I didn’t notice the bank notification until around ten that night, when I was already in bed with my tablet, skimming through work messages. I must’ve overlooked it when it came in, but now it caught my eye:
**“Card transaction **3847: 42,000 rubles. ‘Brilliant’ jewelry store.”
I read it three times.
Forty-two thousand. Jewelry. At ten p.m.
Dmitry was in the living room, and I could hear the TV playing quietly. I opened my banking app and scrolled through the transaction history for the extra card I’d added for him two months earlier—right after he lost his job. Back then it seemed reasonable: I wanted him to keep some dignity, to have money for day-to-day personal spending while he looked for a new position.
Only “personal spending” had turned into a financial disaster.
I kept scrolling, and with every line my heart beat faster. Restaurants. Expensive restaurants—Beluga, Turandot—places we’d never even been to together. Taxi rides, dozens of them, sometimes five or six in a day. An appliance store—68,000. Another jewelry purchase—35,000 three weeks earlier.
In two months, Dmitry had spent almost three hundred thousand rubles.
I earn well. Very well—I’m a marketing department head at a major IT company, and my salary lets us live more than comfortably. But three hundred thousand in two months on God-knows-what isn’t “comfortable.” That’s audacity.
Or cheating.
That thought hit so hard it made me nauseous. Jewelry. Restaurants. Taxi rides to neighborhoods we don’t live in. It all formed the classic picture: an unemployed husband, suddenly financially dependent, trying to compensate with someone on the side—proving to another woman that he’s still “somebody,” still able to pick up a fancy dinner bill, still able to buy gifts.
I got out of bed and walked into the living room. Dmitry was sprawled on the couch in lounge pants and an old T-shirt, watching a series. He looked relaxed. Satisfied. Far too satisfied for a man who hadn’t found work in two months.
“Dim,” I said evenly. “Did you buy anything today?”
He didn’t even turn his head.
“Hm? No, I don’t think so. Why?”
I held up my phone.
“Forty-two thousand at a jewelry store. Was that you?”
He startled and finally looked at me. Something flickered across his face for a split second—confusion, maybe guilt—but he recovered quickly.
“Oh. Yeah. That was me. I forgot to mention it.”
“What did you buy for forty-two thousand?”
“A chain. A nice one. Gold.”
A cold anger rose in my chest.
“A chain,” I repeated. “So you—unemployed—bought a gold chain for forty-two thousand. With my money.”
“Len, it’s not that expensive,” he tried to smile. “You’re doing fine, you said it yourself…”
“Show it to me.”
“What?”
“Show me the chain you supposedly just bought. Where is it?”
The pause stretched. Dmitry looked away.
“I haven’t picked it up yet. They’re engraving it. It’ll be ready in three days.”
Of course. Convenient.
“Dim,” I said, sitting in the armchair across from him, gripping my phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “I checked your card transactions. You’ve spent almost three hundred thousand in two months—restaurants, jewelry, random nonsense. Explain to me what’s happening.”
He went pale.
“You’re monitoring me?”
“I checked transactions on my own account—the one I gave you access to. And now I want to know where my money is going. That’s a normal question, don’t you think?”
“Lena, I can explain…”
“Then explain.”
But he just sat there, staring at the floor. There was something both pathetic and stubborn in his silence, and I finally snapped.
“Do you have a mistress?”
He jerked as if I’d hit him.
“What? No! Lena, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you burning through insane amounts of money, buying jewelry, taking someone out to expensive restaurants, riding taxis to places we have no friends and no business in! How else am I supposed to read this?”
“It’s not what you think…”
“Then what is it?”
He covered his face with his hands.
“I can’t tell you.”
That was it for me.
“Perfect,” I said, standing up. “Then I can’t keep financing your secrets. I’m blocking the card. Right now.”
“Lena, wait!”
But I was already walking back to the bedroom. My hands shook as I opened the banking app and hit “Block card.” Done.
I got into bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin even though the room was warm. Dmitry didn’t come in. I heard him pacing, then standing in the hallway outside the bedroom for a long time—yet he still didn’t dare to enter.
Fine. Let him think.
In the morning I woke up before my alarm. Dmitry wasn’t home—there was a note on the kitchen table saying he’d gone out “on errands.” I drank coffee, got dressed, and went to work, trying not to think about what was happening at home, in my marriage, in my life.
Of course I thought about it anyway.
All day. Every spare minute.
He came back late that night. I was in the kitchen with tea and my laptop, finishing a presentation. I heard the door open, his shoes in the hallway, and then the pause when he noticed the kitchen light.
