There is an AlAnon/AA slogan:
"Nothing changes if nothing changes."
This is true.
Things don't change if you don't make a change.
I'm going to stop going to some of these planning-oriented meetings at work. I'm going to continue to diminish my schedule and hours at the office. I'm going to continue to disengage and believe something positive will happen, that me being present isn't positive.
I think I've believed if I kept being involved, somehow we'd still make it. I haven't been able to envision myself not involved or helping run things on a day-to-day basis. I still am not sure who will do what I've been doing.
But Jay was and right: it's killing our marriage. Maybe it already has. We need to try something. He's mentioned that if I don't step down in some meaningful capacity, he will. I can't and don't want to run the company, so that doesn't leave a lot of options.
I feel conflicted in that I don't have anything else to go to, but I need space and time to even imagine what a different life could be. I don't enjoy this, but as I've explained to Jay, I've significantly contributed to creating what we have. I feel invested and responsible. I also don't want to just throw this away, fifteen years of my professional life, invested here.
I feel I can't fully disengage, because I don't see the gaps being filled in by anyone else. However, if I never step aside, how will anyone see the gaps to step in? Or how will there be the space to even see the need? And go seek the help? I don't think people even fully understand all I do. It sounds like whining to try and explain it: "I've done this, and this and this. I also do this. No one else has ever done this. This as well. Some of this. All of that."
Nice. Now can you shut up already? I remember last year when I tried to go to a meeting, one of the new senior hires waved his hand at me and said, "Go do your yoga; we got it."
And. Fuck. You.
So yeah, that's what's going to happen. It's really going to happen. Even with my sabbatical last year, I assumed I'd come back in some capacity. I think this year, I'm really going to step down, slowly and permanently. I don't know what will happen. I believe it will save our marriage. I don't know about my soul.
I see the insanity of it, the wanting to leave, but keeping my hands on the wheel. I know it has to do with control, with feeling resentful that I don't sense I'm turning this over to anyone that will handle things well. I imagine every founder that way to some extent.
Regardless of how I feel, it needs to happen. And it will.