What to Do When Someone You’re Dating Disappears

Well, we're gonna do a podcast. We're gonna do a new podcast. It's gonna come out on March 12th. If you like my podcast, you'll probably like this podcast. Do you like my brother? Do you like my wife? Do you like both of them? Because they'll both be there probably in every episode of the podcast. And then we'll also make some changes. There'll be a new theme song. Something like this. Maybe not. This is just a pract.

Well, as some of you know by now, and how could you not? We are launching a new version of the Love Life podcast. And that what you just saw, that is butter taste of what is to come. New Love Life podcast, new me, new you.

Hmm.

The point is, it's going to be great. And that song you just heard, potentially more where that came from. We might even have a new theme song.

That one I just did took me at least four hours. So I've got all the time in the world.

But it is going to be a great podcast. It's coming out on March 12th. There will be sunglasses. All right, well, for today, there is a new podcast. It's not the new podcast, but it is a new podcast and it's one of me and Audrey sitting discussing listener questions on the Love Life Podcast. And oh, boy, we have a story for you today. Listen to this. This is like a true crime episode. It's not actually a crime, but it is sort of criminal.

So check it out.

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Emma says I've been with someone for 11 months. Two weeks ago he went to the shop. I called him and he text to say he was waiting for a takeaway. Forty minutes later he text me to say he wasn't coming home. He was sorry but he was done. Since then I've been in complete turmoil. He has made contact, but a lot of it revolves around his feelings. How can I move on with what feels like no closure and no explanation? I have three children whom he's also walked out on and so how do I make sure his abandonment doesn't affect them? He is not their dad, but has five of his own children he has little no contact with. Thank you so much for your amazing podcast, Emma. Outrageous. Who is this dude?

There's a lot going on there.

Do you want to know something that I think is a massive red flag that doesn't get talked about enough?

Whether his own kids won't talk to him.

Yeah, that he has kids. I. I know someone. Ish, like friend of a friend, distant person though, who has had two children from two different mums and has no contact with either of them. And I just think that is such a red flag. Like why, why can't you take care of your own children? What is wrong with you?

It's a huge red flag. It's a huge red flag. She's. He has five kids and he's not close to any of them.

Yeah, he has five kids of his own. He has. But he has little to no contact with that is.

Oh God, where do you begin with that? It's. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with that. And I don't know when she knew. What's her name?

Emma.

Emma. I don't know. Emma. When you knew that he wasn't close to his own children, all five of them. But at a certain point you have to ask on what basis am I assuming he's going to have any loyalty to us as a family when he doesn't even have any loyalty to his own where his volunteer family, like we're the family he volunteered for this this year. But what does it say about this person if they have no contact with their own five children? The fact that he walked out out of nowhere, like said he was going to the shops and then didn't come Back. You're wondering about closure. You got it. You got it. He showed himself to be completely. I'm guessing that he put forward a very different image than the one that showed. But the one that showed, that's him, who he's been pretending to be for 11 months, that's someone else. But you just found out who he is. That is closure. He, he showed himself to be someone so callous, so cruel, so unempathetic and cold that he could just pretend to go to the shops and then be so cowardly as to send you a message saying, I'm not coming back. A message. He's a coward. He is a coward. And that might, by the way, that might. That's almost certainly the most polite word you could possibly find for this person because it says to me, personality disorder. But coward is the best thing you can say about him. The most moderate thing you can say, it's viciously selfish. Well, and even what she said afterwards, that even now when he reaches out, which apparently he still does, it's the audacity. It's about him and his emotions. But that tells you everything you need to know. It's about him. And it should. Now, again, assuming you knew before that he wasn't in contact with his own kids, you just found out why. You just discovered why. The people in his life that he should be close to. Again, if he had one difficult child who decided he didn't want to, didn't want to talk to his dad, that's one thing when you got five kids and you're not close to any of them, he hasn't got five psychopaths for children. Right. If none of them are close to him, you just found out why. So this is closure. And you know, some people are really, really talented, if you want to call it that, at putting forward a different image for protracted period of time, in this case 11 months. What is worth asking, without going into self blame, is is there anything that I did ignore? Is there anything that my intuition was telling me in those 11 months that I chose not to pay attention to? And how would I do that differently next time around? What conversation would I not avoid having and would have sooner next time around? But, but that's not, none of that is to say this is your fault that he, you know, that you're in this position when someone does that. It's often. Here's what I want to say to everyone. This is a very important point. It's very common in situations for people to look at our situation and to go how could you get into a situation like that? How could you, you know, ignore so much that you would end up in a situation like that with a person like that? That gets said a lot about victims of abuse, victims of narcissists, victims of all kinds of situations. But what people don't realize when they're making those judgments from the outside is that even when our intuition is telling us something is off, even when we're seeing certain red flags, what people do in their worst moments, what people do in their most destructive moments, what people do at the true, like.

Like peak.

