Is my husband a NARC?

My husband (31M) and I (27F) have been together for a total of 8 years, married for 3. We met when I was 18 and started dating when I was 19. I had a few boyfriends/guys I was seeing before him but nothing serious that I can actually make comparisons to. In our dating years we had our fair share of fights (like any other couple) and usually these fights lasted a day or 2 (note that we didn’t live together until we got married - I have strict/religious parents). Our fights were usually about stupid stuff but looking back the signs were all there and I just never realised/was too blinded by “love” to see/understand? After talking about marriage and then getting engaged things got better and we were excited about planning the wedding etc but when we got married things just got worse, I feel.

We’ve been married for 3 years and he’s not once planned a holiday or even a staycation. (Please keep in mind that I don’t wish for anything extravagant or fancy, I just want to feel appreciated and/or thought of with actions and not just words/unkept promises.) Somehow we always end up having a fight or argument a day before or on the day of a special day such as anniversary or birthday to later have him use the fight as an excuse for not getting a gift or celebrating the occasion. I’m the one usually getting him gifts and I always hear excuses from him such as “I didn’t have money” or “I was going to get you XYZ” or “I was going to take you to XYZ” but it always words and no action or “I was going to”.

He cannot hold a job down. He always ends up leaving his job because “my boss is an asshole”, “the pay was crap” or “I had to beg for my money” and he’ll be in between jobs most of the time. He blames the sector he works in saying that it’s difficult and that’s just how it is and that I should be more understanding about it. I pay the rent and utilities and keep track of almost everything that needs to be done and its very seldom that he pays a bill when we go out for food. When my money runs out (after spending it in the both of us) we literally struggle until my next paycheck because he “cant get his weekly pay from work because of XYZ” or he’s gambled it away secretly and made excuses. He never took out even 1 credit card, both credit cards we use are in my name and both are maxed out at the moment because I can’t pay them. I was recently unemployed for 3-4 months this year after leaving a very toxic work environment, after discussing it with him first. He then went ahead and left his job a week a later and decided to start a new career path with no guarantee of a stable income which lead to me loaning money from my dad and taking out the second credit card mentioned above because we literally were eating dry bread. I couldn’t lean on him for financial support while I was unemployed.

The name calling. I gained about 10-12 kg after we got married but my weight always fluctuated anyway so it never really bothered me much. However, my husband started making snide remarks about how clothes look on me and how I’ve gained weight and started using this against me in arguments. He would call me fat, say I look like his overweight brother, say that I don’t look like a woman and add many more insulting and cursing into this (I’ll spare you guys the cursing). All this obviously lead to me feeling bad about my body and a bit self-conscious, also leading me to shut down sexually because knowing how he felt about my body just made me want to hide myself. My libido decreased immensely which lead to more fights saying that I’m probably cheating on him and that’s why I don’t want to be intimate with him. He just isn’t aware that his words and actions have a major part in a woman’s libido and that foreplay is not just touching each other before sex. If I don’t feel safe mentally, how am I supposed to be intimate with you?

The comparing and belittling. He will always compare himself/me to others, or himself with me. Everything is a competition. I’d come home from work or finish work at home (I just started WFM 3 months ago) and I’d say “oh I had a hectic day, I’m so tired” and he’d answer with “ohh if only you worked in my place for a day you’d probably go insane”. He belittles my work and my education (I never went to university), even though I’ve come a long way and gotten to higher positions over time. He always sees himself as “different” from others and belittles others on a lot of topics. He dismisses me a lot when I speak of something, calling me “miss know-it-all”. When we’re in company he always praises me and brags about how luck he is. He even had my name tattooed on his neck and our friends envy this “perfect” relationship we have but he’s very different behind closed doors. (PS there’s no physical abuse. He knows he can’t try that shit with me).

Zero accountability, projecting & playing victim. My emotions are always seen as “nagging” or me just “exaggerating”. I get pretty emotional when trying to express my feelings and I cry when I’m frustrated. He always gets defensive when I bring up something that bothers me and then blames me for his actions saying “I wouldn’t have said/done XYZ if you didn’t do ABC”. He gets upset when I ask him to pack the dishwasher correctly or to becareful of crumbs on the couch or to not spill stuff on the furniture but then later call me “dirty” because I refuse to clean the house as I am not a maid. He always shouts saying I never apologise or take responsibility for my actions and that I always blame him for everything and that I’m never happy with anything he does when he’s the ine always blaming me? He recently used suicide as manipulation for me to feel sorry for him after I confronted him about job-hopping and said I’m putting too much pressure on him.

The love-bombing & pretending that nothing happened. After fights/arguments when I want to speak or expect an apology for his crappy behavior, I get told that I’m always stuck in the past and that I should forget about it. OR the best; “you’ve just ruined my fucking day because you want to talk about something that has already passed. Get over it already”. He tells me that I make things up or that I fixate in things too much. He just pretends like everything is back to normal and tries to kiss me and then exaggerates his affection by calling me loving names and doing extra things he never usually does but hardly ever apologizes (when he does it’s like a half-ass apology that includes him saying “I still stand behind everything I said but let’s it fight anymore. If you don’t do XYZ, I won’t have to say/do those things again”). I literally tell him that his words and actions play over and over in my head causing me to not want to be intimate with him and that he needs to change to see change from me, but he blames me and says that I have a problem and that there’s something wrong with my “womanhood”.

He also almost always (like 80% of the time) threatens divorce during an argument and obviously never goes through with it and when I bring up the subject jokingly saying “oh I thought we were getting a divorce” he’d just say “I said that because you made me mad”.

The list of the things he does that pisses me off/breaks my heart goes on but I think this sums most of it up. I’m sorry for the long post but I just needed to vent and needed an opinion from a third person on whether or not my husband is a narcissist or not? I’ve been battling with myself for months about whether or not I should end this relationship and I will be getting therapy soon either way. Thank you 🥺