If you’d ever met him, even in his younger days, you would probably have found it difficult to get a word in edgeways. He has a tendency to shout people down if they try to speak, and he interrupts constantly. Dennis’s conversation is purely based upon stories about his life, which he tells in minute detail, holding court for hours around a dinner table. He will talk about people you have never met, and about his former career, which he explains in grand terms. And, if he is unfortunate enough to lose control of the conversation at the table, he will start quoting pretentious, erudite-sounding poetry from his boarding school days, in a voice so loud that he will actually be shouting, until everyone has to stop their conversations and listen.
Dennis will point out throughout his anecdotes what an excellent memory he has for detail, and brag about how switched on he is. In fact, one of his favourite phrases is “Not a blade of grass moves without me knowing about it.” He’s always been vain too - a comb is always in his back pocket, and if you spent any time with him he’d be likely at some stage to look in the mirror and say to himself, “God Dennis, you’re one handsome bas***d.” It’s all done with a big smile though. Disarming. At first.
At these events, his long-suffering wife will be silent, until asked to confirm something in his stories, which she will jump to immediately with the girly giggle that is expected of her, and which has become automatic over 40 years of marriage.  The rest of the time she looks bored, empty, and utterly disengaged. A once vivacious woman, who loved to dance and laugh. She hasn’t felt heard or seen for decades.
Dennis might, at some stage, ask you a token question about your life, if you happened to be at one of these events. But if your answer lasted more than a sentence, he would start jiggling his hands and legs impatiently, and even humming tunelessly over you, before finally cutting you off. He would not listen to your answer, and certainly would not be able to talk to you further about it. Dennis doesn’t do real two way conversation. He talks at you, not with you.
In restaurants, Dennis orders for his wife, without consulting with her, in an upper class accent that bears no resemblance whatsoever to his normal voice. He’s slightly cold and aloof to the wait staff, but not openly rude, not like you hear narcissists are supposed to be.
When it comes to control, Dennis has taken over most of his wife’s roles in the house, except for the most menial, and is also in charge of all the finances and bills. Any changes to the house are decided by him, and all interior design and furniture buying decisions are exclusively his realm. A few years ago, his wife was disappointed that when he re-did the kitchen he did not install a new dishwasher in place of the old one, but she did not make a fuss to him, and just got on with the washing-up as expected. She doesn’t know how she’d cope without him, although she has fantasized about leaving ever since the children left home. After all, she’s in her seventies herself now.
Dennis has even stopped his wife from planning and cooking the meals, wearing her down with years of ‘good humoured’ critiques of her offerings, and she’s been downgraded to just cleaning up the mess he makes whilst cooking. She feels she should be grateful that she doesn’t have to cook, but can’t quite articulate why she just feels angry.  Dennis’s meals are pretty poor, but delivered with such great fanfare that no one would ever dare tell him. He’s convinced that he is a superior chef.


His wife lost all of her feistiness decades ago, and her world now revolves exclusively around Dennis’s plans and wants. She has had no friends at all for years, and has barely any contact with her large family of origin, although Dennis’s family, who have never approved of his wife, have always been in the picture. She had enjoyed working before her marriage, and briefly, during, but Dennis had made it clear that he wanted her to be at home, so she gave up a job she loved. When free to speak, when Dennis or any of her children are out of earshot, she will tell you, as the outsider, wistful stories of her days at work, in hushed tones, so that the family does not hear. But as soon as they reappear, you’ll be struck by how abruptly and guiltily she changes the subject, and reverts back to her default subservience.


When the children were little, money had been extremely tight, but Dennis had insisted upon buying a large house on the very best avenue in the area, because image is important to Dennis. He justified it in financial terms, in his usual overbearing, know-it-all way. It seemed to make sense to his wife at the time, and she bowed to his superior intellect.


But the house was a wreck, and needed years of work doing on it, and Dennis put his young family to work on it with him, as they could not afford tradesmen. All the work done on the house had to be absolutely perfect - not even a minimally wonky tile, or the slightest bump in the walls. It was extremely slow going, and the young children would spend endless hours sanding down paintwork to get it ready for Dennis’s painting. It took decades for the house to be finished, and the children spent their entire childhoods living in a building site. And when the lounge was finally finished to perfection, with a flawless cream carpet, the room was locked by Dennis, and opened only occasionally for visitors, his own children having to occupy even less of the house than before.


The family struggled financially, as the mortgage payments were huge, and actually went hungry at times and were poorly clothed.  But, as the breadwinner, Dennis would always find enough for a couple of pints of beer in the pub, and would sometimes tantalise his young kids by returning to the house with a Chinese takeaway for just himself. His wife, his enabler, as she now realises, never said a word about her rising resentment.


Dennis used to be prone to terrifying rages, and would smash things up. He would slash furniture with a knife, and would threaten suicide. The children would huddle with their mother as he raged violently, and they never knew what kind of mood he would be in. They did notice, however, that during these uncontrollable outbursts he was able to avoid damaging the baby grand piano that he had managed to procure. Dennis knew better then to damage such a status symbol. His children had been forced, bullied and coerced  into have piano lessons up to a high standard, and they carried their resentment into adulthood, never touching it again. Dennis can’t play a note, but will tell you that he has a fine singing voice, and is a natural musician.


He refused to get a TV in the house for many years, much to the disappointment of the children, in the days before the internet was available for entertainment, and most of their years at home were spent without one. Dennis believed vehemently that TV was a waste of time, until he fancied one for himself, several years later, when most of the kids had left home. He has spent hours a day in front of the television ever since. By now it will come as no surprise to you as to who is in charge of the remote control, although Dennis’s wife is expected to sit and watch his choice of shows with him, in between bringing him drinks and snacks.


In spite of it all, Dennis’s children grew up desperate for his approval. At times he would cut all contact with them if they did not succumb to his will - sometimes for years. But in spite of this, their desperate need for his approval and conditional love continued into their adulthoods, even when they became parents themselves. With Dennis, even now, there is always a golden child, although who that is at any one time varies, depending who aligns with him in the latest invented family drama. For his offspring, one minute you are flavour of the month, and the next, a huge disappointment. There is no in between. Triangulating, backstabbing and badmouthing one another is the norm in this family, especially when it comes to each other’s choice of spouses, and under the surface someone is always getting the silent treatment. Although in public, it is always hugs and giant smiles, and over the top professions of love. The image of a perfect happy family, to be maintained at all costs.


And in spite of all of this, Dennis genuinely sees himself as the ultimate family man - a loving father and husband, and his eyes will suddenly well up as he tells you this, for just a second or two. Still moved by, and believing these shallow displays of emotion, his adult children orbit around him with their own offspring in tow to this day, unaware of their roles as mere bit parts in his show. They probably even agree with his own assessment of his fine, upstanding character, so enmeshed are they in his world and in their own dysfunctional upbringing. Staunchly religious, none of the family would ever miss a Sunday in church - not only would they have to deal with God’s disapproval, but, more terrifyingly, their father’s.


Although he might sound like a fictional cartoon villain, Dennis is in fact real. He clearly fits the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Of course, not all narcissists are as cliched as Dennis, and most are nowhere near as easy to spot. But what is frightening about this, is that even those overt narcissists like Dennis seem to go unnoticed and undiagnosed. They simply hide in plain sight, wreaking havoc on the lives of those around them, until the day that someone finally sees the light, and breaks free.