[Rising Phoenix]

As they have vanished living we don’t know whether they question anything or what they feel or think. All we can do is move forward. My h family cut my children and I off also as it was too stressful for them apparently. My in laws have not seen their only grandchildren for over 3 yrs.

At some point you have to stop questioning your life with h as it holds up your healing imo. I had what I had and now I don’t so my focus is my children and making a nice home for them. I still cycle sometimes at xmas and kids b days but I can’t change anything and I can’t do anything about h. As the title of my thread, silence is deafening.
I have to believe 30 yrs together meant something but now he is broken and he thinks I am the problem. I’m not and it’s his loss.
Hugs xx

[Treasur]

I think this issue is a hard one for all of us, and very personal. For me, it's been a combination of a few things - all accepting that STBXH may see things quite differently and I'll never know. Firstly, being really honest about looking back and deciding for myself who I think my H was. Secondly, that his 'reality' may have changed but I have the right to decide on mine because it was my life too...and my judgement and gut instincts are good enough. Thirdly, because my mother has dementia, it's a reminder that the present does not erase the past; both are true. The fact that usually my mother does not remember loving me or who I am now doesn't change that she loved me very much for 50 years.

Do I have days of doubt about my H? Yes...but I fight through them because I don't want his MLC to take my happy memories even if it has taken his. It might be my own funny version of standing.    The STBXH who wouldn't cross the street now to spit on me if I was on fire is real...the H who drove like a madmen after he flew into one airport to turn up at another in order to surprise me for an hour with coffee before I flew out for a long work trip was real too. I miss him and I was blessed to have that partner for 18 years.

[nah]

Hey, just checking in b/c I don't want this thread to disappear like our husbands.   

Mine posted on a mutual friends Facebook this morning, so I know that yes, he is alive.   

Other than that....YAWN,.... which is a good thing.

Hope everyone is planning on making this long holiday a good one.

 

 

[Nas]

Hey, just checking in b/c I don't want this thread to disappear like our husbands.   

 

My vanisher is still vanished.  Big surprise.  I'm sure he's got plenty of time to golf and go to the beach and dine out.  You know...the important things in life.  No time to think about the cancer-stricken wife he financially devastated and then walked out on.

[nah]

Aw man, Nas.

Your husband more than most, either really did get taken over by an alien or has a watermelon sized lump of guilt inside of him that is growing bigger each day.

[Nas]

Aw man, Nas.

Your husband more than most, either really did get taken over by an alien or has a watermelon sized lump of guilt inside of him that is growing bigger each day.

I honestly don't know.  He's been living with OW now for almost 2 years.  They started as an EA 3.5 years ago.

That's a pretty decent amount of time.  He can't possibly still be in the completely drunk-with-euphoria, blind infatuation phase where he is so consumed with her "perfection" that he can't see anything else. 


The last time I saw him face to face was right before he moved away to be with OW, in May 2016.

I asked him why he was not doing anything about divorcing me since he was moving so far away to be with her.
Immediately after I asked the question, his shoulders slumped, he literally physically lurched, shook his head slightly, stared at his feet and his eyes filled with tears and he didn't say one damn word.

A year later, right before I was diagnosed, I texted him to let him know I'd emailed him after a meeting with my lawyer.  He didn't respond at all about any D/legal stuff, but texted me nonstop for two hours, telling me about his weekend job at a golf course.

Funny enough, that text conversation started with him telling me all about a teenage girl who golfs there who used golf to get her through her very tough battle with cancer.  He proudly called her "really something else."

Then I got diagnosed with cancer just about 3 weeks after that.  And he vanished.  I got one text last summer on my birthday - happy birthday "from the dog," not from H.  Then he was completely gone.  Now I don't even know his phone number anymore.

I don't know how he can be living his life every day, getting up and going to work, doing mundane things like going to the grocery store, going to dinner and doing whatever else he does as if everything is fine.  I just don't get it. 

Does he ever think about how cruel it is that he changed his phone number while I'm fighting for my life?
Does he ever think about the fact that at some point we're going to have to get legally divorced?
Does he ever wonder how he would feel if I die?

[nah]

Does he ever think about how cruel it is that he changed his phone number while I'm fighting for my life?
Does he ever think about the fact that at some point we're going to have to get legally divorced?
Does he ever wonder how he would feel if I die?

No one for sure can answer these questions.  Even if he told you (like my ex did), you would still have doubts.

My heart tells me that, yes, they do think of all these things.... every. single. day.

When they are driving, when they are taking a shower, when they are falling asleep.

Yes, even if you never ever see each other again, I really do think they are thinking of these things. 

[Nas]

That's the funny thing about this idiot vanishers.  Do they not realize they are actually prolonging their own suffering by just disappearing into their new lives?  By taking off without doing anything the right way, they put themselves in the position of having to think about their own sh*tty behavior every time they think about their old life. 

I guess I don't truly understand compartmentalization.  Because if I had to think about those things every single day and keep having to push the thoughts away and smother the guilt, I literally wouldn't be able to get through the days for very long.  Yet these people go on for years and years. 

[Rising Phoenix]

Nas that is awful.

Mine replied to an email last week! Very formal. It was d Birthday just over a week ago. He dropped cards through the door for d and son (sons was Sunday) at 10.30pm after d had gone to bed. Her b day had finished. D wouldn’t put her card up as she thought h hadn’t purchased it as something ow would buy. ( d is rock teenager all in black and was 13.) card was a pink unicorn and verse was about sunbeams and enchantment. 

They rec’d No present. Nothing. I emailed h at work the next day to ask if he purchased card. He replied that he had and had chosen one that wasn’t too mushy as that would be inappropriate! WTF!

I replied asking about a present and that I thought after 8 mths he would be more willing to contact his children. He replied that he is happy to take the children out and always has been but that was their decision! I replied that is somewhat difficult as he has changed his phone no and no one knows it.

I sent a couple more emails and asked for a meeting before mediation to discuss the children but he was back to ignoring me. That eve ow spent most of the night putting abusive quotes on her business page and put up a photo of him and her just to remind me h is hers!

I was rather p***ed off that they could buy a brand new motor bike the month before but couldn’t even give his children a birthday present.  Xx

[Nas]

Disgusting, RP, that's the only way I can describe their behavior.  The OW in your case sounds just gross.

He might have actually picked out the card himself, because my understanding is they often still think of their children as much younger than they are.  As crazy as it seems, he could still be thinking of your d as the age she was the first time he left. 

Not surprised he went back to ignoring you when you asked about stuff pertaining to mediation/D.  Mine hardly ever responded to anything about that stuff and now he's just made it so I can't even ask him.  Don't know his phone number or his current email address anymore.