Heather,
Narcissists can be very subtle in the ways they get to be centre of attention. It is not necessary for them to be the centre of everyone's attention, just their own and a select few. A very good book I read is Narcissism by Alexander Lowen which I found hugely insightful. It describes the full spectrum of narcissistic personality types from slighty egotistical, through borderline personality disorder to psychopathic. And it explains in detail the origins of that behaviour and the whys and wherefores etc. One of the insights I gained from reading it is that narcissists come in many different flavours. They seek to be the perfect "something" but that something can be anything from perfect body beautiful to perfect genius, perfect homemaker etc. I had always had the impression that narcissists were supercilious and nasty but that doesn't have to be the case unless someone manages to show up an imperfection in the image they choose to portray. I actually think my H has a narcissistic image of himself as the perfect "nice guy". In narcissism the image is far more important than the reality and the narcissist will do everything to defend it. Because H has the perfect nice guy as his image he overstretches himself and when he can't achieve being nice to everyone he flies into a rage. If he didn't have to work so hard to uphold this nice guy image and go against the reality of what he feels he wouldn't break down quite so spectacularly when he can no longer sustain it. A person without this narcissistic image can more easily say no and therefore not have to breakdown into a rage when the stress becomes too much. But this is just one example, like I say there are probably as many images as there are people.

If you think of the image the narcissist portrays as a kind of fortress that they have built around their inner vulnerable selves then you can easily see why they defend the image at all costs.

BTW, I got the book to help me prove to myself that H was narcissistic and discovered a lot about my own narcissism along the way . It has made it easier to see where I am being narcissistic and to try to tackle that. I stop dead in my tracks sometimes and think, why am I saying that I'm only saying it to make myself look good.

I really do think from everything I've read in your posts that your H is very narcissistic. I think you would do well to get hold of this book and read it.

Fran

if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs
Erica Jong