Being inattentive and distracted: The covert narcissist is self-absorbed, so there is little time and attention given to others.
Jealousy and paranoia: The covert narcissist will constantly want the house, cars, and jobs of friends and neighbors.
Inability to understand his wife’s point of view: With a lack of empathy, he will be unwilling and unable to consider differences of opinions. He will always be right.
Unexpected angry outbursts: Covert narcissists are fragile and overly sensitive, so he could become angry and violent quickly or break down in tears.
Frequently changing jobs: Since he thinks he knows best, the covert narcissist will have conflict with bosses and move from job to job to avoid being fired.
Impulsive purchases: In an attempt to fulfill emotional voids, the covert narcissist will buy expensive items like cars, property, jewelry, or electronics
Issues bonding with children: Again, without a strong sense of empathy, covert narcissists struggle to bond and connect with children at any age.
Legal issues: A covert narcissist thinks that the rules and laws do not apply to them, so they will often engage in illegal activities.
Substance abuse: With covert narcissism, the person may justify their intense substance abuse as a way of coping with “incompetent people.”
Sex and the covert narcissist husband
Covert narcissist husbands are emotionally disengaged and passionless toward any perceived demand, including the “demand” to love. Sex can start out steamy. The wife will talk about being “love bombed” by a man she can’t believe is so perfect for her and eager to please. Later making love will end up feeling like a “favor” he’s doing to you and for you. While initially, the covert narcissist husband will be an ardent lover who is responsive and eager to please, that soon fades once the relationship becomes established. Instead of a partner who is anxious to get away and have private sexual time together, he acts lackluster. You won’t “feel” him in bed. He will become passive, but deeply resentful if you don’t show him your admiration. Wives of covert narcissist husbands often end up feeling “done to” before these same wives gradually withdraw sexually. He’ll then resent you for your lack of sexual interest, despite showing no real interest himself. Your “disinterest” in “pleasing him sexually” is a constant insult he must endure. He wants you to “get help” for your lack of enthusiasm for being sexual with him but takes no responsibility for playing a role. He’ll secretly take away your power while denying he’s doing that.
Passive-aggression.
Clinical Covert Narcissist husbands are heavily passive-aggressive. Like the blatant narcissist, they may feign interest in what their wives want. However, they’ll seldom spontaneously show interest in a sincere or sustained way. They’ll “forget” their wife’s work weekend trip (planned months in advance…) and “accidentally” plan a fishing trip he’s “really been looking forward to.” With a long-suffering tone, he’ll agree to cancel HIS event “as a favor to help her career” and stay with the children, “sacrificing” his fun. Without ever saying so, his wife will simply stop planning weekend trips, especially for pleasure, because she feels his covert misery. Covert Narcissist husbands conveniently forget spousal requests but make no effort to correct the mistake. Or they’ll complete the job incompetently. When confronted with their behavior, they whine that their wife is being “too picky,” or “OCD” in expecting a competent performance, implying she’s a nag, or he’ll mope as he attempts to “meet her demanding standards.”
In the face of failed expectations, he’ll provide some half-hearted, self-serving explanation of why he didn’t follow through. His wife feels his resentment, but it remains unspoken. He exhibits no active joy in her company or desire to celebrate her or their love.
He’s “nice” and “helpful.”
This helpfulness demonstrates that he is being a “good spouse.” The wives of covert narcissist husbands may feel a withering contempt wrapped up in a superficial long-suffering or “helpful” demeanor. He learned this strategy early in childhood, often from a harsh and abusive or guilt-inducing parent.
For the average person, doing one’s share is an organic acceptance of adult living. In contrast, his “helpfulness,” is designed to boost his fragile sense of self. It is also a weapon he uses to defend himself and torture his partner. He can “help” while ending up causing her more work. He may complete promised tasks 80% of the time, but the last 20% will be unpredictable. And if you mention it when he doesn’t do it, he’ll resent you and point out how critical you are of him.
He can’t do anything to please you. The fate of the covert narcissist is to keep track of the folly of others to ease the imagined “unfair judgments” leveled at him by those same people. He’ll exhibit contemptuous behavior such as smirking, stifled mocking laughter, or eye-rolling. But that’s reserved for private interactions. In public, he’s a stellar husband and proves it to anyone who’s watching.
He’s withholding and resentful.
Wives are often confused that their covert husbands can be so helpful and so resentful at the same time. So he won’t ask you to do anything for him but will resent you for not doing it. Asking for help is loading your gun. He substitutes superficial “niceness” in place of genuine honesty and emotional involvement/engagement. He doesn’t tell you what he really thinks (until he does…). He’s too “kind” for that. He’s too “considerate.” You, on the other hand, are the “mean” one who talks directly about what you want, sets goals, and expresses your disappointment. HE isn’t “allowed” to do that. HE keeps his critical comments about you to himself. He silently takes your “abuse” (i.e.: expressed disappointment) but is hurt by it. He resents that you get to express your wants, while he doesn’t. What he wants, he won’t say. “Why bother? Who cares about me?” It’s infuriating.
When provoked, he’ll spew a litany of withheld resentments, and cruel comments which shock their unsuspecting partners. But moments later, the covert narcissist husband will accuse you of being so hostile he sometimes “just can’t take it” and has to “give it back to you.” You will never realize that expressing valid disappointment is considered abusive by the covert narcissist. And you, as the wife, end up carrying all the anger he won’t directly express inside of you. You will feel frustrated and upset by the on-again-off-again style of “engage-ignore.” When he wants you, he’s hurt if you are unavailable. If you want him, you’ll pick up from his behavior that this isn’t the best time. Try and be an “angel” and you’ll fall short. He’s not going to trust that “act.” He knows how “mean” you are and how wary he must be of you. And you are left wondering how you can be nicer to him, so he’ll like you more.
