“I’ve found someone else. Pack your things and get out of my apartment,” said the husband, but the wife only laughed.
Lena had suspected her husband was being unfaithful. Lately, he’d been behaving strangely, distant.
Only two years into their marriage, and already they seemed like strangers. Her mother-in-law had warned her, saying her son was fickle and she should think a hundred times before agreeing to marry him.
Back then, Lena believed she could make her husband settle down. But she had been very mistaken. Now she realized how foolish and naïve she had been — only it was too late to regret it.
She needed proof, and if Maksim really was seeing someone else, she would simply file for divorce.
Her husband often came home late. Many times Lena was already asleep, and by the time she woke up, he had slipped off to work. But that evening she decided to stay up. She prepared a nice dinner, dressed up, and decided it was time they talked.
Lena turned off the light in the living room, watching the streetlights flicker outside. Maksim assumed his wife was already asleep. Moving quietly, he stepped into the room but startled at the sound of her familiar voice.
“Why are you sitting in the dark and scaring me like that?” Maksim exclaimed.
“What is there to be afraid of, if you’ve got nothing to hide?” Lena asked, slowly turning toward him. She looked at her husband and smiled.
Maksim switched on the light, and she could see how pale he had gone. Once they had loved each other so much, but now a huge chasm lay between them, one that no longer seemed bridgeable.
Lena no longer felt the joyful flutter she once had at the sight of her husband. She felt out of place and again and again forced her emotions into silence. Perhaps they had gone silent forever.
“You’re talking nonsense,” Maksim snorted. “I’d like to see how you’d react in my place. Why aren’t you asleep at this hour?”
“I was waiting for you. I made dinner. We hardly see each other anymore. I thought it was time to change that. You work late, and I… it’s no trouble for me to stay up.”
Lena kept wondering how best to raise the question that gnawed at her soul. She watched her husband, trying to spot any trace of fear in his eyes. Was he even a little afraid of losing her? Did he realize their marriage might be ending?
“You shouldn’t have waited up. I’m tired; I’m not in the mood for talk. You’ve already said everything for me — I work late, I’m not out having fun.”
But Maksim’s voice trembled, betraying his unease. What could that mean? A lump rose in Lena’s throat from hurt, but she steadied herself and smiled again.
“Then let’s just have dinner together. We don’t have to talk. But if there’s something to say, better to speak than stay silent, so it doesn’t drag on and we can fix something before we sink completely.”
Maksim didn’t react to his wife’s words, as if they weren’t meant for him at all. He pretended not to hear, and Lena decided she wouldn’t press him tonight. She wanted to observe a little longer.
Dinner passed in silence. From time to time, Maksim glanced nervously at his wife, then looked away as if she weren’t there. In the morning he left for work earlier than usual, as if trying to avoid her, afraid she might ask awkward questions.
That weekend, Maksim planned to go fishing with friends, or so he told Lena, but she later learned his friends weren’t going anywhere. The conclusion was obvious. Still, Lena wasn’t going to give in easily. She was waiting for some kind of initiative from her husband — anything.
That evening Maksim came home upset. He smelled faintly of alcohol. Lena waited, as if she already knew that the sentence was about to be pronounced.
“I’m tired of hiding from you. I’m afraid to come back to my own apartment. And you don’t make it any easier — always glaring at me. We need to separate. I made a mistake marrying you.
I should’ve thought with my head back then, but I was infatuated. Now I realize you’re not the woman I want to spend my life with.”
How much those words sounded like what her mother-in-law had once said. Alla Vladimirovna had persistently warned Lena, asking her not to be offended later — she’d taken that risk herself by entering this relationship. And now Lena heard the same thing from her husband.
“I’ve found someone else. Pack your things and get out of my apartment. I want to live like a normal person, not constantly make excuses. I think you’ve already guessed everything since you started asking the ‘right’ questions.”
Maksim coughed and looked up at his wife. There was guilt in his eyes, but not enough. A battle was raging inside him, and he was trying hard to silence his conscience.
“I did guess, but… I’m not going anywhere,” Lena replied, crossing one leg over the other and lifting her chin.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Do you actually enjoy being the cheated wife?”
“No one could enjoy that. I don’t mind divorcing, I’ve even prepared all the paperwork, but you won’t throw me out of this apartment.”
Maksim was stunned by his wife’s audacity. He’d expected her to explode, attack him, burst into tears, and then pack her things and go to her mother’s. That’s what hurt wives usually do, isn’t it? But Lena looked at him as if she had already planned everything. She smiled, and he couldn’t understand why.
“And what does all this mean? You intend to stay in my apartment? I want to bring here the woman I love. Surely you don’t think she’ll be pleased to see my ex around? Shall I remind you that this is my apartment?
