Fedya, please stay with Vika; I need to go to the store for cat food. I asked you to buy it yesterday, but you forgot,” Valentina quickly pulled on her jacket and started putting on her shoes.
“Will you be gone long? I need to send a report to Yuri Petrovich,” the man never liked looking after their three-year-old daughter. He thought it was a boring and uninteresting task.
“I’ll be about fifteen minutes. Your boss won’t notice the report missing in that time.”
Fyodor didn’t like the tone of his wife. He snorted in displeasure but didn’t argue further with Valya.
Fifteen minutes passed, and the woman hadn’t returned from the store. She had run into a neighbor and got caught up in conversation; the neighbor invited her for tea, and they ended up sitting for a while. It was only when Valentina returned home that she realized exactly two hours had passed since she had left.
“Where have you been for so long?! Why didn’t you take your phone with you? I was about to leave Vika and go looking for you!” Fedya was furious with Valya. He had planned to relax and watch TV after work, but instead, he ended up spending the entire evening with his daughter.
“I forgot my phone and lost track of time. I ran into Julia from the third entrance, and we got to talking.”
“Got to talking…” Fedya echoed her words and retreated to the bedroom.
Valya thought her husband was irritated because of the work reports he was supposed to send to his boss. But Fedya didn’t actually have any tasks from his boss. Every day he made them up just so his wife wouldn’t bother him with household chores.
Valya was a simple and naive woman. She always took her husband’s word for it. Whenever she needed help with something, she tried not to bother Fyodor. She felt sorry for her husband and truly believed that he was working not only in the office but also at home on the computer.
In this fabricated family idyll, Valentina and Fyodor had lived together for six years. However, in the first three years, there was mutual assistance between them. The husband could easily help with house cleaning, as well as prepare lunch or dinner.
But everything changed when Valya got pregnant. Whether it was due to the surplus of hormones or lack of work, at that moment Valentina took on all household responsibilities. She no longer asked her husband for help. It seemed to her that since she was on maternity leave, she should take care of cleaning and comfort herself.
Fyodor liked this arrangement very much. He no longer had to clean or cook. The man quickly adapted to this state, and even after the birth of their daughter, he continued to lead a relaxed lifestyle.
Several times Valentina tried to involve her husband in taking care of their child, but this idea immediately displeased Fyodor. That’s when he came up with a clever way to shirk household responsibilities. Every time his wife opened her mouth to ask for help, he immediately sat down at the computer and pretended to be busy working. He then claimed he needed to work more to get a promotion. Although this did not reflect on his salary, it ultimately made Valya forget what it was like to have her husband’s help around the house.
This continued for exactly three years, but then everything started to change. Valya enrolled their daughter in daycare and went back to work herself.
“Now we are on equal terms,” the wife suddenly declared, looking into her husband’s eyes.
“What do you mean?” Fyodor didn’t immediately understand what Valentina meant.
“I went back to work. Now we’ll take turns picking up Vika from daycare, as well as cleaning and cooking dinner.”
The man did not expect such a turn of events. He had gotten used to enjoying life, and now his wife decided to burden him with part of the responsibilities.
“Alright,” Fyodor grumbled unhappily.
Agreeing to the division of labor, the man immediately figured out how to avoid all of this. Fyodor knew his wife was a perfectionist. It was extremely important for her to do everything quickly and well, so he tried to do the housework slowly and poorly. Very soon, this cunning scheme bore fruit.
At first, Valentina tried to teach her husband how to properly wash dishes and cook rice or pasta, but after she threw out three pots in a row because of burnt grains, she gave up on the matter. In the end, the wife returned to the pre-pregnancy times when she did all the housework herself.
But Fedya didn’t stop there. His laziness grew exponentially. Not only did he absolutely not help his wife with the house and child, but he also started shirking other work.
Fedya’s mother, who lived in the neighboring district, started renovating her apartment. It was difficult for the sixty-year-old woman to change the wallpaper in the rooms, so she called her son every time to help her. But the man also had his “reports” for his mother.
“Fedya, your mom called again today,” Valya suddenly announced before the holidays. “Tomorrow she’s planning to wallpaper. The walls in her room are ready. She peeled off the old covering and treated everything. You just need to go and help her with the renovation.”
“How much longer can we fuss with these wallpapers!” the man exclaimed, frowning. “What, she’s been doing this renovation for a whole year? She should have hired someone long ago, and they would have wallpapered everything she needed! And done the entire renovation.”
“Do you know how much that costs, Fedya?” Valya shook her head disapprovingly. She could put up with her husband not participating in house cleaning, but refusing to help his mother with the renovation seemed unimaginable to her. “Is it that hard to go to your mom’s for a couple of hours? It’s only a twelve square meter room. You’ll wallpaper those walls in no time!”