“Lena,” his voice was hoarse. “I need to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.”
He walked in and sat across from me. He looked awful—eyes bloodshot like he hadn’t slept, his whole face like someone had put him through a meat grinder.
“You’re right,” he said. “I should’ve told you. I was just… ashamed.”
“Ashamed of what? Your mistress?”
“I don’t have a mistress!” he burst out, then caught himself and continued more quietly. “There’s never been anyone. I haven’t cheated on you, Len. Not once.”
“Then where did the money go?”
He hesitated, then pulled out his phone and placed it on the table between us.
“Look,” he said. “My photos from the last two months.”
He turned the screen toward me.
First photo: Dmitry and his mother in some upscale restaurant. She was in a new dress, smiling wide, the table loaded with food. Under it he’d written: “Mom’s happy.”
Second photo: his sister Olesya holding a box with the logo of an expensive jewelry boutique. “Thanks, big brother! I’ve wanted these earrings forever!”
Third: his brother Igor standing beside a brand-new refrigerator. “Thanks, bro. You saved us.”
I kept swiping. Photos in taxis—his mother in the backseat, dressed like she was headed to a gala. Messages from his sister: “Dimmy, you’re the best! You know how hard things are for us right now.”
I looked up at him.
“You spent my money on your family.”
“Yes,” he swallowed. “I know it’s awful. But… Lena, you don’t understand what it’s like. In their eyes, I was always the successful one. First in the family to get a degree, landed a big-company job, married you—a smart, beautiful woman with a brilliant career. Mom bragged about me to the neighbors. Olesya compared me to her husband. Igor asked me for career advice.”
“And?”
“And when I lost my job, I couldn’t… I couldn’t tell them,” his voice shook. “I couldn’t destroy that image. Especially after Olesya got divorced and Igor started having work problems. I decided that while I was looking for a new job, I’d keep up the illusion that I was doing fine—better than fine.”
I leaned back, trying to process it.
“So you bought a gold chain for forty-two thousand so you’d look successful?”
“For Olesya,” he said quickly. “Earrings. For her birthday.”
“And your mother?”
“A necklace. Three weeks ago. Thirty-five thousand.”
I shook my head, almost not believing my ears.
“Dim,” I said slowly. “Do you realize how… how unbelievably stupid that is?”
“I do,” he rubbed his face. “I do now. When you blocked the card, I got angry at first. I wanted to fight—tell you you were controlling me. But then I sat up all night thinking. And I realized what a mess I’d made.”
“Your brother’s fridge,” I glanced again at the photo. “Sixty-eight thousand.”
“Their old one died. They had no money for a new one.”
“And you thought it was your job to pay for that—with my account?”
“I was going to pay it back,” he said fast. “The second I got hired. Every ruble.”
“Dim, you’ve been ‘looking’ for two months. Or maybe you can’t find work because you’re busy taking your mother to restaurants instead of sending out resumes.”
He flinched like I’d struck him.
“I did send them. Every day. It’s just… the market is brutal right now. Too many specialists, crazy competition…”
“And that’s why you blew three hundred thousand on showing off to your relatives?”
“I wanted them to be proud of me,” he looked at me like he was begging. “Just for a little while. Do you understand? Just until I got back on my feet.”
I stood and walked to the window. Outside, Moscow was dark and glittering with lights in neighboring buildings. How many families were living through something like this? How many husbands were burning through household money just to look impressive to their relatives?
I married Dmitry six years ago because he was smart, decent, funny. Not a millionaire, but reliable. Hardworking. Sensible.
A sensible man doesn’t buy his mother a thirty-five-thousand necklace while living off his wife because he’s unemployed.
“You know what hurts the most?” I turned back to him. “Not the money. Not even that you hid it. It’s that you cared more about looking successful to your mother and sister than being honest with me—your wife.”
“Lena…”
“I don’t care what they think of you. I care that you lied to me. For two months. You lied to me for two months.”
“I didn’t lie, I just… didn’t say anything.”
“That’s lying by omission, Dmitry. It’s still a lie.”
He lowered his head.
“I’m sorry. I really am an idiot.”
“Yes,” I said. “You are. Not a cheater. Not a villain. Just an idiot who wanted to throw dust in his family’s eyes using his wife’s money.”
He sat hunched over, and I could see he was genuinely ashamed. But I wasn’t ready to comfort him. Not yet.
“What did your mother say?” I asked. “That you’re the best son in the world? That she raised such a generous boy?”
“She said… she said she was proud of me,” his voice was barely audible. “That I’m a real man because I can provide not only for my wife, but also help the family. Olesya said her ex doesn’t even come close to me. Igor said I’m his role model.”
