Attaching
I don’t have a vanisher, more a distant contacter... but I definitely think he would have vanished if it weren’t for our kids. Much of what I’ve read on this thread resonates with me, more than the boomerang or clinger types. I think he keeps his distance mainly because it protects him from the guilt he feels when he sees me. Not because he loves me any more or less than other MLC types. He is also very in control of his emotions so he would not ever be the type to show the emotional cycling that is actually going on in his head.
I think the biggest challenge with a vanisher is to hang on to your own sanity and sense of reality, as well as dealing with all the practical fallout they have run from. Fight for it hard, and shut down the internal and external voices that try to tell you something different. It's an act of mental discipline really.
1. No, this is NOT normal behaviour for a healthy adult. Do not let anyone tell you it is.
2. You did not imagine your spouse, life, marriage or family. Trust your own memories and judgement.
3. Vanishers run. People run when they are afraid. It isn't your fear to fix. If they do, they will stop running.
4. It is very easy to believe that vanishers love you less, blame you more or have a better shiny new life. See #1...and control the assumptions you make. You don't know but you can choose what to think. It could be just as true that they run to protect you, that they are an invisible hot mess of shame and fear, that they think of you every day, that they are not happy at all but stuck, that they cry every night. Choose to believe what will help you right now.
5. You need to find a way to deal with the practicalities and heal without answers right now. Answers may come in time, but right now keep it simple...they ran, it isn't normal, it isn't about you, you can't fix it because it is their flawed coping strategy, it is as it is right now, you don't know what will happen to them, focus on what you do know and can control. That's enough.
Treasur this is exactly my issue. As soon as he walked out on me after 22 yrs I instinctively knew that there was something wrong with him.. but as time goes by the voices in my head start to doubt and question whether this is really MLC or if he really is just happier in his new life. I have to keep reminding of myself of how this has all gone down, that he really has followed the MLC script, and that he is not acting like a normal adult.
Still, my MLCer hasn’t done alot of crazy. He literally moved 2 suburbs away (10 minutes) and has just carried on as though nothing else has changed. He will not admit OW exists, but I know she does. He has cut contact with anyone who challenges him on his behaviour. If anything he has become more aware of the kids and what is going on in their lives than the previous 18months before BD. After completing avoiding me for first 6 mo, he talks to me but only things do with the kids schedules. Sometimes it’s only through text messages or comes via the kids. That’s when I know he is angry with me... but as I don’t really see him, I know it’s not anything I’ve done... the cycling is just all in his head.
He has told me he ‘feels guilty but that is not any reason to change out circumstance’ and that walking out on us ‘was the most difficult decision of his life’. The day we signed financial separation papers he told me was the saddest day of his life.
Still, I think he truly believes he has made the right choice. He seems to think I’ll be better off without him, and told me ‘I deserve to be happy in all parts of my life’. What I don’t get is the I wasn’t unhappy before he left... but now realise he had been projecting his own unhappiness onto me.
I sometimes wish he would boomerang but I also think if he did it would be much harder to detach.
Anyone else have a vanisher? 12
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