The first time Lyudmila Petrovna came over was a month after the wedding. I still hadn’t really settled into the apartment Dima and I were renting on the outskirts of town. Boxes with our things stood in the corner of the bedroom, half the necessary kitchenware was still missing, and I was rushing between work and attempts to create at least some semblance of coziness.
“Ah, Lenochka,” my mother-in-law drawled as she stepped over the threshold, “you could at least buy some guest slippers. It’s kind of awkward like this.”
I gave her a guilty smile and rushed to look for my spare flip-flops. Dima hugged his mother, took her bag, sat her down on the couch. Lyudmila Petrovna looked around with the expression of an inspector and pressed her lips together.
“Well, for a start it’s not bad,” she delivered her verdict. “Although I’d hang different curtains. These are a bit gloomy.”
I made tea, took out the cookies I’d bought especially for her visit. We sat in the kitchen, and I tried to keep the conversation going, but Lyudmila Petrovna was gradually getting carried away listing everything that needed to be changed in our apartment. Dima nodded along, agreed, promised to take everything into account.
“Mom, don’t worry, we’ll get things set up,” he said, and I felt a strange feeling rising inside me, something like resentment, but not quite.
Back then I decided it was just care. That Lyudmila Petrovna wanted to help us, share her experience. I really wasn’t very good at interiors, and I didn’t cook as well as I would have liked.
Her second visit was about three months later. By then we’d unpacked all the boxes, I had bought new curtains—not the ones my mother-in-law advised, but the ones I liked myself. I’d hung pictures, arranged books on the shelves. The apartment had started to look like our home.
Lyudmila Petrovna came with pies. It was sweet of her, and I was genuinely glad. But as soon as she stepped over the threshold, she started again:
“Oh, Lena, so you still bought the wrong curtains. I told you, you need light ones, they visually enlarge the space.”
“I like these,” I said carefully.
“Well, if you like them, you like them. It’s your business,” she brushed it off in a tone that made it perfectly clear: the choice was wrong, but she wouldn’t argue out of politeness.
Over lunch she tried my stew and chewed the first bite thoughtfully.
“Mmm, not bad. Though I’d put in less meat and more potatoes. And it seems a bit lacking in salt. Dima, don’t you think so?”
Dima was eating with appetite and just shrugged:
“It’s fine for me.”
“Well, men don’t understand these subtleties,” Lyudmila Petrovna smirked. “We women see these things better.”
I kept silent. I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. That she was just used to controlling everything because Dima was her only son. That in time we’d get used to each other and she’d accept me.
But time passed, and my mother-in-law’s visits became more and more stressful for me. She came every two or three months, usually without an invitation—she’d just call Dima in the morning and say she’d be there in the evening. And every time I would prepare as if for an exam.
I cleaned the apartment until it shone. Thought through the menu. Tried to wear something neutral so there’d be no reason to criticize. But Lyudmila Petrovna always found something to pick on.
“Lenochka, you didn’t dust the bookshelf again. Look over here.”
“Lena, your soup is too salty. Dimochka, tell your wife that men don’t like over-salted food.”
“Oh, what a strange blouse. Dima, can’t you buy your wife some normal clothes?”
I clenched my teeth and smiled. I said, “Thanks for the advice,” and “I’ll definitely keep that in mind.” And inside everything tightened into a hot, hard knot.
Dima didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.
“Lena, she doesn’t mean anything bad,” he’d say when I tried to share my feelings. “That’s just how Mom is. She’s used to teaching everyone. She doesn’t come that often, you can put up with it.”
“You can put up with it.” That phrase became a mantra in our family.
After a year, things only got worse. It was as if Lyudmila Petrovna sensed that I wouldn’t push back and completely loosened up.
She started commenting on my job:
“Lena, what kind of manager can you be if you can’t even keep your home in order?”
On my appearance:
“You should go to the hairdresser, you’re looking a bit worn out. Dima, a man should make sure his wife looks presentable.”
On the fact that we still didn’t have children:
“Lena, when are you going to make me a grandmother? Or are you a career woman, don’t want to have kids? You know, in our time women both worked and raised children.”
