Guilt (vickie-orange)

Its been really bothering me lately that my ex has been doing really well in his job lately. The reason is that when we worked together last year, our office was a complete failure. Together, the two of us were some of the best fundraisers in the nation, and certainly on the west coast. But we couldn't successfully run the office or retain staff. Granted, it was in the middle of one of the worse recessions EVER and almost no office across the country was doing well either. Eventually, I took over much of the staffing and in-field training that was above my rank just to keep the office from being shut down. Later, I went on to use those skills to start a whole solar company and bring in over one-half million dollars in our first quarter.

We left the company together, he to another division and I to the solar company. A friend of his came to take over our office. For several months he didn't do well at all either. Then, things picked up and they have been doing awesome ever since. My ex, however went on to learn many valuable skills at this other position on the UCSD campus. Over the summers, however, he is required to run a fundraising office again. He is in Santa Cruz now, and is bringing in more money in a week than we managed in half a year. He is breaking all sorts of crazy records, and frankly, doing very very well.

So, why do I feel so terrible about it?

For some reason it makes me feel that the reason the office was such a failure last year was because of me. My presence (or lack thereof) is the biggest variable. But I guess logically that doesn't make sense. He has learned a lot and come a long way since last year and he deserves to finally be able to be successful at managing a fundraising office. I just wish I didn't feel so guilty about it, like his failures were my fault. Although he never did tell me why he broke up with me, somewhere in my gut, him blaming me for his failure to do his job well, although he never said it, probably had a bigger in his decision to leave me than most of the other fears and reasons I could come up with. That makes me very uncomfortable. That was something I never could understand about him or anyone else.... why people blamed others for their own problems.