Impeccable hyper-sensitivity.
Covert Narcissist husbands have an impeccable hyper-sensitivity. They will take offense to criticism real or imagined. They bristle at any suggestion that they have failed in any way, even when they clearly have. At the extreme end of the narcissistic continuum, these husbands can be extremely emotionally abusive. Wives may feel emotionally abused but are told they are being emotionally abusive. A wife’s reasonable demands for love, attention, engagement, and sex can be relabeled as cloying, never satisfied, demanding, and overbearing. Your covert narcissistic husband claims that he has been wronged by you if you dare complain about him. And he’ll remind you of all he has done, and how little you’ve appreciated it.
The wives are left asking themselves: “Was I ungrateful? I thought I complimented him…a lot actually…” Their most obvious narcissistic traits are to be witheringly dismissive but in a way that’s hard to put your finger on. Even attempting to identify the expression will be met with complete denial. Or he will skulk off into sullen silence and withdrawal which could go on for days or even weeks. They tend not to comment on how upset they are, preferring to be perfectly self-contained and aloof. Don’t ask the covert narcissist how you’ve offended him. He expects you to not only know but to see how obvious your transgressions are. When he feels any imagined attack, he attacks back.
Don’t look for outward supreme self-possession.
The smugness/superiority is hidden. Blatant in-your-face narcissist husbands are obvious. You can see them coming. They crave attention and demand approval. Covert Narcissist husbands may be sly and much harder to spot. They keenly observe, evaluate, and often silently render abrupt and sometimes merciless judgment. They ruminate about how they aren’t adequately “appreciated.” They have an air of being “absent” or demonstrate overt bored disdain. But when asked directly: “Is something wrong?” they’ll deny it.
Utter and complete self-absorption.
It’s sometimes easy to confuse the Covert Narcissist husband with a garden variety introvert. Here is the essential difference: Introverts may be quiet, but they are fully capable of bestowing attention and paying careful attention. They can love freely and ask good questions. A covert narcissist husband, in contrast, is a reliably poor listener. They pay far more attention to their own relentlessly evaluative inner dialogue. They make a quick real-time assessment of a person or situation. When it captures their attention, they can be delightful company. When it doesn’t, it is clear that they deem it dull, stupid, or beneath them.
Vitamin E deficit
All clinical narcissists have a lack of empathy for others. And a sense of entitlement. Even when their wives complain about the negative impact of their husband’s behaviors, their Covert Narcissist husbands somehow manage to shift the discussion back to their own needs or accomplishments. Or get rageful. Their wives’ unhappiness is a personal injury to them, an intolerable judgment that they hostilely reject. The sentiment seems to be: “You can’t be unhappy with me. That offends me and hurts my feelings!” If you feel like it’s challenging to talk about your own feelings without the conversation turning around to him, you’re witnessing the empathy deficit. And if you are expected to simply “know” what he’s thinking, feeling, or needing, you’re experiencing the mind-reading that is linked to his feelings of deep entitlement. If he withholds vital information from you, it is because he “knows” how you’ll react and doesn’t want to “hear it.” His internal ruminations trump whatever real-world thoughts or feelings you may actually have. He doesn’t have to ask you, he already knows.
Are all displays of narcissism bad? Not according to research. If narcissism is on a continuum, those in the more “normal” range of behavior can bring desirable traits to the relationship, while being capable of keeping in check their own needs and desires in favor of their partners. They have a healthy sense of self. In contrast, clinical covert narcissists have fragile self-esteem. They project confidence but are terrified of the vulnerability and painful self-doubt they feel inside. This is one of the central overt features of the covert narcissist. The overt narcissist actually has often undeserved confidence, but they’ve learned to ignore any evidence to the contrary.
The covert narcissist, in contrast, lives with this painful awareness of being a “faker” and this awareness makes him both reactive and thin-skinned. His belief in his deep worthlessness results in a reactive need for constant reassurance, even admiration, from others. But it must be done cleverly and without being too obvious. If it’s pointed out to him that it’s normal to want to be recognized, he’ll deny it is anything HE personally craves. He’ll try to hide his desperate desires, but when the praise doesn’t come spontaneously his resentment will increase. He’ll covet it. Nurse it. How they act that out is also more covert than their overt counterparts.
He’s a “Nice Guy.” He just doesn’t like YOU.
What is often confusing to wives is that on the surface, this man seems like an all-around “nice guy.” He’s well-liked and outgoing in public. Everyone says so. Those ‘out of the know’ think you are the luckiest woman alive to be married to him. But they don’t live with him. They don’t feel what you feel: that he just doesn’t actually like you but won’t say so. He considers your actions a clear demonstration that he’s made a mistake in marrying you. You’ve let him down terribly by “criticizing” him and not appreciating his specialness. And yet, this is never said in words. But it’s a “mistake” you’ll feel acutely. You’ll know that he truly prefers to spend time doing other things rather than living with, engaging with, loving you.
But he won’t leave. Or if he leaves, he won’t be the one to initiate divorce. He will never be the first to divorce because he’s much too nice for that. He’ll drive you to do it, and often after 20-30 or more years married. These marriages are often long-term, and when they end in divorce, all the casual acquaintances will dispair. “They were such a nice couple. He is such a nice guy. She left him. Terrible that she’d leave such a nice guy.”
