Is Your Cheating Spouse Planning to Disappear?

Months before leaving, a cheating spouse may hide cash, store a bag, acquire a second phone or open a private email account. Their network of lies can later confuse relatives, lovers and investigators—especially when a planned escape becomes an involuntary disappearance, and someone predatory exploits the confusion.

Read SEETHINGS for the warning signs hiding in plain sight

Every year, people disappear and are never found again. We assume something terrible happened because that is where a worried mind goes first. An accident. A fall. A vehicle leaving a lonely road. A crime no one witnessed.

Sometimes that is exactly what happened.

Sometimes it isn’t.

Some missing people disappear on purpose. They don’t tumble into rivers or lose their way in the bush. They make plans. They quietly remove pieces of themselves from one life, carry them into another, and wait for distance to do the rest.

A person may be escaping debt, violence, shame or a mistake that is about to catch up with them. They may be exhausted by the role everyone expects them to keep playing. Good husband. Devoted wife. The dependable one.

Or they may be running away with a secret lover while escaping an unsatisfying marriage.

That accounts for a few unsolved missing persons cases, but it doesn’t explain all of them.

Australia offers distance in enormous quantities. There are cities separated by long roads, isolated towns where newcomers attract little interest and vast spaces capable of swallowing a person. A person doesn’t have to vanish into the desert to disappear. They only have to stop being where everyone expects them to be.

The first stage may begin months earlier. Cash is put aside. A bag is stored somewhere it won’t be found. A second phone appears. Perhaps a new email account is opened and used only when the spouse isn’t nearby.

Nothing looks sinister on its own.

That’s the trick.

Cheaters have to watch themselves because they live a life wrapped in lies. They manoeuvre themselves out of one life so they can enjoy the fruits of another. It is easy to get lost while doing it. No one knows the truth of what is really going on. If they go missing, no one knows whether they are alive or dead.

A secret affair is already a rehearsal for disappearance. The cheater learns how to account for missing hours, explain unfamiliar receipts and keep two versions of the same day alive. They discover how much can be concealed behind a meeting, a traffic delay or an overnight work commitment.

Most affairs don’t end with someone vanishing, of course. Most end messily and ordinarily: confession, discovery, regret or separation.

But a few create the perfect fog.

When the unfaithful person disappears, investigators inherit every lie. The husband says she was visiting a friend. The friend believed she was at home. The lover waits before speaking because admitting the affair will destroy his own relationship. Her family knows she was unhappy but believes she would never leave without saying goodbye.

Everyone holds a fragment. Nobody holds the whole story.

That is convenient, as exploiting gaps at the edge of people’s lives is what my serial killer seeks. He listens to women talk about their troubles, studies their words, and learns all he needs to know before they become his perfect victims.

It is an excruciating but rewarding process. Finding a new prospect from the pool of desperate females isn’t easy. Not all cheaters keep their cheating secret. Still, the work is worthwhile if the right one is found. She has to be a practised liar to reach the top of his list.

Once chosen, he’ll wait for an inevitable vulnerability to appear in her dysfunctional life. Then he’ll take advantage of it and snuff out her light.

Investigations will turn towards her husband or the other lover caught in her web of secrets. One may have rage. The other may have motive. Both will have lied to police before the truth is dragged out of them. By then, precious time has passed and the killer has stepped back into his ordinary life.

We know monsters can hide in plain sight. They work, shop and return home like everyone else. They don’t need to create all the confusion surrounding a victim. Sometimes the victim’s private life has already done it for them.

Strong, independent women. There’s a good starting point when on the hunt.

She believes it is no one’s business what she does in her private life. No one knows about the friction she has had with her husband for years. His spiteful tongue and lack of interest are demoralising. Corroding faithfulness and fading promises aren’t enough to make her leave, but their fire is well and truly extinguished. She has lit another one elsewhere that nobody sees.

She may even imagine disappearing with him.

At first, it is pillow talk. They speak about another city, another house, another name. The fantasy gains detail each time it is repeated. Eventually, the impossible starts sounding practical.

But secret lovers have spouses, children, mortgages and fears of their own. One may be ready to run while the other only enjoyed imagining it. If she disappears after their last meeting, did they leave together? Did she go alone? Did he panic and do something unforgivable? Or did someone else hear enough of the fantasy to use it against her?

That is how a voluntary disappearance can disguise an involuntary one.

Lies become part of ordinary life. They begin small because small lies are easier to carry. A late meeting. A flat phone battery. Soon, each lie requires another one to hold it upright. By the time someone vanishes, even innocent people appear guilty.

Lies wouldn’t need to exist if monogamy wasn’t so revered. It is usually the centrepiece of the fairy tale. The more it is adored, the more gravity it has—and the stronger the lie required to escape its pull. Any lie used to wrench two worlds apart would have to be fantastic. It would need to be perfect in every way.

Fortunately, our protagonist knows this too well. He has measured the level of deception required to maintain a secret affair and is ready to make his move at the optimum time.

If serial killers enjoyed fairy tales of their own, taking victims’ lives and not getting caught would be the best ending of all, right?

Wrong.

We can do better.

My protagonist can think of one happy ever after that would satisfy him far more. You won’t believe what he does—or how far he goes—to find perfection inside an imperfect fairy tale.

That darkness runs through the SEETHINGS psychological thriller trilogy: ordinary lives, concealed desires and a predator who understands that the most useful hiding places are often the ones people build for themselves.

—Michael Forman (Author of Dark Adult Fiction)