Do you know anyone who did the "I'm just going to the shop to buy a paper" thing and who then disappeared forever?

[AliceAir]

Another thread on here reminded me of a girl I was in school with years ago. Her mother apparently popped to the shop to but some potatoes and never came home, and was never heard of again.

I'm not meaning people who have met with foul play but people who have decided to disappear and then done so.

Yes my ex husband, he went out for the day with his brother and just didn't come home again. He contacted me 5 months later and told me he'd made a mistake and wanted me and my DS back on his life, I told him exactly where he could shove his half hearted fake apology.

[quote clpsmum]@grisen how do you feel about it now? Are you ever tempted to go back? Have you started another family? Sorry if I'm nosey jist find the subject intriguing but feel free to tell me to piss off!![/quote]
@clpsmum thank you for your kind response. But I am indifferent towards it, I believe that it was better for my son to be adopted by his grandparents than being raised by a single teen mum and he was always meant to be raised by them. I’ve never felt the need to go back and haven’t even visited ex’s grave or grieved him.
I did start “another” family and have another son. I wouldn’t compare the two experiences of family.

@grisen do you ever think about your son? Or is he just not on your radar?

My ex husband is technically missing at the moment. He ran his business and accommodation into the ground- ripped up and sold everything he could (literally pulled up flooring and ripped cables out. He then just disappeared.
He was an abusive bastard with a nasty drink and drug problem. Both I and his family want nothing to do with him. It probably makes me an awful person, but i kind of hope that at some point we’ll find out he’s in prison or dead, because then we can truly close that part of our lives. we all live in fear of him turning up on a doorstep still.

@AlbaAlba thank you for your kind response. I have a deep respect for women who can stay and don’t leave their children.

@Handsoffstrikesagain I don’t expect him to contact me at all and am aware that it’s something most people wouldn’t understand, but trust me he’s better off where he is than he would have been with me - and he was never meant to be raised by just us as we were just kids. His grandparents were always going to help with raising him and had offered to adopt him if needs must. It was an extremely complicated circumstance and I’m sure at 17 you’d have made better decisions than I could.

How can you feel indifferent to your own child @grisen ? Does your current partner and child know about your other son?

Yes my ex husband, he went out for the day with his brother and just didn't come home again. He contacted me 5 months later and told me he'd made a mistake and wanted me and my DS back on his life, I told him exactly where he could shove his half hearted fake apology

Other woman didn't work out then eh. Good on you for telling him to fuck off.

@Handsoffstrikesagain would you stop! She was 17. A child and in what sounds like unusual circumstances.

@CoodleMoodle How awful, I know what you mean lol I write a lot on here when I read others situations it gets me fired up.
I am so sick of hearing about parents who, well, don't think they have to hang around and parent!

This is such a sad thread. I do have one question a lot of people have mentioned the Salvation army, do they look for people? I knew that they ran hostels and shelters but I didn't think they tracked people down.

I'm sorry @grisen, it sounds like your life was pretty chaotic if at 17 you were living with a bfs family with a newborn and hadn't seen your own family for years. It's very easy for people to judge, but I can't imagine being in that situation at that age with whatever else had gone in before.

Do your son's grandparents know how to contact you if he wants to find your on years to come?

@WouldLikeToDisappear I'm so sorry for all that you've been through. You sound incredibly thoughtful and well balanced (in so far as I can tell from a few posts on mn!) and I wish you a very happy future. If you do find yourself on a bridge at any point, please just pause and remember that there will be people out there (me for sure, and other mnetters from the sounds of some posts on this thread) who think about you,

@startrek90 yes the Salvation Army trace people, as does the Red Cross.

My father to a degree, was going to be working away for overnight, rang my mother the next day and said he wasn't coming home.

I haven't seen him again or heard from him, my mum sent divorce papers by post to his last place of work on the off chance - they were returned to her signed and that was that.

No idea where he is or even if he's alive these days.

I worked with a girl who got engaged, they'd had an engagement party and were planning the wedding. One day he just buggered off and he never contacted her again. It was thought that he didn't feel ready for marriage but didn't have the courage to say so. The poor girl was distraught.

This thread is so difficult to read and I am so sorry for all those who have suffered. Just a reminder that the Samaritans can be emailed or called 116 123

I've just remembered that my Dad's mum did this. She left five children and went off with another man. This would have been in the 1920s and divorce just wasn't the done thing. Dad traced her with the Salvation Army (took 10 years) and we visited now and then - two bus journeys as we never had a car. I was told the truth about this when I was in my mid-thirties. I never learned the reason why and some of her children never spoke to her again. Very sad all round.

@grisen it takes a lot of courage and love to do what you did and I commend you for it. I hope you have found happiness xx

Lots of sad stories here .. 💐

A few years back there was a daytime TV programme about people who disappear. There was one story that stuck with me, of a woman late middle aged who disappeared. She had had a large family and it transpired that really she had no life apart from looking after them. She was treated as a drudge and none of the other family members ever helped out.
The programme makers gently asked her husband if he had any idea why she left. He simply sat there, looking sad, but said he had no idea.

At the end of the programme there was an update to say that she had gone back... and that things had returned to as they were, with her doing everything for her lazy family.

@WouldLikeToDisappear I think you should do the first part. Wrap up your life and travel. Explore. Maybe without the shackles of your family you can finally be you. Just you. Not their child or relative or victim. Simply you.

I haven't got a story. So sorry to everyone effected by this.

My Uncle did this. He has been registered missing for a number of years now. He had/has schizophrenia and a history of just taking off for months at a time. However nobody has heard from him for about 5 years now, so my gut feeling is he's dead.