“Alright, alright!” Fedya waved his hands. “I’ll go, just don’t start lecturing me.”
The man, as always, pretended to agree with his wife, but he had a completely different plan in mind.
On the day off when Fedya was supposed to go to his mother’s, he suddenly came down with a fever.
“What’s wrong with you?” Valya took a thermometer and couldn’t believe her eyes. The mercury column showed 39. “Where did you manage to pick up an infection?”
“Probably at work,” the man barely squeezed out. “My stomach’s churning and I’m feeling very nauseous. Just so you and Vika don’t get infected.”
“Hmm,” Valentina pondered. “We need to stay away from you.”
“I think so too. But we all live together. You can’t hide from this infection in one apartment,” said Fyodor, then looked attentively at Valya. “Maybe you and Vika should move to my mom’s for a few days. You could help her with the renovation. I won’t recover from this illness anytime soon. After all, I’m very weak.”
“Maybe I will,” Valya said, scratching her head. “We have a long weekend ahead, maybe you’ll recover. Maybe you won’t even need to take sick leave.”
“That would be nice,” Fyodor managed to say and cringed in pain.
Leaving a box of medicine for her husband, Valentina hastily packed her things and went to her mother-in-law’s with Vika. The woman really hoped that neither she nor her child had managed to get infected by Fyodor.
That day, a disheartened Valentina didn’t want to deal with the renovation in her mother-in-law’s room. But then she decided that there was nothing else to do, and started wallpapering the small bedroom of the woman.
“Wow, what a beauty!” the mother-in-law admired when her daughter-in-law almost finished the job.
“Yes, I like it too,” Valya smiled. “Only the glue is a problem. I mixed up the whole package, and Vika accidentally knocked over the basin.”
“Oh dear,” the woman clutched her head. “So what do we do now? There’s very little left. Do I need to go to the store for a new package?”
“No, no need,” Valya waved her hand. “I have some of the same glue left under the bathroom. You stay with Vika, and I’ll quickly run home. I’ll check on Fedya while I’m at it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Valentina was unlocking the door to her own apartment. But just as the woman crossed the threshold, she heard Fyodor’s lively voice. He seemed to be talking to someone on the phone.
When Valya peeked into the bedroom, she realized what was happening. The man was sitting in front of the computer with headphones on, discussing his actions in the game with an online partner. Fyodor hadn’t noticed his wife and continued to shake from the emotions overflowing him due to the active shooting on the screen. At the same time, the man was snacking on warm pizza. Apparently, it had just been delivered.
“Hey!” Valya shouted loudly, trying to get her husband’s attention.
The man didn’t immediately hear Valentina’s displeased call. But when Fyodor saw her, he literally froze.
“Valya?! What are you doing here?! I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Of course, you didn’t hear, you’re so busy!” the woman crossed her arms over her chest and looked angrily at her husband. “So, your stomach hurts?!”
“Dear, I… Just the pills already worked. I got hungry…” Fyodor got so nervous that when he tried to get up from the chair, his pizza, keyboard, and joystick all fell.
“No! I don’t want to hear anything!” Valya cut him off. After those words, the woman quickly went to the closet, pulled out a suitcase, and started haphazardly stuffing her husband’s things into it.
“What are you doing?!” Fyodor ran around Valya in a panic. He didn’t know how to handle the situation. “Why are you packing my things?”
“I don’t want to live with you anymore!” the woman declared. “I’ve endured for a long time. I helped you with everything, but you don’t appreciate any of it!”
“Forgive me, Valya,” Fyodor whimpered miserably. “I’m guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”
“That’s why you’re leaving!” Valya barely managed to close the stuffed suitcase and carried it to the exit. “I’ll go for Vika, and when I return, I want you to not be here!” After these words, the woman slammed the door. She was so offended by Fyodor that she didn’t want to see him anymore.
When Valentina returned, her wish was fulfilled. Neither her husband nor his things were in the apartment anymore. Valya, of course, regretted that her marriage ended in such an unpleasant way, but she could no longer tolerate her husband’s lies and laziness.
The woman understood that she had let Fyodor walk all over her, but every audacity has its limits. Unfortunately, Valentina’s husband never realized that he needed to stop in time and appreciate what he had.
Taking his things, the man moved back to his mother’s apartment, where he eventually had to finish the renovation without any help. True, he couldn’t shirk household work at his mother’s. And the alimony he had to pay forced him to work not only at his job but also to earn extra money to afford not only for his daughter but also for his own desires.