Does your wife challenge you and back up her challenges with tangible negative consequences? Does your social circle agree with your wife and threaten similar consequences, and demand accountability and behavioral change? Does your work environment have a zero-tolerance policy on certain behaviors that are problematic? Are you surrounded by enablers or people who demand you to be flexible? Threats and encouragement are nothing without reinforcement. There has to be an incentive to change a behavior. The incentive has to encompass the emotional and material realms. Then, a personality disordered person can modify some behaviors. I don't agree wholeheartedly with either view- that they can change, or they can't. It's entirely a case-by-case thing. Not everyone has the correct circumstances to change or modify their behaviors, and often narcissists and other PD's create environments that are enabling. They find enabler spouses or make non-enablers submit and become enabling. One thing I remember in my clinical work is that often people with PD's will either try to change and modify their environment and people in it so that it mirrors their own internal reality and worldview. This can mean cutting out those who disagree or do things differently than oneself, or actively trying to control your family/social circle to conform to your needs and views. Most personality disordered people are incredibly effective at doing this, and personality disorders don't exist in a vacuum. They often live with other personality disordered people, and were sometimes raised by similarly disordered people. The mind can adapt, you just need the right conditions and those conditions must be constant and unwavering. Unfortunately, most people with personality disorders don't have those environments or circumstances, and that's just the nature of personality disorders in general.