Covert narcissist or else borderline with narcissistic tendencies (turns out you can read about that online too).
And it’s indeed strange that you actually *first found out about* these kinds of disorders from her or thanks to her.
She is basically lying every step of the way just to make herself look good.
She is the one who is emotionally abusive, verbally abusive and so forth and she is definitely doing covert abuse and manipulation whether she is actually a narcissist or not.
Makes me wonder how many wives who have accused their husbands of being narcissistic, manipulative, abusive, gaslighting, etc. have either the same problem themselves or something worse or almost as bad/creepy/wrong/false/manipulative/etc.
Wives claiming that their husbands don’t help around the house enough and never did, or only seldom ever did, tends to make me suspicious already just from that, even though I am female and even though I know that some husbands are like that. (If he is a reasonable guy then just ASK in a nice way for his help and he will probably help. A lot of men do think that it is only gentlemanly to assist a lady in distress anyway. [And boy is your wife in distress but *not that kind* of distress. Sigh. 🙄] Most of the wives who aren’t getting enough help around the house that they may genuinely need, they probably just flat out don’t know how to ASK in the right way. They don’t have to nag. Just ask. And no “helpless little ole Southern belle” acts either.)
I knew someone who complained to me that her ex-husband was a covert narcissist and gaslighting her. Turns out part of what he was doing was saying he remembered events differently than she did. That is not gaslighting. Parts of her description of his behavior actually sounded like he could be just very disappointed in her. (Having been very disappointed in her myself, I certainly could easily understand that.) It eventually turned out that certain things about his behavior (which I believe did actually happen) did seem peculiar but did *not* necessarily point directly to narcissism or gaslighting. And he probably actually *didn’t* exactly always help around the house enough but I suspect strongly that a lot of it was not even his fault. He may have not been at home enough to be able to or she may have not known how to ask. (Or both.)
Anyway. What I believe his former wife *somehow* did not happen to pick up on is that a husband can grow gradually more forgetful and gradually more easily annoyed and gradually less helpful around the house, *without* being exactly a narcissist or gaslighting anyone. Not known if perhaps his problem might be a type or premature aging or some other type of brain problem or what, but it just does not really seem like narcissism to me.
Anyway I am on her side about some of his behavior being incredibly annoying and frustrating, but *not* on her side about its being narcissistic and/or gaslighting. I think that she probably does not know enough to know what that is.
Ironically enough, however, I *finally* found out that some of her behavior toward me, a long time ago, could possibly fit the profile for borderline with narcissistic tendencies. (If she does have or did have any such tendencies then I hope very much that it was only temporary.) This was *before* her ex-husband supposedly traumatized her, damaged her or did *anything* to her. She already damaged me, back then. Her behavior toward me was emotionally abusive. I never found out all the reasons why but suspect that she herself was probably emotionally abused in childhood and just did not know very much about how to behave a different way or how to not become like that in late adolescence and/or early adulthood.
And I sometimes wonder what did she do to her husband or did he really only abuse her or did they both abuse each other or what.
Ironically enough, she is exactly the very person who got me acquainted with the topic of covert narcissism in the first place.
She is probably *not* a covert narcissist as far as I can tell but apparently it is not at all unusual for borderlines, and people who act like they could be borderline, to have a few narcissistic tendencies every once in a while.
But anyway it was indeed weird for me when I finally discovered that the only person I ever had known who had ever seemed to have any narcissistic tendencies…was her.
It’s peculiar sometimes about these things.
Who’s right, who’s wrong, and I guess only time will tell.
Her ex-husband could easily be a lot more extreme than she is. I really don’t know because I have not seen him or known him in quite a long time. So I really am trying to at least give her the benefit of the doubt.
In the case of your wife, however, from your very detailed description I am very sure that she is the one with the problem (with possibly *several different* problems).
Please divorce that woman as soon as possible.
And I hope you can get custody of the kids.
Good luck.