Husbands who have disappeared

[AbleAble]

Is there anyone on here who's husband disappeared? Maybe went abroad or just dropped off the radar and you haven't seen them since?

I didn't know that NMFP about Missing Persons. Maybe one day I will call them, but for nowam hooping counselling i have just started, will help me a lot.

Stooshe that's extraordinary - and the kind of story I am interested in hearing about. What has happened in the two and a half years since he resurfaced? Is he still around? Did the family he blanked (did he leave kids behind?) want to get to know him?

My child is still young. I hope if my husband ever does re-surface, that he wants nothing to do with him and vice versa.

I have always wondered what happens to people when they do that. I have often read about it in magazines. I don't know if it is a stress thing?

I guess it must be. A stress thing I mean.

But they must have a high tolerance to stress? As I would be highly stressed for the rest of my life if I knew I had abandoned children.

Maybe they don't feel stress in the same way, and just blank it out and enjoy their new lives? We all only have one life after all. Everyone deserves happiness.

But the life of the person they leave behind and the children they blight with their leaving don't have that luxury.

I don't know. I don't know what I think. I do know it's sad answering my child's questions as he gets older and more aware, and trying to explain that his dad ran away and is nowhere to be found and doesn't help buy his shoes or food.

I am going to do a sweeping generalisation of men thing here.

I genuinely believe that some of them do not do so much thinking as women and thus do not worry in the same way.

I also think, even more controversially, that some of them care less about their children than women, thus making it easier for men to walk away.

I feel very sorry for you.

There was as play on Radio 4 about 2 months ago (on 3 weekday afternoons in a row) which was done in conjunction with Missing People. It was fascinating - I think it was a real story. Looked closely at how the family felt not knowing what has happened, but then moved on to him making contact. It really showed the help Missing People give to people, and the emotions those left behind felt.

Worth a listen if you can find it on I player, or I wouldnt be surprised if perhaps its linked to on the Missing People website.

i hope sharing here will help.

x

Oh Able.

I think it's such an extraordinary situation to be in, they are gone but you can't grieve for them. Horrid.

Doesn't compare at all, but one of my boyfriends disappeared. We were in love (I thought!) had met each others families, he said he was thinking of proposing. Then... Nothing. It broke my heart at the time, can't imagine how much worse it must be if it's someone you are married to and have a child with.

I'm so sorry.

As humans, we like and perhaps need the end story.
Glad you are getting counselling for this.

I would like to think that I would eventually get over it. But not so sure that I totally would.

I think the Missing Persons link should help in a small way?

It is a cruel way to do it too.

If a partner leaves due to screwing around, you normally have an inkling, but to just up and leave, they could be ill or something, if not as I say it might be down to stress but as you so rightly say, it is extremely hard on the people left behind.

Thanks. When I am up to it (son has childhoodcancer so very intermittent time for stuff) I will look into it.

I am very angry though.
Started a thread about fags going up by twenty-eith pence and have been slaughtered.

I think government should take disappearing fathers to task not the wives/mothers left behind who smoke their way through the terror.

Fuck what do I know.

nothing. my son will have to carry the burden.

sooner i drop of his radar and this planet the better actually

Able i am not surprise you are angry. And you must be exhausted with everything else that's going on.

I hope your counsellor is helping, otherwise there is other help.

If you want to pursue him for financial support have you asked the CSA?

My friends H just literally disappeared. We spent 24 hours calling hospitals etc (never returned home after late shift at pub he worked in), then 48 hours going through a missing persons report with police, which at one point they were about to do a local press conference for him as a missing in weird circs. type thing. He left a few 'clues' as it were. (Not clues for friend, mind.)

Then police made contact with him. Not in the part of the country he lived. He also declined to be 'found'.

Turns out he was simply a fucking arsehole who upped and left when life with 2 dc's got tough. Diddums.

OP it is a nightmare scenario and you have my utmost sympathy. I'm in the camp that thinks its an utterly selfish thing to do.

my daughter's father disappeared when she was a few weeks old. We weren't married, but were talking about it, had been together a couple of years beforehand, he'd come to family events, holidays etc., and he'd been pretty much living with me, but when I was pregnant his behaviour had become more and more erratic, abusive and once aggressive. I then found out during the pregnancy that he had a wife and kids elsewhere (he'd told me he was divorced and as he was at mine most nights, 6/7, I genuinely had no idea that he was leading a double life)

well to cut a long story short (daughter is now 18) he disappeared for a few years then had this occasional contact with our daughter. I wanted her to know her father, but in retrospect perhaps this wasn't a wise move for me as I had this very negative presence in the background of my life.

