The Big “D”

I rarely get personal on my blog; as of lately I rarely even blog on my blog – here goes. Long story short, my wife, Valerie, and I have decided to split up; we’ll soon just be a statistic. Unfortunately no juicy drama and nothing scandalous to report – we just realized we were not perfectly suited for each other. We are ending on the best of terms; we are still best friends and very much in love. It was a mutual decision that we knew was coming for some time.

Valerie and I talked about having a family for a long time, since we were first dating. She never wanted kids at the moment but always assumed she would as time went on and we both got older. She just had her 29th birthday and the realization came that she is never going to want to have kids – that was essentially our breaking point. It isn’t to imply that I am ready to have kids right now or that I even ever will; but if you are looking for a simple and easy answer to a complicated situation, there you have it. It is a very personal topic, especially the issue around family, one that isn’t exactly appropriate to share in public forum – if you are up for hearing the whole back-story, it’ll cost you a beer.

Anyone who has ever had the opportunity (privilege) to get to know Valerie, knows that she is possibly the coolest, most social, laid back girl alive – she is everything I pretend to be on Twitter, ha ha. At the time, she was perfect for me; she could out drink me, out party me and even easily fit in with all of my friends, even the geeky ones. Anyone that has gotten to know me knows that I am full of ambition and constantly on an adventure to have as much fun as possible. She was always out of my league, but completely and utterly a perfect match. While fundamentally we are both still very much the same, it is our view of ourselves tomorrow that drives us apart today. Her and I are both strong believers in fate and timing; the sad reality is that even great things sometimes have an expiration date. The greatness never stopped, but the definition changed a bit. We both are always seeking that “great” and want to ensure we are never holding one another back from it.

On a professional note, one thing that I am happy to say, and that Valerie has always been very much appreciative of, is that starting and running a business never got in the way of our marriage. When Alex and I started nclud we knew we wanted to build a different company, one built on a particular culture. A culture where we never let the business of running the business define the business. Of course running a business and striving for success is a lot of hard-work, the goal is to ensure that hard-work can be controlled and stopped before 6pm and never (rarely?) spill into the weekends; be successful in 40 hours a week or realize you’ve lost focus on the definition of “success”.

No need for commenting, sending me direct messages or facebook’ing me anything – I don’t need condolences, a shoulder or a hug. As sad as it is and as much as I will miss my time with Valerie, something about it all seems so right.

Anyone up for a beer?

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