Is wife NPD

I have been married for 13 years and during them my wife has been emotionally distant, never being able to express herself in a loving way, very selfish and emotionally mean to me. She has had 15 one night stands behind my back and tells me the reason for them was she was looking for attention. Now she has never lacked in the attention department from me at all, I have for 13 years catered to her every need no matter what it was and never expecting or getting anything in return from her. Now I just found out about a year ago about all the cheating, I had known of a couple times years ago but put it aside and tried to move on with our marriage never knowing the actual extent of the cheating at that time, the last one was about 6 years ago. Anyway I am not sure if NPD causes cheating but from what I have read on it she has other signs of it. She lies so easily, and is very good at manipulating me into believing anything she says. Like I said she is emotionally distant having a very hard time expressing her feelings to me or even saying what is in her head, sometimes it is almost like she is a vegetable where nothing is going on upstairs and I feel like I talk to a brick wall. She gets angry at anything I say that would be considered criticism and takes it as a personal attack on her, which is the only time she is good at telling me what she feels or is thanking. She is very cold and seems to have no empathy towards my feelings and needs and has a very hard time making anything about me, it always has to be about her and what she needs. Anything that she does do for me is made out to be a lot bigger deal then what it actual was, while I do my hardest to give her the grandest things she could dream of. In the past she had many jobs that never lasted over a couple months and she was fired from every one then blamed it on someone or something else other then herself. Now I have read some of the post on hear where there spouse with NPD is very abusive yelling very bad things, but she has never really done that it has been subtle things she says in a manipulating way to make me feel guilty for the things she has done, leaving me to feel like all of this is my fault but she does get angry very quick at anything I say and then locks herself away her tempers is bad but not in a real violent way. It is like I am dealing with a child when I try to discuss anything to her that would be of an adult type of conversation, it seems like my words go right threw her and she does not understand what is being said. And the things that she does do and say seem so irrational like a child would do not thinking before they act. There are many more signs but I won’t go threw all of them or this would be 10 pages long. She has read about NPD with me and does acknowledge she has some kind of issue and we are trying to reconcile our marriage and move on, but I am having a very hard time with this because she just does not seem to grasp some of the things she does that still hurt. I do not know what to do I need to see more empathy and regret for what she has done and see her busting her butt for me, but her lack of emotion and being involved with my needs is killing me. I can tell her point blank what I need emotionally or what ever and she just does not get it, and when I get upset she turns it around making me feel guilty for upsetting her, she makes her feelings out to be more important then mine. Any idea what I am dealing with here, and suggestions on what I can do, I don’t think she would do well in counseling I think she would just clam up like she does with me, and then I would have to go home and deal with her being upset. Thank you for any help that can be given.

With all the cheating, pathological lying, and attention seeking your wife seems to me to be more Histrionic Personality Disordered than anything although her emotional coldness towards you is reminiscent of Anti Social Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder but its natural for someone with one primary personality disorder to be diagnosed with others or traits of others if and when they go in for treatment so here's what I think...

I think your wife is primarily histrionic but has a touch of NPD due to her emotional coldness.

However if you can tell me what traits made you fall in love with her in the first place what I think may change.

I mean if you fell in love with her because of charm, intelligence and wit that to me suggests NPD or ASPD but if you fell in love with her due to her at first being very flirtatious, dramatic, sexually seductive and acting like an adorable gullible little girl then she probably has HPD and is now acting emotionally cold towards you because she has you and no longer has to wear her other false mask of flirtatious dramatic behaviour which of course takes up a lot of energy for those people to perform.

Thank you for your reply. I fell in love because of her charm, and yes she was seductive then and flirtatious and that is something that she has done in front of me for years to other people also that has drove me crazy!! She was out going and very friendly and still has a hard time with that. She will say things or act ways that others believe to be flirting but she says that she does not know she is doing it. And yes that charm has worn off from me, and the seductive chasing manor that she had towards me has left like you said she has me! Why bother any longer. I just don’t know what to do, like I said she knows she has a problem and has tried to change. She goes to church now all the time and I do feel sometimes like she will not cheat ever again, but on the other had she has lied so many times I still feel very protective or cautious plus I don’t know how she knows she wont when she really does not know why she had to in the first place. Is there a way to get someone like this to open up and be a caring giving person, or am I stuck with her being a selfish cold person for ever?

Focus on the pattern of behavior, the extent of the deceit, its pervasiveness and continuance, that should answer your question. The best advice would be to save yourself and leave, find someone who is capable of really loving and respecting you.

I think that this lady has more in common with a HPD than with an NPD too. My girlfiend (no typo! ) was clearly a HPD but I initially thought she was a psychopath, then a narcissist, then finally I hit upon (the undoubtedly correct) histrionic. Of course, these categories overlap much like a Venn Diagram.

I think that what gives it away is her promiscuity, together with the fact that it was her charm and sweet "little girl lost" demeanour that attracted you to her in the first place.