That topic was especially painful. Dima and I were trying to have a baby, but it just wasn’t happening yet. I was going to doctors, doing tests, taking vitamins. It was a difficult period, and my mother-in-law’s remarks cut into me like shards of glass.
But Dima kept repeating, “You can put up with it.”
One day I accidentally learned a little secret of Lyudmila Petrovna’s.
She came over in the middle of the week, when Dima was away on a business trip. She called in the morning and said she’d be there in an hour—she needed to pick up some documents Dima had left at our place.
I was working from home, sitting in old jeans and a stretched-out T-shirt. When the doorbell rang, I let her in, apologized for how I looked, and said I’d go get dressed.
“No need, Lena, I’m just for a minute,” she waved it off.
She went into the room, took the folder with the documents, then lingered, looking out the window.
“Mind if I smoke on the balcony?” she suddenly asked.
I was taken aback. Lyudmila Petrovna always spoke disdainfully about women who smoked. She called them “fallen.”
“You… smoke?” I couldn’t help asking.
She grew flustered, blushed.
“Well, occasionally. When I’m nervous. Just don’t tell anyone, especially Dima. He wouldn’t understand.”
I nodded. I promised to keep quiet. And I really did. It wasn’t my secret to reveal.
But after that I started noticing other little things. How, while criticizing my apartment, she herself forgot to wipe her feet when coming in from the street. How she could pour herself tea and leave the tea bag right on the table, though she scolded me for being “sloppy.” How she spoke on the phone in a voice that wasn’t her own—sweet and coaxing—clearly with some man, although she had been a widow for many years and always went on about how devoted she was to her late husband’s memory.
Lyudmila Petrovna was an ordinary person with her own weaknesses. But she forgave herself those weaknesses, and me—never.
I prepared for my thirtieth birthday carefully. I invited my parents, my girlfriends, Dima’s friends. I cleaned the apartment, set the table. I baked a cake—a honey cake using my grandmother’s recipe, my signature dish.
Lyudmila Petrovna arrived with a bouquet and a box of chocolates. She congratulated me curtly and swept a critical gaze over the table.
“Oh, there’s so much food,” she drawled. “Lena, you should’ve kept it simpler, why overload the table like this? Half of it will be left over anyway.”
I smiled and went to greet the other guests.
The evening started off well. Everyone laughed, ate, drank champagne. My friends praised the cake, my mother was proud of me, Dima’s friends joked and congratulated me. I felt happy.
And then it was time to cut the cake.
I brought it in from the kitchen and set it on the table. It had turned out beautifully—neat layers, cream filling, berry decoration. The guests buzzed and smiled.
“Wow, Lena, you’re a real hostess!” my friend Katya said.
“Dima, you’re lucky with your wife,” his friend Seryoga added.
Dima hugged me around the shoulders, and I could see he was proud. I was cutting the cake, placing slices on plates, when my mother-in-law’s voice rang out:
“Oh, Lenochka, didn’t you overdo it with the honey? It’s a bit too sweet. And the layers are kind of dry. You should’ve added more butter.”
The room fell silent. Everyone looked at Lyudmila Petrovna, then at me.
And at that moment everything that had been building up over those two years—all the remarks, all the reproaches, all the “you can put up with it”—finally reached the edge.
I slowly put down the knife. Looked my mother-in-law in the eye.
“Lyudmila Petrovna,” I said calmly, “thank you for your opinion. But you know, I think we all have our flaws. I, for example, might bake an imperfect cake. And you, for example, smoke on the balcony when you think no one can see. And you leave dirty footprints on the floor. And you forget to turn off the light in the bathroom. And you talk a bit too affectionately on the phone with strange men, even though you tell everyone how faithful you are to your husband’s memory.”
I didn’t raise my voice. I was just stating facts. But every word fell into the silence like a stone into water.
My mother-in-law’s face went from white to red, then purple. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.
“You… how dare you!” she finally choked out. “Dima! Do you hear how your wife is talking to me?!”
Dima was standing beside me, and I felt his grip on my shoulder tense. But I didn’t look away from her.