I bought it with my own money, and you didn’t put in a single kopeck. I never asked you for anything, and whatever you bought for the house — you can take it, I won’t ask you to leave it behind…”
Lena couldn’t suppress a smirk. Perhaps in another situation she wouldn’t have behaved like this, but the hurt that had settled deep inside spoke for her. She wasn’t about to let her husband get away with his betrayal so easily.
It wasn’t just that he had found someone else — he had lied to her for so long, weighing up who, in his eyes, was better. If he had told her everything at once, maybe she would have pitied him, but not now.
By now, a plan had formed in her head: she wanted to teach her husband a lesson, so that he would think twice before acting this way again, so that he would know women are smart and can stand up for themselves. At least, Lena certainly was.
“Why are you silent? What are you plotting?”
“I’m letting you think for yourself,” Lena replied calmly. “Any thoughts? Or should I spell everything out for you like you’re a child?”
She had no intention of groveling before a man who had betrayed her and cruelly laughed behind her back. She spoke to Maksim the way he deserved. She could no longer smile while looking him in the eye.
And he understood it. She had been faithful, cared for him, planned their future together. It was good she had started preparing for this outcome as soon as she saw the first warning signs. Good that she’d kept her distance and hadn’t become pregnant. Otherwise, it would have been far more painful and complicated.
“You can explain, if you think I’m stupid and don’t understand the obvious truth.”
“All right,” Lena got up from the sofa and went to the window. “This isn’t your apartment, dear husband. This apartment counts as jointly acquired property because you bought it after we got married. I’m not going anywhere until we divide it according to the law.”
Maksim flushed with rage. He clenched his fists and squinted. He had thought he married a simple, naïve girl, but Lena turned out to be far too clever. Was she planning to leave him without the home he had earned through blood and sweat?
“You didn’t put in a single kopeck. That’ll be easy to prove!” the man protested.
Lena only smiled and nodded. She had already met and spoken with a lawyer. She had decided to act only after getting proper advice. Proving she hadn’t contributed a penny would not be so simple.
In most cases, a judge rules in favor of splitting property acquired during marriage in half, regardless of unequal financial contributions.
Maksim had made a big mistake when he purchased the apartment that way. He could have finalized everything before the marriage registration, but for some reason he delayed. And now he’d fallen into his own trap.
“Go ahead and try. I’m not stopping you. Everyone has equal rights. You can defend your position, and I can demand what I’m entitled to by law. Until the court case is over, I’m not moving out.
So you’d better hold off on moving your new sweetheart in, or I might give her such a sweet life… she’ll run from you long before you get the divorce.”
Maksim was stunned. He looked at his wife differently now. She suddenly seemed too smart, too… He hadn’t noticed before — or had stopped noticing — but now it seemed she’d become more beautiful. Why had he decided to distance himself from her, to succumb to temptation?
He pushed away the absurd thoughts crowding his mind. He had already made his decision: he was divorcing, and Lena was too cunning. They would have to fight, but Maksim intended to defend his position to the very end.
Alla Vladimirovna disapproved of her son’s behavior. She refused to testify on his behalf and declared that he had only himself to blame. If Maksim had listened to her and not acted recklessly, things wouldn’t have come to this.
“Lena is a good woman. She acted that way because you hurt her too deeply. You have to pay for your mistakes. If you couldn’t keep your pants on, now take responsibility.
Next time, think with your head. If not, you’ll lose something again. And you won’t just lose half an apartment — you’ll lose the woman who loved you. Finding another like her won’t be easy. Far from it. But that’s no concern of mine.”
Maksim grew dejected even at the very start of the court case because he realized his chances were slim. The judge ruled in Lena’s favor and ordered the apartment to be divided.
“Got what you wanted, did you? I suppose from the very start you married me for this?” Maksim asked bitterly.
Lena only gave her ex-husband a reproachful look but said nothing in reply. She saw no point in explaining. He probably wouldn’t understand anyway. A new chapter of her life was beginning, and she couldn’t afford to falter.
She moved into an apartment she rented near her office. She instructed her lawyer to handle the sale of her share in her ex-husband’s flat, as she no longer wished to see him or listen to the nasty words with which he tried to wound her each time.
Maksim fell into depression. When he learned he had lost the apartment and would, for the foreseeable future, only be able to afford a tiny studio, his new lover quickly left. She hadn’t wanted to get involved with a pauper — nor had she planned anything serious anyway.
“I was just having fun; I never asked you to get divorced,” the girl said as she left.
Maksim was left with nothing. It took him a while to grasp the meaning of his mother’s words, but now he understood that he had lost not just property… he had lost a family through his own foolishness.
Spending evenings in dreary solitude, he kept thinking… he missed Lena, but he had to admit she wouldn’t come back. He needed to move on and think with his head in the future.
But would he really learn the lesson if another temptation appeared on the horizon, one so hard to resist?
