People that vanish and don`t want to be found

[TheCheekySloth]

Just been watching a documentary about people that have vanished basically evaporated.
Some just up and left no warnings no fall outs no coming back.
Others left for other reasons, reasons some of us would think are silly.
But to just wake up walk out never come back.
No calls messages nothing they just evaporated.

This got me thinking does this happen more than we think, i dont know anyone that as done it.
Would you do it?
I dont know if i could as ive cut most out of my life, but to just evaporate is a different level.

Because there's much more to it than that. If you were a war widow, you'd have a widows pension, military payments. You'd have money for at least the basics. How are you going to explain that you're a widow with no money at all? Who's going to mind the baby while you work? Who's going to pay rent and buy food in the period where you can't work?

Inventing the husband only works if you had a supportive family in on the ruse, or who you could lie to. Or after the start of lone parent payments.

For respectable widows, yes. Not for complete strangers claiming to be war widows

Sorry!

An older cousin of my husband's did this. His mother died intestate in a country with very specific inheritance laws and it's caused quite considerable problems for his younger half siblings because there are small parcels of agricultural land and an unused building plot she inherited from her own mother only a few months before dying he herself, which they can't take full ownership of or sell without his signature or a death certificate, otherwise they have to wait quite a long time (twelve years I think, but I'm not sure) before they can do anything...

He disappeared 30 or 40 years ago, and apparently it's pretty certain he was involved with petty crime and in a mess, he didn't disappear for no reason at all. The general opinion is he's probably no longer alive (he would be in his 60s). I agree you'd wonder how people can financially do this now - do they work cash in hand forever and live in short term accommodation or steal someone's identity to open a bank account and get a job and a long term rental?

My father was missing for years. My parents separated when I was a baby, he went abroad in the late 70s and his family last heard from him in 1982.
He eventually made contact with me in 2007. He still lives abroad and we do have a relationship.

If you disappear off your own backend thr police or missing persons find you.
They can only tell your family you're safe and that's probably with your permission.

My uncle disappeared for years.
He'd pop up now and again.
Salvation Army found him on a few occasions.
But thr last time he came home it was too die..I find that incredibly sad.

That's not the same thing though. He phoned to say he wasn't coming home. We're talking about people who vanished without a trace.

Oh I read it as the sister ran off with her (the sister’s husband), not her own husband!

I worked with a woman back in the early 1990s who joined my workplace as a temp from an agency and stayed in the job for a while. She was a 60 year old woman living in a bedsit in London. Her living circumstances didn’t quite fit her persona but I didn’t think that much of it. She said she was divorced and had married young so was having some fun now.

She was lovely, jolly, kind, fun. Over the years she worked with us she made good friends, a couple of them seemed to have formed a close bond with her. One night we went out in London as a group sharing a taxi home. The next day she didn’t turn up for work, or the next and we never saw her again. It turns out that getting out of the taxi she had dropped her wallet which contained her ex-husband’s number and her current address. Whoever found the wallet called her ex and he was quick to say he would drive over to west London to pick it up. Once he had the wallet he saw her current address, went there and barged in. It turned out that our lovely colleague was a missing person. She had fled an abusive marriage for her own safety and moved across London, changed her appearance, not told her son. Whatever happened that night, she evidently went back to her husband that evening.

The only contact I had was a letter explaining what happened after she got out of the taxi. None of us knew she had been missing for three years (easier to do in 1991).

That's just so sad. Poor, poor woman.

My aunt did. Walked out from husband and kids. Absolutely went off grid. Apparently her then grown kids found her many years later but neither wanted a relationship and she didn't want her whereabouts to be shared with siblings.

There’s a podcast about a case of this, called ‘Missing on 9/11’. The woman concerned was last seen shopping very close to the World Trade Centre on 10 September 2001; she and her husband lived in an apartment that was also very close to the WTC. She didn’t come home the night of 10 September. Because she was a doctor, her family became convinced that she died as a first responder at the Trade Centre even though there’s absolutely no evidence to place her there that morning. They eventually, via the courts, had her legally declared a victim of the attacks and her name appears on the memorial and everything. There’s been no trace of her since 10 September, and all her documents, valuables, even her glasses were still in her apartment. The podcast uncovers how she was unhappy at work, was facing a court case, was possibly confused about her sexuality, which might all have contributed to her wanting to disappear and using 9/11 as the opportunity to do so. It’s a very interesting case and worth a listen.

My husbands great grandmother walked out on four children. The youngest was a baby. Recent family research has uncovered her being present at the reading of her husbands will so she obviously just decided to disappear. Tragic for her children.

I'm going back a few years now,but when I was about 12,a friend of mine was going to new Zealand to see family (we live in the uk)

Aunt,uncle and 4 cousins

Her family packed their bags and flew out there

Aunt and the cousins where at the airport to meet them,tears and hugs all round

They got back to the house and uncle wasn't there-hed vanished

He never came back-they have no clue what happened to him but seem to think he had another family and took his chance to leave as the rest of them left to pick up my friend and family

No note,no run up to him walking out,no rows (he said hed crack on with starting up the bbq for when they got back) no contact-nothing

They never got closure-to this day they dont know what happened to him

Abducted by aliens??

Went for a swim maybe?

None of my relatives know where I live/how to contact me.

I decided cut contact with them because of historical abuse and ongoing toxic behaviour. These relatives live in a different country which made the process easier.

I don'r regret doing it at all.

Sorry, yes, the parents just upped and left the children. Needles to say they had slightly chaotic lives but my friend stepped up and looked after the children.

I do wonder if they got back in touch later on, though my friend believed her sister had died a few years after the disappearance. All immensely sad for the kids though.

Alice Cairns died this week.
Her son Philip vanished in 1986.

Walking back to school after lunch and just gone,disappeared.

I remember this so well as I was also 13 and had just started secondary.

Imagine,nearly 40 years.
How could you go on.

At least hopefully now they are reunited.

No, he left me and 6 months later he disappeared, he didn't tell anyone about the disappearance, I knew as his mother was distraught and mutual friends

How awful not knowing what happened to your child. Hopefully they will be reunited.

Can you remember what year this happened? (I'm in NZ and it still would be a big news story when he vanished)

I just had a look there. I’m also in Ireland. There’s so many cases that have never got a mention. The case of the guy who crashed the car in Howth and then just drove off never to be seen again is absolutely bizarre. I also saw an elderly man missing since 1989, really close to where I live and I’d never heard of him. Just disappeared walking his dog in the middle of nowhere.

It will have been 1990/91 ish

I'd just started secondary school-this was in the first school year

After that I have no other details apart from 'new Zealand' and my friends name (and her families surname)

She told me what had happened and never spoke of it again

As far as I know (after talking to her mum years later) he never came back

I just read about him. It seems he had some pretty severe mental-health problems. I mean, you'd have to, to do what he did. It's a pity his story has been so romanticised. People have died trying to make a pilgrimage to that stupid bus - removed now, thankfully.