“Where are you wandering around?! I told you I have guests today!” her husband raged over the phone, but she simply hung up and started packing his things.
Lena remembered that day when Igor came home with a wide smile and a bottle of champagne in his hands. That was four years ago, when they still laughed together in the kitchen, when he still kissed her in the mornings before work, when she still believed they were a couple and not master and servant.
“Lenka, you won’t believe it!” He had spun her around the living room, and she laughed, pressing against his shoulder. “I’ve been appointed head of the department! Can you imagine? Head of department! Salary, plus a percentage of the department’s revenue! That’s three times more than I was earning before!”
She was happy for him. Igor had strived for this for so long—working late, studying, attending training sessions. He deserved the promotion. And back then it seemed to her that their life would only get better from there.
And for the first few months, it did. Igor glowed with happiness, bought her gifts, took her to expensive restaurants. They planned a vacation in Italy, talked about children, about a bigger apartment. Lena, too, was climbing the career ladder—in the advertising agency where she worked, her projects were winning awards, and clients specifically requested her.
But gradually, something began to change. Igor stayed late at work more often, asked less and less about her life. Then, about six months after the promotion, he suddenly said:
“Len, why do you even need that job? Think about it—I’m earning well now, I can support the family. You could focus on the house, on yourself… It’s awkward when colleagues ask me what my wife does, and I have to say she’s making some kind of ads.”
“What do you mean, ‘some kind of ads’?” Lena hadn’t even understood at first whether he was joking. “Igor, I’m a lead specialist! I manage a team of twelve people, my projects—”
“So what?” he shrugged. “We’ve got money now. Why deal with the nerves and stress? At home you’d be a queen, not some… creative type.”
Lena thought he was just tired, that it was temporary. But Igor kept insisting. He said real wives of successful men didn’t work, that her career was just child’s play compared to his responsibilities.
“I provide for the family!” he repeated. “And you? Playing around with your pictures and slogans?”
Lena resisted for months. But Igor grew more persistent, and their relationship grew colder. In the end, she gave in. She filed her resignation, said goodbye to her team, to her projects that felt like her children.
“See? Isn’t this better,” Igor said when she greeted him at home for the first time with dinner ready. “Now you’re a real wife.”
But being a “real wife” turned out to be a bitter title. Igor increasingly treated her like staff. He didn’t ask—he ordered. He didn’t thank her for dinner—he took it for granted. When colleagues or friends came over, he didn’t ask Lena if she wanted to cook—he simply announced it.
“Tomorrow Sergei and Max are coming. Make something with meat. And buy a good cake.”
And Lena obediently nodded, because she loved him. Because she believed it was temporary, that he would change, that things would get better.
But everything changed in a completely different direction.
That evening Igor came home looking like a thundercloud. His face was gray, his hands trembling. He sat down on the couch and was silent for a long time.
“What happened?” Lena asked.
“I was fired,” he said quietly. “They just fired me.”
“Fired? Why?”
“They said I was taking kickbacks. That I was making deals with clients for discounts in exchange for a cut. Complete nonsense!” Igor slammed his fist on the table. “It’s all Vitalik’s doing! That bastard I beat out for the promotion. He lied to them about me, and they didn’t even bother to investigate. They just threw me out!”
Lena hugged him, stroked his head. She told him everything would be fine, that he’d find a new job, that he had experience, connections…
But months went by, and there was no job. No one would hire Igor. Rumors of his dishonesty had spread quickly in the industry, and his résumé went straight into the trash the moment HR saw his name.
Lena had to start looking for work. But after a two-year break, it was nearly impossible. In the end, she got a job as a junior creative in a small agency—the same position she had held eight years earlier. The salary was four times less than what she used to earn.
Meanwhile, Igor had become a different person. He drank. At first in the evenings, then during the day as well. He shouted at Lena over the smallest things. Blamed her for not earning enough, for cooking badly, for the apartment being dirty.
“I supported you! Gave you everything! And where’s your gratitude now?!” he yelled. “You can’t even properly provide for the family!”
Lena worked twelve-hour days, tried to rebuild her network, to catch up on what she had lost. And at home, she faced dirty dishes, an empty fridge, and a drunken husband with endless complaints.
The worst part was that Igor wasn’t even looking for a job. He spent whole days on the internet, plotting revenge against Vitalik. He read forums where people discussed their former company, wrote anonymous complaints to the tax authorities, and tried to dig up compromising material.
“I’ll destroy him,” he muttered, staring at his laptop screen. “I’ll show everyone who he really is.”
“Igor,” Lena said cautiously, “maybe it’s better to focus on finding a job? I know a few companies where—”
“Shut up!” he barked. “You don’t understand anything! First I’ll deal with that bastard, and then…”
That “then” never came.
Lena cried at night in the bathroom so he wouldn’t hear. She cried from exhaustion, from humiliation, from the fact that the man she had loved had turned into someone angry, unfair, and utterly foreign.
But she endured. She told herself it was temporary, that he would get through the crisis and become the man he once was.
