My mother-in-law kicked my parents out of my apartment while I wasn’t home, but in the end only made things worse for herself
Seven years. For seven years I’ve lived in this apartment, seven years I’ve woken up next to Anton, seven years I’ve endured his mother’s barbs. Seven years of hearing the same thing over and over: “You came from your hole and settled straight into a ready-made little nest.” Valentina Petrovna never misses a chance to remind me that I’m a stranger in this house.
“Lena, you left the dishes in the sink again,” she says, entering the kitchen, showing up in our apartment as always without invitation or warning. She has a key Anton gave her even before our wedding. I’ve asked many times for him to take it back, but my husband just waves it off: “Come on, she’s my mother.”
“I was going to wash them after lunch,” I answer, not lifting my eyes from the plate. Five-year-old Maksim sits beside me, diligently eating his porridge while glancing at his grandmother. He senses the tension—children always do.
“Going to!” Valentina Petrovna snorts. “Everything with you is going to. Then Anton comes home tired from work, and the place is a mess. At least the child is turning out normal—not like you.”
I clench my fists under the table. Not like me? I’m the one who gets up with him at night when he’s sick. I’m the one who reads him stories and plays with his building blocks. I’m the one who enrolled him in kindergarten and attends every parent-teacher meeting. But I stay silent. As always.
Valentina Petrovna surveys the kitchen with the eyes of a mistress. And yet, once, she was just as much a newcomer. She moved from a village near Kaluga to Moscow in the 1980s, married Anton’s father. But she prefers not to remember that. Now she’s a Muscovite, and I’m just the provincial outsider who “came running.”
“This apartment came to our family from Anton’s grandmother,” she begins her favorite tune. “And you’re just… a guest here. A temporary guest.”
“Temporary guest”—that’s what she’s been calling me for seven years now. A temporary guest who gave her a grandson, who works from morning till night, who spent all her savings on renovating this apartment.
“Mom, enough,” I say wearily.
“I’m not your mom! Valentina Petrovna! And don’t forget yourself. I’m the elder here, which means I’m the mistress of this house.”
Maksim frowns and pushes his bowl away.
“Grandma, why are you angry with Mom?”
“Finish your porridge, grandson. And let your mother learn how to keep a house in order.”
That evening, when Anton comes home from work, I try once again to talk to him.
“Anton, we can’t go on like this. Your mother comes whenever she wants, lectures me, says nasty things in front of the child. Take her keys back.”
Anton takes off his shoes without looking at me.
“Lena, come on. She’s my mother. An old, lonely woman. The apartment really did come from my grandmother…”
“Anton!” I grab his hand. “We’ve been married seven years! We have a child! This is our home!”
“Our home, yes. But Mom’s right—formally the apartment is in my name. And she’s used to dropping by since when I lived here alone…”
“Then sign half of it over to me. Officially.”
Anton winces, as if from a toothache.
“Why all these formalities? We love each other.”
We love each other. Yes, probably we do. But love and paperwork are two different things. That I learned not right away.
A week later my parents arrive. They’re planning to stay for ten days, to look after Maksim while our vacation winds down. My father and mother are simple people—he works at a factory, she at a hospital. But how many times they’ve helped us! When we renovated the bathroom—they gave us two hundred thousand. When we bought new furniture—another hundred. When Maksim was sick—their money saved us again.
“How good that you came,” I hug my mom. “Maksim missed his grandparents.”
“We wouldn’t want to be in the way,” my dad worries. “It’s already cramped here…”
“Don’t be silly, Dad! This is our home, our family. Make yourselves comfortable.”
Anton greets his in-laws warmly, as always. He respects them, values their help. But I can see he’s nervous. He calls his mother, warns her about their arrival.
“Mom, Lena’s parents are staying for a week… Yes, everything’s fine, what are you… I see.”
The next day Anton and I have to go to work. My parents stay with their grandson—reading, playing, cooking lunch. Maksim is happy: Grandma Vera tells him about birds and animals, while Grandpa Misha shows him tricks.
I work as a manager in a travel agency. At half past one my mother calls, her voice trembling:
“Lena, your mother-in-law came… She’s shouting that we moved in without permission…”
My heart sinks.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“She says we should pack our things and leave. That this is her apartment and she never invited us…”
I hear Valentina Petrovna’s voice in the background:
“Coming here like this! Thinking they can settle wherever they want! This is private property!”
“Mom, calm down. I’ll be there soon. Let me talk to Valentina Petrovna.”
“She doesn’t want to talk. Lenochka, she’s very angry… Maksim got scared…”
“Where’s Maksik?”
“In his room. Grandpa is with him.”
I drop everything and rush home. On the way, I call Anton:
“Your mother is throwing my parents out!”
“What?! Lena, I’m on my way too.”
“And take her keys away, finally! I’ve had enough!”
I get there in half an hour instead of the usual hour. By the entrance stands my parents’ suitcase. A suitcase! She threw their things out onto the street!
I run upstairs and hear shouting:
“No need to settle in here! You have your own daughter—let her take care of you!”
