(AND HOW I’LL NEVER MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES AGAIN)
I was lucky enough over a year ago to find the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. The relationship I developed with my partner from the day we met was the one thing that I knew I could rely on completely, without question. At the same time, I was driven to succeed in my entrepreneurial ventures. I made some fundamental mistakes and lost the thing that was actually most important to me.
At the time my partner and I met, I was growing a subsidiary for a tech company. It was a difficult time with lots of internal politics. Because our relationship was long-distance, the extra travel away from my team and away from the parent company meant frustration levels were always high. At the start of the year, the parent company entered financial trouble, my stress levels went through the roof. I double guessed every decision I had made and also blamed a lot on the relationship and the travel. When the parent company reached breaking point, offering me the opportunity to buy my subsidiary company and grow it autonomously (with the huge yoke of their own financial gain around my neck), my partner supported me wholeheartedly in my decision to decline. This forced me into unemployment. My self worth had been so intrinsically linked to my work, my achievements, that having nothing to work on for the first time in 13 years felt like the biggest failure. It was a time of major uncertainty and personal hardship. I hardly slept, I was frustrated and my anger found an outlet into our relationship that it shouldn’t have. I swore I wouldn’t do this to myself or us again.
My pride didn’t let me keep that promise.
I was determined to prove myself to everyone; previous employers, ex-colleagues, work partnerships and friends. I couldn’t let myself stay idle or jobless or unemployed. I felt that my worth could only be proved through being successful. Only, I saw my worth through what I believed others were thinking. I needed to have a successful, new project, a title behind my name. So I jumped into a project, took it over entirely. As can be in the very early stages of a startup, I worked through days and nights — at one stage, I hadn’t left my desk for 2 weeks and even moved it into my bedroom so that I wouldn’t waste any time between sleeping and waking. I became obsessed with seeing this new project flourish and be successful. I stopped taking the time to enjoy communicating with my partner. I stopped investing even a small percent of my energy into the relationship. He emphasized his concern, but wanted to support my dreams. I couldn’t see anything through my tunnel vision except my need for making this project succeed. I was almost hospitalized at one stage for stress, but convinced my doctor that I only needed to put in one more week’s work like this, and then I would be through to the next stage and could take it easier. I have always been good at selling a point- I almost had myself convinced.
A week later, another transatlantic flight. I was closer to investors and my partner again, but introduced to a whole new level of stress as, to secure some of the deals we needed, my startup was moving at break-neck speed and far above my comfort level. Bit by bit, I started committing one of my biggest mistakes: I overstepped the boundaries of life and work within our relationship. I stopped being able to truly separate my work from us, dragging my extremely talented partner into my work. I started demanding his support. Not only did he have to feel responsible for being there for me (and he truly was my rock through everything), I also demanded his time to help me get my projects out the door: design work, programming, proof-reading. He became my first unpaid, full-time employee. Only, he actually had a full-time, paying job and was concurrently trying to support our relationship. A week ago, he had simply had enough. It shocked me to the core. Within my little success-blinkered tunnel, I had basically put my relationship on my payroll. I had taken it for granted as the stable point in my life, without investing enough into it. I had crossed so many boundaries between work and love and, because there was so much love there, my partner had tried his best to support that. And I lost him.
Only after this occurred was I forced to reassess my motives and their consequences. I realized that I had lost sight of what the most important things were in my life, my relationship and my health. I had sacrificed them for an ideal that I had in my head of what my worth was based on. As a result, I lost everything that was dear to me. I know that I could take this time now to bury myself in work, to become that successful, titled person I was striving to be, but I am starting to see that it is far too great a sacrifice. When I think about the things I like about myself, my real self-worth, my drive and passion are certainly there, but the actual work I do is not part of what makes me the person I am.
So I am making the decision to turn my back on my pride and my ego, on seeing myself through my perception of other people’s ideals regarding what success should be. I am walking away from everything I have built. Instead, I will focus on building myself in the next months. And maybe sometime I will work on my own project again and maybe that will be a startup. But I will do things for the right motives and will ensure that I am investing as much into my personal relationships as I am into my work. I will be careful to see where the boundaries are and should be, and to not cross them. I will never again take something so precious to me for granted. No job, no accolade, no ideal is worth that.
My Startup Mistakes 
Do you want to get your partner back? Sounds like you’ve learned and he may still have an open heart for you.
Hi Anthony, of course- but it is a decision that is out of my hands.