Moments of their particular dysfunction is still often beyond anything we could have predicted or anything that we would have imagined. And I say that as a note of compassion that people should give themselves in these situations, that it's, yes, it's true, but that when we look back we can often see certain tracks that people left that we ignored that were a sign that something was off about this situation or this person. That's true. And that's the part where we have to say next time around it's not about blaming myself, it's about saying next time around I won't ignore those tracks when I see them. I'm going to, I'm going to make sure I shine a light on them and talk about them and, and expose them to the light of day. However, self compassion should come from the fact that we often, even when we see those tracks, it's often still absolutely shocking where they lead. And it's still a huge jump from what we've seen already. Like I can guarantee that it is a jump from anything she had seen in those 11 months, no matter what writing she may have seen on the wall. Of course it was a hell of a jump from that to someone saying they were going to go to the shops and never coming back. So don't ever. When people try to make you feel stupid for putting yourself in a certain situation, like, oh, didn't you know he's not close to his own kids? You know, didn't you see that? That was a red flag? Yes, that is a red flag when you've got five kids and you're not close to them or you don't speak to them. But it doesn't follow that you would then predict that they would say they're going to the shops and never come back. The key thing here is to not ignore those tracks next time if there were things that you saw that you know, you ignored in your intuition. And the second thing is to realize that the closure you're Looking for. You already have that. You just. The mask came off and you just saw who this person really is. And when they call you and they text you and they play a sympathetic tune about their own emotions, they're showing you even more who they are, because what they're saying is, you, the victim, are not the headline for me. What I've done to you is not the headline to me. The headline to me is the confusion and the struggle that I'm going through, despite the fact that I'm the one who has, you know, wreaked havoc after 11 months on you and your children.

I also believe, like, if you're really honest with yourself, like, when someone does that to you, can you even. Would you even take them back? Like, this idea of closure and explanation that only really almost should qualify for someone who could potentially. Who's actually. You've potentially lost someone valuable. Like, to me, it's like, this man is so not valuable. What an absolute idiot.

I knew a couple when I was a lot younger. I was a teenager, but they were a couple in there, what, 40s, maybe 50s.

Isn't it so funny when you're, like, a teenager and you see people who are like, our age? You're like, oh, my God, they're so old. And then now you're our. We're our age and we're like, how dare you?

We're so young. But we are. To teenagers, we're.

That's what I mean. Like, we're, like, really so old. Like, anyone. I feel like when I was a teenager, anyone that was older than 21 was just basically dead.

And, like. Yeah, they weren't on your radar.

Yeah, yeah.

But I knew. I knew this couple who were. She was a bit older. He was. He was about 10 years younger than her. Maybe she was in her 50s. He was in his 40s. And we used to see them on a vacation we used to go on. They owned a business in this place that we used to go on holiday. And they. We always got on really well with them. We thought they were really lovely. And one day the guy just disappeared. Just up and left, like, without a trace. And it felt like this drive was like this drama on vacation that, you know, that he had done this. And we were. You know, we used to hang out with them, and we were like, what the hell? And my mom and dad.

Same thing happened to me with my neighbors.

Oh, weird.

Yeah.

But you know what was crazy is that once we got into it with her, who. And she was, like, beside herself that he had just Disappeared or whatever. It turned out he had done this once before. Like he had done the same thing once before. So although she was shocked by, she wasn't so shocked because he had actually done this before. And that's the, to the point you're making. When you take someone like that back, you have to ask yourself, on what basis am I deciding that they are not capable of doing that exact same thing again?

A hundred percent. I always think this when somebody, look, people break up and get back together. So like, I'm not saying every time somebody breaks up with you, but I think every time somebody shows themselves to treat you in a careless way, discard you, dismiss you or something, something that just I, I, to me, it's like that's the same person that can jolt you at the altar.

Well, what they've shown is that that's how they respond to problems in life. That at its essence, because him feeling whatever he was feeling, let's say he was feeling trapped. Let's say he had an urge to go be with someone else. There was some kind of internal challenge that he was facing. Right. And people face those kind of challenges in relationships a lot. People get scared, People, oh, my God, can I do this? Whatever people have those thoughts, those thoughts aren't, they're not the end of the world. They're human, they thoughts. But what he has shown is this is his reaction to an urge to a thought like that, to a fear, to feeling claustrophobic, to whatever he was feeling. His response is to lie about going to the shops and then not come back and then text her saying he's not coming back. That's his reaction to a problem. And when someone reacts to a challenge in that way, you have to say, this is what this person does when they feel challenged by something. This is their reaction. So if I ever take them back, I have to ask myself, why do I think that they are newly equipped to deal with that challenging thought the next time it arises? Simply because I'm taking them back.

Yeah. Unless they have done extensive therapy.

Exactly.

Which he doesn't sound like the type.

He doesn't.

Then don't take him back, Emma, no matter what he says. Also, I do think as a add it to the repertoire of red flags. I do think if a man has children and his children don't, he, he doesn't have any relationship with his children and there isn't some kind of like, toxic partner in the way that's stopping him and preventing him from seeing him, his children, especially if he has like, you know access to his children, yet doesn't seem to have a relationship with them. I I think that's a massive red flag and I think we can take that with us as a good lesson.

I agree.

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The new one's coming up soon. In the meantime, do not forget to sign up to the Heartbreak event, How to Heal from heartbreak on the 25th of of February. And while I'm waiting for you to sign up, which you can do by going to lovelifetraining.com I will play you the backup theme song to the process of relaunching the podcast that didn't make it, but it was a close call because it was one of the best things I've ever done.

Real song will come later. This is just for the rebrand. We're gonna make a new podcast with my wife and my brother making new episodes. We're gonna keep changing it up. For the Love Life Podcast. For the Love Life Podcast, Sam.