[nah]

Welcome back Nah...thought that the dreaded Vanishing epidemic had  succumbed another victim 😂😂😂.  Hope all is well.

Nope, I'm always here just really busy lately. I guess I will always be a lifer on here. 

  If a person is capable of suppressing that guilt for the remainder of their life, they are not a person we want in our lives.

Wow... You're way ahead of the game than I was at your timeline. 

Unfortunately, It seems the vanishers are better at avoidance than the other MLCers.  Often that makes the LBSers feel that they didn't love us as much as the other MCLers.  I don't believe that at all.  It's just that their guilt is bigger.  Doesn't really change the outcome though, except that we tend to detach quicker b/c they aren't in our faces all the time.

If they do find their way home, we usually no longer give a sh!t.

Their loss.

[Nas]

Welcome back Nah...thought that the dreaded Vanishing epidemic had  succumbed another victim 😂😂😂.  Hope all is well.

Nope, I'm always here just really busy lately. I guess I will always be a lifer on here. 

Well hallelujah for that.

  If a person is capable of suppressing that guilt for the remainder of their life, they are not a person we want in our lives.

Wow... You're way ahead of the game than I was at your timeline. 

Unfortunately, It seems the vanishers are better at avoidance than the other MLCers.  Often that makes the LBSers feel that they didn't love us as much as the other MCLers.  I don't believe that at all.  It's just that their guilt is bigger.  Doesn't really change the outcome though, except that we tend to detach quicker b/c they aren't in our faces all the time.

If they do find their way home, we usually no longer give a sh!t.

Their loss.

I can't wait for the day I can say "his loss" and mean it!

[Treasur]

What inthevalley said has always made sense to me (or did once I stopped running around in shock like a beheaded chicken!)
Either they are profoundly broken...in which case, safer to stay away until or unless they show real signs of being a sane decent adult again. And for vanishers, that means un-vanishing in an honest respectful way. Getting off the avoidance train.
Or
They will choose to keep running and avoiding forever, blaming others instead of taking responsibility for their own actions...in which case, they will continue to use and abuse and lie to everyone in their life so again who would want that?

I agree with Nah that the sort of secret sorrow that comes with a vanisher is feeling that perhaps we were less loved, less important, not worth even a conversation. Idk if that is true in their heads tbh. I suspect not, I suspect it might even be almost the opposite - that they hate themselves more and can't bear the guilt of seeing us or their old life at all. That they have simply burnt too many bridges and built too big a wall for too long.

Having said that though, when my xh unleashed some pop up crazy monster during his divorce process, I found myself VERY grateful not to have had a monster clinger full of venom and bonkers stuff. It is exhausting and impossible to deal with imho. 

[Tyks]

I decided to post my email from the vanisher so that you guys could see it.  Some of it explains why they make themselves scarce (most we already know) but I find it very insightful after 2.5 years of barely any contact.  Any thoughts???  Maybe if I were not so detached I might actually start to fight... but no thank you at this point.  And I am not really sure why he has anger towards me lol... No point talking to him because it just goes back and forth, back and forth and nothing ever gets closure

I am not sure what we need to say about our 20 year relationship. We are divorced and apart for 2 years. The relationship and life we had was not regretful at all. We had good times and bad but at the end I did what I did and it was not the best way to handle it. Which I have said before, the past cannot be changed all we can do is move forward. If you are going to throw this $h!te in my face that is going to be difficult.
I don't hate you, I just don't know how to deal with you. I do, at times, feel anger when dealing with you. I am not sure if it is anger at myself for the way things ended or agitation at you. I really don't know.

How am I supposed to treat you exactly. You can't bring yourself to drop the kids off at my place. You can't be there when I pick D16 up so what I am supposed to do. You cut off communication until it suits you.  Again I really don't know. Either we move on and try to be respectful to each other or we hold on to the past and continue like this.

I don't want to sling mud and say you did this or didn't do that but for years I felt underappreciated and everything I did was for the family but yet even today you say I should have done more. I feel like I gave and gave but you still wanted more. Then at the end I wanted to stay strong to the way I felt and not be swayed by you so I did stay away and found it difficult to be around you. I waited for you to call and ask me for help with the house but you didn't. So I wanted to be more helpful there but didn't say anything that would make you think that. I knew then, just as I do now that I wasn't coming back, and I also knew that it wasn't fair to you with the way it ended. It also wasn't fair to go through the motions to seem like I was working on it and deep down knowing I did not want to come back. 

And it has nothing to do with anybody else that I had met. Sure talking to someone else, which as wrong was the "trigger", but it was not the root cause of the problem. The root cause is I was not happy with the way I was and the way our relationship was. No amount of talking or counselling was going to convince me otherwise. I am stubborn and when I get my mind set on something I can't even talk myself out of it. There was no closure because we never had a fight or a good discussion about how I felt and why I felt that way. I did not want to get into a situation to make you fell even worse by saying stuff that would be hurtful.

From my point of view I was not the person I wanted to be. You weren't the person I wanted you to be and I didn't see either of us changing. I am not sure if you want to call that irreconcilable differences or growing apart or what but I did not see a way to get there so I built a wall. Not having to deal with it was easier than dealing with it.

I still love you and I always will. You were such a big part of my life and we did a lot of great things together. But it is time for us to experience new and different things. To learn and grow with new challenges and new partners. To move on to the next chapter in our lives. You once said or posted something like a relationship is over once we have nothing else to learn for each other. I guess we got to that point. I hope you can find closure and happiness sooner rather than later.

Anyway I will try to work on my anger so we can communicate better for the good of our kids and our own mental health.

[nah]

Holy Sh!t!!!

Thank you for posting that Tyks.

[Nas]

I hope people chime in with thoughts, but I'm speechless.  2+ years from BD and his email sounds like BD could've been yesterday.  Blame, deflection, self-pity, excuses...

[Treasur]

Thank you for sharing so openly something that I suspect was hard for you to read, Tyks.
I could almost hear my xh saying almost exactly the same thing.

I guess what struck me most was the flavour of 'well, I did a bad thing but get over it and stop your mean detachment s$it so it's easier for me to deal with you...or things will get more difficult' tone.

And his 'you wanted too much....but then didn't ask me for help' logic loop is a classic.
Although my favourite bit might be his  outrage that 'you cut off communication when it suits you'. From a vanisher. 

Probably the most honest nugget is when he says he still feels angry and doesn't really know why. And that not dealing with it was easier for him.

Out of interest, did you respond to the note or just do nothing? Not sure I see a question being asked to answer really, just quite a lot of anger and sadz, with the odd accidental nugget of small insight. But still not much action from him really.

And how do you feel about it and him now? There is an exercise about writing an apology letter to yourself....can't help but feel you'd write a better one lol.

[In the valley]

I do think that my progress has been faster because she's been so absent.  This sight has been a god send as well.  The way things have played out has been consistent with all the info I've found on here, helps put me at ease.

[Nerissa]

His email is very heavily defended.  He isn’t allowing himself to feel the guilt because it’s too hard for him. 

I think one reason for appreciating a vanished is that at least they aren’t trying to replace a once deeply felt love with a pale imitation of some kind of friendship. That is almost like an insult to the relationship that was - to feel connection so easily replaced with superficial friendliness.  At least if they burn it all down, it’s a kind of dysfunctional acknowledgement of the complete destruction of something big.

[serenity]

Hi Tyks,

Not really surprised tbh. I know it’s not nice and it’s horrid to hear all that blaming but I’m over 7 years in and even up until recently I’ve had similar stuff to that from H. I’d say it’s probably only this last year it’s not happened quite so much. It seems to take years to stop being all about them

X