“I just answered your criticism in front of the guests,” I said. “You think it’s acceptable to point out my shortcomings in front of everyone. Why can’t I do the same?”
“This is… disrespectful!” Lyudmila Petrovna grabbed her bag. “I am your mother-in-law! I’m older than you! I have the right—”
“The right to what?” I interrupted. “To spend two years humiliating me in my own home? To criticize my every step, every decision? To tell me I’m a bad wife, a bad homemaker, that I dress wrong, cook wrong, live wrong?”
My voice was shaking, but I went on:
“I put up with it. Because Dima asked me to. Because I thought you’d get used to me, accept me. But you don’t accept me. You just take advantage of the fact that I don’t answer back. Well, you know what? That’s enough.”
My mother-in-law snatched up the bouquet she’d brought me as a gift.
“I won’t stay in this house another minute!” she declared. “Dima, you’re coming with me!”
She looked at her son defiantly. Dima stood in silence. I could see the struggle on his face, the tension in his features. And then he slowly shook his head.
“No, Mom. I’m staying. This is our home. And Lena is right.”
Lyudmila Petrovna went even paler. For a second she stood there motionless, then turned around and left, slamming the door loudly behind her.
The guests left earlier than planned. The atmosphere was ruined and, although everyone pretended nothing terrible had happened, the awkwardness in the air was obvious.
When the last guest left, Dima and I were alone. He sat on the couch with his head in his hands. I cleared the table, not knowing what to say.
“Lena,” he finally called. “Come here.”
I came over. He took my hand and sat me down next to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been a blind idiot.”
“Dima…”
“No, listen. I really didn’t understand how hard it was for you. I thought Mom was just caring. That her comments were…well, a form of love. But I saw your face today. And I realized how much you’ve endured.”
He hugged me, and I pressed into him, feeling the tension finally easing.
“I didn’t want to quarrel with her,” I whispered. “But it was more than I could take.”
“You did the right thing,” he said. “I should’ve defended you earlier. It’s my fault it came to this.”
We sat in silence, surrounded by half-eaten salads and leftover cake. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like we were truly on the same side.
For three days, Lyudmila Petrovna didn’t call. Then she phoned Dima—short, dry. She said she was offended and wouldn’t come to our home again until I apologized.
Dima replied that she was the one who should apologize. That I had put up with things for two years, and she had crossed every line.
The conversation was brief. My mother-in-law hung up.
Two weeks passed. Then a month. Dima tried to make peace with his mother, called her, suggested they meet somewhere neutral. But she stubbornly refused, each time repeating that her daughter-in-law had to be the first to ask for forgiveness.
I had no intention of apologizing. Not for telling the truth. Not for finally standing up for myself.
Another month later Dima went to see his mother himself. He came back late in the evening, exhausted.
“Well?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want to talk things through,” he sighed. “She thinks you humiliated her. Says she can’t look me in the eye now.”
“Dima, I didn’t want to humiliate her,” I said. “I just wanted her to understand what it’s been like for me all this time.”
“I know. And I told her that. But she… she’s not ready to accept it. At least not yet.”
He hugged me and kissed my cheek.
“You know, maybe it’s for the best. Let there be a pause. Maybe she’ll come to her senses in the meantime.”
A year passed. Lyudmila Petrovna never set foot in our home again. Dima saw her occasionally—he’d drop by her place, sometimes they met in a café. She asked about his life but never asked about me. She pretended I simply didn’t exist.
At first it was hard for me. I felt guilty, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I wondered if I’d been too harsh, if I should have chosen different words.
But in time I realized I’d done what I had to do. I had defended my dignity. My right to live in my own home the way I saw fit. My right to be imperfect, not ideal, not measuring up to someone else’s standards.
And Dima changed. He became more attentive, more gentle. He learned to really see me, to hear me. We truly became a team.
Sometimes, while cleaning the apartment, I’d think about that evening. About the expression on my mother-in-law’s face when I answered her criticism. About the silence in the room. About how easy it became to breathe once I finally spoke out.
I simply answered my mother-in-law’s criticism in front of the guests. She never came to our home again after that.
And you know what? I didn’t regret it. Not one bit.