[ece711]

When you are detached you will be able see things in their prospective without analyzing too much.  Whether they are acting like a teen or not should be the last thing you would worry about.  How about worrying about what you can do to be whole again.  Let the chips fall and trust in God.

[faithful with Love]

I like that ere...I am learning to detach.. so hard.. but I know I can do it some way some how... I love this site.. I am now reading on cake eating... sorta confusing but trying to understand...

[trusting]

I agree with the above posters about it being like teenage behavior. I have a live in MLCer who has been very secretive and I also equate it with the need he has to be in control (ironic, since he was out of control).  I have gotten that he feels like telling me things might give me some "control" over his life.  I can remember being a teenager and not wanting to tell my parents ANYTHING and feeling like they would know too much about me.  IDK.  It's kinda crazy.

[MelanieB]

I think that the vanishers stay out of sight and out of touch for several reasons:

1)  The old team (i.e. your family) knows everything about you and may see through some of your truly stupid plans and ideas so, to put that criticism to bed quickly, just cut them out of your life.
2)  They lack impulse control for their addictions.  Removing the spouse is really just clearing the field of an obstacle to their fantasy life.  It is pesky to have old remnants hanging around cluttering your vision of the "New Perfect Existance".  Childlike, I know, but they really want to maintain the fairytale as long as possible.   
3)  The MLC behavior is abominable and I believe that even the MLCer knows that.  He/She knows that the things they have done are shameful, and shame is a driving motivation for the MLCer to run away.  After all, what child wants to face up to the appropriate punishment for their actions?  Well, put MLCers in that category too.
4)   Vanishers may, more than some of the other types of MLCers like Clinging Boomerangs and Low Energy MLCers, have viewed the spouse as more of the parent in the relationship (mine did, I was like his Big Mama, cleaning up his dumb messes, paying his bills, running his errands, etc.)  When they enter MLC,  they want to be grow up (or we think that they aspire to that developmental goal, or at the very least, they aspire to "freedom" without a parent-figure in the picture) so they gotta leave Big Mama's nest, and like a teenager, they do it with a flare for the theatrical.

Reading through some of my spouse's diary that my son had given me (thus peeking into the head of an MLCer), he was trying very hard to recapture his integrity.  Apparently this plagued him deeply (yes, guilt and shame are motivators).  He wrote crap like, "I am a man of my word,"  and "I am faithful to my Significant Other", so that I almost died of laughter (it was more the irony, than outright funny) when I read these things.  Who is he kidding?  He still envisioned himself as a man of integrity and his word, even after walking out on his family without so much as 5 min notice after 26 years!  He's faithful to his cheating and lying co-worker? [What a Thought!  And both lack any shred of integrity].  I have trouble picturing how anyone could begin to think that they have integrity when one has so callously disregarded his family in this manner.  He also lamented about "I don't belong anywhere".  Pathetically all of these are consequences of his own selfish actions that lacked any moral fiber at all.  It is all so ridiculous.  Guess in his case, you don't realize what you've lost until you can't regain it.  Honor and dignity are tough items to reclaim.  So I think all those things about shameful behavior are why the Vanishers stay vanished and out of sight. 

   

[LoveMeMyself]

Wow, MelanieB.  I think you nailed it for me.  I never thought of it like that but I think you may be onto something here.  Thanks for sharing that with us.  Some of the things you said hit so close to home for me.  My xH also said things to me in text messages that "he wants to be a better man" or he is a better man.  The hiding from the shame and the guilt also fits my xH.  This opens up a lot of unanswered questions for me......but it is still so disturbing and no one answer fits all.

Thanks again!

[Faith]

I think it's so interesting that he hasn't even been in contact with HIS family.  It seems like most of us are shocked when our in-laws support their son's horrible behavior because they just want to see their boys "happy".  I know that is the case with my H's family.  I thought they would have clobbered him with "what are you thinking??", but it was the opposite. 

My guess is your H must be feeling a huge amount of shame to hide from his own family - unless they have always had a bad relationship.

[OldPilot]

I thought they would have clobbered him with "what are you thinking??", but it was the opposite. 

I think there are two reasons for this.
One there are two sides to every story.
And our spouses have their own sides of the story to tell their relatives.

PLUS BLOOD is thicker than WATER.
And the relatives are ususally going to side with their blood relations.

[Buggy31]

I thought they would have clobbered him with "what are you thinking??", but it was the opposite. 

I think there are two reasons for this.
One there are two sides to every story.
And our spouses have their own sides of the story to tell their relatives.

PLUS BLOOD is thicker than WATER.
And the relatives are ususally going to side with their blood relations.

OP is right.  My MIL was on my side for a long time and I believe is still on my side in a wierd way but as things get worse for H and he becomes more a victim and really comes face to face with the mess she is becoming colder to me.  I know he is telling her things and they are MASTER manipulators.  My MIL knows that I have been patient, forgiving, loving (as I have told her many a time that I care for him and his happiness)...yet she is FRIGID lately.  It's the laws of nature and we must stand tall inside knowing our own truth and walking in that.  It's a great lesson for life.

[followingbliss]

The answer for me to this one is quite simple - its SHAME.

My H has always had issues with shame from his childhood - alcoholic mentally ill father who drew too much attention to the family for negative reasons- upshot was my H was alway concerned about what other people think so ineterestingly while he appears to have lost his moral compass whilst in MLC he doesn't want people to know about what he is doing in case they judge him

[trusting]

All I know is my H has been secretive about everything and nothing, stuff that really isn't something that needs to be "covered up" in any way.  While some things I am sure have been about guilt and shame, not all of it has been.  It is really, really crazy and does help solidify to me that he is not in his right mind.  He probably has some strange conspiracy theory going on in his head about what I might do with the information if I had it.