I unlock the door with my key. My parents are standing in the hallway—bewildered. My mother is crying. From the room comes Maksim’s sobbing.
“Valentina Petrovna, what is going on?”
She turns to me, her face red with rage:
“Ask your parents! They decided to make themselves comfortable here, that’s what! I explained to them: this isn’t a hotel, this is a private home!”
“This is our home!” I shout. “Ours with Anton! And my parents are my guests!”
“Ours?!” she laughs hysterically. “Yours? You’re nobody here at all! Do you have documents for the apartment? No! But my son does! Which means I’m the one in charge here!…”
My mother comes up to me:
“Lenochka, we’d better go stay in a hotel…”
“You’re not going anywhere!” I hug her. “Valentina Petrovna, apologize to my parents immediately!”
“As if! They’re the ones who should apologize for intruding!”
Anton arrives. His face is dark; he understands things are bad.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
“Antosha, I’m protecting our home! They want to settle in here!”
“Mom, they’re guests. For a week.”
“A week! And then what? They’ll stay forever! I know the type!”
I go into the nursery. Maksim is sitting on the bed, sobbing. Grandpa Misha strokes his head.
“Mama, why was Grandma Valya yelling at Grandma Vera?” my son asks.
A lump rises in my throat.
“Maksimka, sometimes adults can’t agree. But everything will be fine.”
“Will Grandma Vera and Grandpa Misha leave?”
“No, sweetheart. They’ll stay, just like they planned.”
I return to the living room. Anton is trying to calm his mother.
“Mom, why are you behaving like this? It’s not right.”
“Not right?! And that no one asked me—is that right? I found out by accident that strangers were living here!”
“They’re not strangers! They’re Lena’s parents!”
“They’re nothing to me!”
I approach Anton.
“Anton, I want to talk to you. Alone.”
We go into the kitchen. I close the door.
“Anton, that’s it. I can’t anymore. Either you settle things with your mother once and for all, or I’m leaving.”
“Lena, don’t get carried away…”
“I’m not getting carried away! She threw my parents out onto the street! She created a scene in front of our child! How much longer am I supposed to endure this?”
“She’s just worried…”
“Anton!” I speak very quietly, but he knows I’m serious. “I’m filing for divorce if you don’t take her keys right now and sign over half the apartment to me.”
He turns pale.
“Lena…”
“No ‘Lena’! For seven years I’ve endured humiliation! My parents gave their last money for our renovation, and she throws them out like dogs!”
“But the formalities…”
“Not formalities! Guarantees! I want to know that this home is mine too. That I’m not a ‘temporary guest’!”
Anton is silent, staring out the window.
“And how will I explain it to my mom?”
“Tomorrow I’ll file for divorce. And I’ll take Maksim with me.”
He realizes I’m not bluffing. Seven years is a long time, but I can’t go on living in a house where I’m considered an outsider.
“All right,” he says at last. “Tomorrow we’ll get it done.”
We return to the living room. Valentina Petrovna is sitting on the couch, still fuming.
“Mom,” Anton says, “give me the keys.”
“What?”
“The apartment keys. Give them to me.”
“Antosha, what are you saying?”
“Mom, this isn’t right. Lena’s right. This is our home.”
Valentina Petrovna’s face goes white.
“So you’re kicking me out? For her?”
“I’m not kicking you out. But give back the keys. And apologize to Lena’s parents.”
“Never!”
“Then don’t come here anymore.”
She stands up, trembling, takes the keys out of her purse, and throws them on the table.
“Fine! We’ll see how you live without your mother! And that wife of yours will be the first to leave you the moment something happens!”
She storms out, slamming the door so hard the windows rattle.
Silence falls.
My parents stand in the hallway, unsure what to do.
“Please forgive her,” I say. “Make yourselves at home. This is your home too.”
My mother hugs me.
“Lenochka, maybe you shouldn’t have…”
“I had to, Mom. I should have done it long ago.”
The next day Anton and I go to the notary. We register half the apartment in my name. Now I am no longer a “temporary guest.” Now this is my home.
For three days Valentina Petrovna doesn’t call. Then she phones Anton, crying:
“Son, I didn’t mean it… I was just worried…”
“Mom, come over. But behave yourself.”
She arrives with a cake and flowers. She apologizes to my parents. Insincerely, falsely, but she apologizes.
“I was nervous,” she says. “Old people, you know, we get suspicious.”
My parents, of course, forgive her. They’re kind.
But now we have new rules. Valentina Petrovna calls before visiting. She no longer criticizes my housekeeping. She no longer calls me a “temporary guest,” only Lena.
And when, a month later, my parents come again—this time for Maksim’s birthday before he starts school—no one throws them out. Valentina Petrovna even helps set the table.
“You did the right thing,” my mother tells me when we’re alone in the kitchen. “It should have been done long ago.”
“Yes, Mom. Long ago.”
And Valentina Petrovna no longer considers me a temporary guest. Because now I have the documents. And because she realized that by trying to drive out my parents, she almost lost her son and grandson. Her plan to break our family backfired on her.
Now she knows: in this house, I’m not a guest. I’m the mistress.
