I teach in a high school in Milan, I am 43 years old and I ended a decade-long relationship with a lawyer with whom I lived. For a few months now I have been seeing a school assistant (that’s their name today, once upon a time she would have been a janitor) of the institute where I work. She is a very sweet woman, a little younger than me, shy, tried by life but optimistic and good. Well, he’s not one of those people marred by adversity. She has a horrible marriage behind her with a violent man who, during their terrifying relationship, even prevented her from having children. She moved to Milan with her mother and sister, leaving many horrible things behind and ended up in the same school as me. Here she has laboriously started again and today she seems peaceful to me, but certainly not even I am able to erase all the evil suffered in the past. Our relationship started slowly, almost with fear but we have been together for a while now and I would like her to be less guarded. I would like him to agree to meet my friends, for example, and I would be ready to make our union official even in the institute. But she continues to say “what do you think of saying that you’re with a janitor?”… The way she feels and experiences our relationship deeply pains me. But I don’t know what to do to reassure her.
Matthew
I don’t believe at all that you don’t know how to reassure her. First of all because when a person is truly in love they are able to tune in to the other perfectly and then because I expect even more from you, Matteo. It is clear from how he describes her how much he cares for this woman and from the fact that he would like to “enclose” her with his life even more than he is doing now. Regardless of the fact that, within the same school, you occupy such different positions. His girlfriend is hurt and scared. And remember that the most terrible thing these so-called men who raise their hands on women and force them into marriages that are in reality long kidnappings manage to do is to convince their victims that they are worth nothing and deserve even less.
Who knows what it will seem like to his “girlfriend” today, having an attentive, kind and respectful companion next to her who really “sees” her. From the hell from which she re-emerged, she will seem like a dream and dreams, as we know, must be handled with care. Give her time.