This is what the ancient Romans would say to describe a way
of acting towards others, “I give in order to receive, or be given back” and if
I think to my about 15 years of marriage (full of tender love) I see that I had
been always the “giver” to receive the love, care and attention back from my
spouse Michele.
This way of saying describes also a philosophically correct
way of behaving socially, in other words it’s usually better to be a “giver”
than a “taker”, I can actually think of somebody who’s been living his entire
life in a “taking from others” mode (B.), but I can very honestly say that in
my marriage I’ve always and only been the giver, since the time when my spouse
came first to Italy (from California) to pretty much live with me, when at that
time we were not even married yet.
Therefore, we lived for some time in the North East of Italy where
I had my job and eventually we got to live in my family’s town of Verona , after Brescia, Bologna , and Malcesine.
Then – like some kind of miracle – I was offered to move to
the US headquarters of the company I was working for and that move too had few
challenges, meaning that we first landed to Maryland (Elkton), then to Delaware (Newark)
in a much better home and few years later – after the birth of both our two treasures – we moved to Lyme New Hampshire, where I used to have a very good
working position as vice-president of an important division of the Italian ski
company I was working for (4 years).
However even if working in a company where being athletically
fit was important and part of the job was about being a proficient skier to be
able to personally test the equipment being sold, my interests were always
directed to the State of California for the main reasons that it’s both where
my spouse was born and also very much because the weather is always a dream.
Especially when leaving Lyme at minus 10 degrees below zero
with 5 feet
of new snow everywhere, it seemed unreal to land in SFO with 75 degrees and under a
very bright and warm sun, in addition there was my constant attempt to be in a
higher managerial position – not only because it pays more – but also very much
because I had attempted to earn the right to be a president (no longer just vice-p.) for
several years already and for this very reason I even had lost my position in
Newark because after having been the “one man” for the company/brand I had been
working for in 4 years when I demanded the title truthfully aligned with what I
had been doing 24/7 for 4 years, the owner could not accept the (mental)
challenge of me being almost as important as him in this country, so I was
dismissed in less than a week.
Given that my reason to be alive and have a family has
always been to earn sufficient money to make my family very comfortable no
matter where we are or what we do, the “do ut des” has been always my most
important philosophy in life and none of those who either worked or knew me as
friend could say that I’m not a giver, much less my wife and my family, who still
today live off of my disability income.
What I had dreamt was that Michele could have learned from my
way of living and being, was truly a dream, because she has shown to be just a
very good and experienced taker, even if it’s true that she has assumed the
responsibility to help grow and mature to adulthood our treasures, even if
sometimes I fear that she’s “using” them as the reason to keep the standards of
living at which I only could set her up to.
What I’m trying to say here is that I’m completely unable to
figure out of a (any) reason why Michele not only has abandoned me (=divorce) but
she also got herself in bed with a man (my former doctor B.) who’s only a taker, too much like Michele has always been.
This story makes me want to conclude by saying that there’s
nothing worse than putting together 2 takers, if things can have any future, there must be a giver for any taker, and this is what Michele had to learn at
her expenses (and mine! too).