I have really struggled coming to terms with the deception and lies, it was devastating. I've suffered from depression and self esteem issues which have coloured me, constantly since.

over the last 5 years since my daughter grew old enough to question and challenge his behaviour, he has disappeared again. for a while i kept calling/messaging (mainly because he owes me a lot of money, to be honest) but never responds , to me or his daughter. From the sound of his ringtone i think he may have gone abroad.

Above all it is the lack of a normal relationship, or at least a normal ending to the relationship, that has hurt me, the sense of everything having been false and everything I knew was lies.

I would love to know how you get over this kind of betrayal to be honest but I've yet found a way despite it being over 15 years :(

When did this happen Able? I had met a woman whose husband went out to buy a paper one Sunday morning. Never to return.

What were his last words? Did he seem unhappy?

Them half being thermite however sporadically - better of worse?

There. Not thermite

There is an article about this very subject on the Daily Mail website today. I know it's not liked on here so I haven't linked.

Saw it too, "Husbands who have disappeared." Very suspicious.

Just had a look at the Mail website - do you mean the Terrie Beardsley story or another one? I'd be interested to read it.

I'm not a journalist and nor am I researching for anything. I am sitting here nearly six years after my husband disappeared, still coping with the fall-out.

adele I am very sorry for your situation - have you ever sought some help or counselling to get over it? I have found that like you say, there's just no 'resolution' in our cases. We can't even grieve for the relationship we had as it just wasn't what it appeared to be and the men we thought we were married to were other people entirely.

It's like going through a sudden bereavement (I have been through all the stages of grief) but then we still don't have any peace. And then we watch our children grow up looking like the very man we made them with. Ds has his father's eyes and when H first did a runner, I couldn't bear to look at them

The counsellor I have found teaches Mindfulness which, so far, is proving really good, as it teaches you (hopefully) to concentrate on the moment, not to panic-think either about the future or the past.

Adele how has your daughter coped over the years? What did you tell her? My dc is still young so he knows very little at all. i just said 'daddy ran away because he wanted to do other things with his life but i love you enough for all of them...' and 'all families are different, some hacve no dad, some have no mum and some have no parents at all' etc. I reassure him all the time how much he is loved and how precious he is and that i will never leave him.

I have had counselling and therapy, yes, and it did help in many respects, but I do carry this sense of confusion still; that part of my life was stolen from me, and exactly as you say there is no 'resolution' .

With my daughter, I think I have taken very much the same approach as you... that daddy wasn't here because he has his problems, and that I loved her so much and would never leave her. As she has got older, I've revealed more about what happened, what was 'age appropriate' to do so.

as he reappeared for a while, she was very conflicted.. he can be quite charming when he wants to :( and that was very hard (early teens). But these days, well frankly, she loathes him. It is very sad, but it's his own fault... too many lies and let downs. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see your daughter being hurt, but little you can really do to prevent it. In retrospect, I think it might have been better to prevent him ever returning, but you have to make decisions based in what you think at the time... and I foolishly hoped for the changes he promised to materialise.

my heart goes out to you. I think mindfulness is a good choice, I hope is helps you. Cherish your friendships and I hope you have a close family who will support you (I don't, sadly, and I suspect this has made me more susceptible to falling for the lies, and like you, again, relationships since have been very difficult to contemplate)

Hmm. I doubt my exH will re-appear but you never know. I would absolutely refuse him access to my son if he did turn up and wanted to see him.

Once ds reaches 18 I could not and would not stop him trying to find his dad, if that's what he wishes to do, but I would strongly advise him against it and explain fully why.

I have a 'dad box' for ds, which is crammed with pictures of his dad, love letters we shared, my wedding ring, and photos of his dad with ds as a baby. I wrote constantly about the trauma and financial mess he left behind when he disappeared and have printed it all out and put it in the box too.

Ds is wise but there is a sadness about him. He is already forming his own opinion of how cruel and selfish his father's behaviour was. He doesn't seem to need much input from me in forming these oopinions - but then in his small village school he is surrounded by examples of loving and committed fathers/husbands so he has a fairly good idea of how a decent man and father should be.

I hope you do find some peace eventually adele, as I hope I do too. fifteen years is a long time to feel the hole, confusion and loss created by such a cruel act. They do not deserve a moment more of our time and strength, but when you have children by such chameleons, it is hard to cut off entirely.