you can arrive at the conclusion that you are not treating him as well as you should be and that you are always wrong.

It took so many years to put together this shortlist of his most common and consistent behaviours. One night as I sat in my room feeling so deflated and wondering how my once promising life had turned into this. I decided to Google these crazy idiosyncrasies of his that filled my days. To my complete surprise, Google had a name for them. They actually amounted to a disorder called NPD. I was intrigued and so I gathered as much info on the topic as I could. NDP stands for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, meaning someone who has an over inflated view of themselves. Hell, I knew as soon as I saw the word "Narcissist" this had to be right. The number of times I had called him that over the years, it should have become his surname but he was never offended by it, rather flattered.
All the characteristics he displayed were prevalent in this disorder, it was as if he was the poster boy for it. The all consuming self importance and over sized ego, the lack of empathy for others, the very fragile ego, the fear of shame or being exposed for who you really are. All the classic signs were there in abundance. His character did not stray an inch from the standard profile of an NPD. Here he was in black & white, after all these years...so now what?

Click on Part 3 to find out what I did with this new piece of the puzzle?