“And it felt good.”
“Yes. So good,” he admitted. “Especially after losing my job and feeling… worthless. Their praise was like a drug. Every time I took Mom to a restaurant or bought Olesya something expensive, I felt… important. Needed. Not like a failure who couldn’t find work for three months.”
Three months. So he’d lied about the timeline too—he’d been unemployed for three, not two.
“God,” I sank back into my chair. “Dim, do you realize we have to fix this? Right now?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“Good. Then here are my conditions. First: tomorrow you call your mother, your sister, and your brother and tell them the truth. All of it. That you’re unemployed, that the money was mine, that you acted like an idiot.”
He went white.
“Lena, I can’t…”
“You can. And you will. Because they need to know their ‘generous brother’ was actually spending someone else’s money to impress them.”
“They’ll stop respecting me.”
“Great. Let them respect you when you’re genuinely standing on your own feet—your own, not mine.”
He sat in silence, jaw clenched.
“Second,” I continued, “you get a job. Any job. I don’t care if it’s in your field or not, prestigious or not. It just has to be legal income. And you work until you repay three hundred thousand—every last ruble.”
“Okay,” he breathed.
“Third: no more extra cards. No access to my accounts. Until you repay the money and prove you can be trusted, you live on what you earn yourself.”
“I understand.”
“And fourth,” I held his gaze, “if you ever lie to me again or hide something important, I file for divorce. No discussions. No second chances. I’m willing to stand by you in hard times, but I won’t stay with someone who doesn’t respect me enough to be honest.”
He nodded, and I saw tears gather in his eyes.
“I’ll fix it,” he rasped. “I swear. I’ll find work, I’ll pay you back, I’ll make it right.”
“We’ll see.”
I closed my laptop and stood up.
“Go to bed. Tomorrow you call your relatives and explain yourself. And the day after—job hunt, for real.”
He rose and took a hesitant step toward me. I allowed him to hug me, but I didn’t hug him back. I needed time—time to forgive him, time to believe he could actually change.
And as I stood there in his arms, I thought about how marriage isn’t only romance and support. It’s also the ability to face the truth—especially when that truth shows you your husband isn’t a cheater and isn’t a monster.
He’s just an idiot who didn’t know when to stop.
Four months passed.
Dmitry called his mother the very next day, just like he promised. I heard the conversation from the bedroom—I wasn’t trying to listen, but I could still catch the tone. His mother’s shock. Her anger. Then disappointment.
“How could you, Dima? Why did you lie?”
He explained. Apologized.
After he hung up, he sat at the kitchen table for a long time, staring into space. I didn’t comfort him. Let him swallow the consequences of his choices.
A week later he got hired as a manager at a small construction firm. The salary was laughable compared to what he used to make, but it was a job—stable, official, with benefits.
Every month he transferred forty thousand rubles to me toward the debt. The rest he lived on—commute, lunches, clothing. He didn’t ask me for money anymore. Didn’t complain. He just worked.
His mother stopped calling every day. Olesya texted a couple of times, but the messages were stiff and formal. Igor invited us over occasionally—Dmitry went, but I could tell it was hard for him. Hard to see pity in his brother’s eyes, to realize he wasn’t the family hero anymore—just a man who made a humiliating mistake.
But with me, he became more honest. He told me about work—the good and the bad. He talked about his doubts, his fears, his hopes. In the evenings we started talking again the way we used to, before the money blew everything up.
And slowly, I began to forgive him.
Not because he was paying the money back—he still had more than half a year to go. And not just because he apologized—apologies mattered, but they weren’t enough.
I forgave him because he changed. He learned to be honest—not only with me, but with himself.
One night, as we sat on the couch watching a movie, he turned to me and said, “You know what I keep thinking? The worst part wasn’t losing my job. The worst part was losing myself. I was so terrified of being nobody in my family’s eyes that I forgot who I actually was. And I almost lost you.”
I took his hand.
“You didn’t lose me. I’m here.”
“I know,” he whispered. “And I’m unbelievably grateful. That you didn’t walk away when you found out. That you gave me a chance to fix it.”
“You would’ve done the same for me,” I said—and I realized I truly believed it.
We aren’t a perfect couple. We’ve had problems, and we’ll have more. But now I knew something important: we’ll manage. Because we finally learned the main thing—how to be honest with each other, even when honesty stings. Even when you have to admit your stupidity.
Even when you find out your husband isn’t a villain and isn’t trash.
Just an idiot who finally grew up.