What happens when the narcissistic facade cracks under sustained loss — job, status, partner, public exposure. May look like depression, despair, even genuine vulnerability, but typically resolves into renewed grandiosity or rage rather than insight.
After the affair was discovered and his promotion fell through in the same month, he stopped getting out of bed for a week. You thought he was finally letting it in. Then he rebuilt the story — the affair wasn't really an affair, the promotion went to a lesser candidate — and the collapse closed without changing anything.