And then that day came.
Lena was at the office, finalizing a concept for a major client. The deadline was tomorrow morning, and the materials from the designer had only arrived an hour ago. She knew she would have to stay late tonight.
At seven o’clock, the phone rang.
“Hello,” Igor said irritably. “I expect you home by eight. Oleg and Andrei are coming over. You’ll cook some meat, buy beer. Clear?”
“Igor, I have a deadline, I can’t…”
“What?” His voice dropped to a dangerously quiet tone.
“I have an important project, it has to be submitted tomorrow morning. I won’t make it home by eight.”
“I don’t care about your project! You have to be home!”
And he hung up.
Lena sat staring at the dead line. The office was silent—everyone else had gone home. Only she remained, bent over layouts, trying to finish work that could bring the agency a big contract.
At half past eight, the phone rang again.
“Where the hell are you?! I told you I’ve got guests tonight!” Igor raged into the receiver.
Lena said nothing. She listened to his shouting, the insults, the reproaches. Listened as he called her selfish, told her she didn’t respect him, that she was a bad wife.
And then she simply hung up.
She got up from her desk, packed her things, and went home.
The apartment door was wide open—the guests were smoking on the balcony. Igor was pacing around the living room, waving his arms, explaining something to his friends. When he saw Lena, he rushed toward her:
“Where have you been?! We’ve been waiting for two hours! Oleg and Andrei came, and there’s nothing to eat!…”
Lena walked past him into the bedroom. She pulled a large bag out of the closet and began packing his things. Shirts, jeans, socks, underwear.
“What are you doing?” Igor stood in the doorway, watching her movements.
Lena was silent. Methodically, she packed his clothes, his books, his shaving kit.
“Lena, what are you doing?!” he repeated, louder this time.
She didn’t answer. She zipped the bag shut, picked it up, and carried it to the front door. Igor followed, saying something, but she didn’t listen.
She opened the door and set the bag out on the landing. Then she went back for the second load.
“Lena, have you lost your mind?!” Igor shouted. “What are you doing?!”
The guests on the balcony had gone quiet, peeking into the room with curiosity and embarrassment.
“Guys,” Lena said calmly, “I’m sorry, but the evening is over. Please leave.”
Oleg and Andrei quickly grabbed their jackets and slipped out the door, mumbling something about “bad timing” and “we’ll call later.”
Lena kept carrying out Igor’s things. His shoes, his briefcase, his favorite mug with the logo of his former company.
“Lena!” Igor grabbed her arm. “What’s wrong with you? At least explain!”
She shook off his hand and carried out the last load. One of the bags fell, some clothes tumbled out, and then the laptop nearly slid off the edge of the stair. Igor lunged at the bags, frantically picking them up, shouting that she was insane, that she couldn’t do this, that it was his home too.
“Tomorrow I’m filing for divorce,” Lena said quietly, standing in the doorway.
“What?!”
“Tomorrow morning I’m going to a lawyer. I’m filing for divorce.”
“Lena, you can’t… We’re a family! I love you! I’m just going through a rough time…”
“This ‘rough time’ has lasted for two years,” she said. “And I don’t want to be part of it anymore.”
“But where will I go? I have no money, no job…”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Lena, wait! We can talk this over, I’ll change, I’ll find work…”
“Goodbye, Igor.”
She closed the door and leaned her back against it. For a long time, she could still hear his shouting, pleading, threats. Then the noise faded.
Lena went into the bathroom, turned on the water, and for the first time in two years she cried—not from grief, but from relief.
The next morning she really did file for divorce. And a week later, the concept she had finished that night brought the agency the biggest contract in its history. Her boss offered her the position of art director.
Igor kept trying to come back for several more months. He called, sent messages, waited for her outside the office. Promised he would change, find work, become who he used to be.
But Lena remembered that evening. She remembered his voice on the phone: “Where the hell are you?!” She remembered the years of humiliation, coercion, disrespect.
And she understood that the old Igor no longer existed. Maybe he had never existed at all. Maybe he had only hidden behind a mask that slipped once money and power came into play.
A year after the divorce, Lena bought a small apartment in the city center. She got another promotion. She met a man who asked her opinion, who was interested in her work, and who never raised his voice at her.
Igor never did find another job. The last she heard of him from mutual acquaintances, he was working as a courier for a small company and still plotting revenge against his former colleague.
Lena no longer cried at night. And she never regretted that evening when, for the first time in years, she put her own life above his whims.
Sometimes, walking past their old house, she thought of the Igor she had once loved. And she felt sadness not for the lost marriage, but for the fact that a person can change so much. That money and power can turn a loving husband into a tyrant, and the loss of them—into a bitter failure.
But she was no longer willing to sacrifice herself for someone else’s ambitions and insecurities. She had learned to value herself. And that was the most important lesson of all.
Lena walked through the evening city to her new home, where a warm dinner, a good book, and silence awaited her.
Where no one shouted, demanded, or belittled her.
Where she was finally free.
