— Why are you home so early today? Did your mom get to you again?
Oleg barely had time to take off his jacket before he noticed Lena in the kitchen. She sat at the table, still in her work clothes—jeans and a dark sweater—with her hair messy and her face gray from exhaustion. Next to her was a medical bag, syringes, bandages, and a box of ampoules sticking out. Normally, Lena would just be leaving Zoya Mikhailovna’s at this time, and wouldn’t get home until around nine or even later.
Oleg tossed his keys onto the hallway table and walked into the kitchen.
— Well? What happened? — he asked, already getting annoyed. — Did she say something again?
Lena looked up at him. For half a year, she had endured that her husband always asked that same question. Not “how are you?”, not “are you tired?”, not even “maybe I can go instead of you tonight?” Only ever “did she say something again?”—as if it was just a few nasty words she could ignore and keep going as usual.
— Enough! That’s it! I’m not going to your mother anymore! Taking care of her is your job as her son, or your sister’s responsibility! But it’s definitely not mine! I am not setting foot near that rude old woman ever again!
Oleg froze. He had clearly expected complaints, tears, maybe another story about his mother’s nagging, but not this kind of declaration.
— Why are you yelling? — he scowled. — Have you lost it or what?
— How else am I supposed to talk? In a whisper? So it’s easier for you to ignore what’s actually happening?
— So what happened this time?
Lena suddenly stood up from the table.
— The porridge happened! Your mother deliberately knocked her bowl onto the freshly cleaned floor, looked right at me, and said: “Well, since you’re here, clean properly. You’re not good for anything else anyway.” Then she called me a useless klutz and a broke loser. When I told her I didn’t have to listen to this every day, she said that I am nobody in your family and should be grateful you’re all willing to put up with me at all.
Oleg grimaced in annoyance.
— My mom is just blunt. You know how she is.
— I know? — Lena retorted. — Of course, I know. I’ve known for six months. Every single day.
She spoke quickly now, barely pausing—a sign that she couldn’t hold back any longer.
Six months ago, Zoya Mikhailovna had an accident near the store and broke her hip. After surgery, they let her come home, but she couldn’t handle things on her own. She needed help: cooking, cleaning, trips to the pharmacy, giving prescribed injections, helping with showers, taking out the trash, sometimes just bringing food or checking her blood pressure. For the first two weeks, Oleg and his sister Svetlana actually took turns helping. Then Svetlana started having problems at work, Oleg had a new project, and gradually, everything fell onto Lena’s shoulders.
At first, it seemed temporary.
— Lena, you work nearby anyway, — Oleg would say. — It’s a twenty-minute bus ride for you. For me, it’s across the whole city.
Lena agreed. At the time, she thought nothing terrible would happen if she helped for a month. Zoya Mikhailovna had never been a pleasant woman, even before she got sick, but Lena hoped that—given the circumstances—she might at least avoid making a scene all the time.
She was wrong.
My mother-in-law criticized absolutely everything. The soup was too salty. The floor wasn’t cleaned well enough. I bought the ‘wrong’ tissues at the pharmacy. I gave her an injection that hurt too much. The tea was too hot. The porridge was too runny. The bed sheet was crooked. If I arrived at 6:30, Zoya Mihailovna would ask why I was so late. If I got there at 6:00, she’d immediately find me extra chores to do since I clearly had plenty of time.
Meanwhile, her own children slowly disappeared from the schedule. Svetlana called their mom almost every day, but actually visited only once every two weeks and usually just for about forty minutes. Oleg stopped by on Sundays, brought some groceries, and would later tell me that he ‘helps too.’
All the real work ended up on my shoulders.
At first, I really tried to share the responsibilities fairly. On Sundays, I’d post in the family group chat, writing that the next week I could come on Monday and Wednesday, Oleg should go on Tuesday, and Svetlana on Thursday. But almost every schedule would fall apart by midweek. Suddenly, Oleg would have a meeting with a client, and Svetlana would have a parent-teacher meeting, a manicure, a shopping trip with her son, or just a ‘really hard day.’ Then both would message me the same thing: ‘You’re closer, can you help today?’ Once, I even refused because I had a fever myself, and that evening, Zoya Mihailovna called me personally.
‘It’s clear with you,’ my mother-in-law said. ‘When you were healthy, you wanted to be part of the family, but now that an old person needs help, you just happen to get sick.’
Even then, I still got up, took a pill, and went over. Oleg didn’t even try to stop me. He just said that if I was really feeling bad, I could take a taxi from the family money. After that, I was angry with my husband for several days, but he managed to make it all seem okay: he bought a cake, hugged me at night, promised that soon his mother would feel better and all this would end. But nothing ended.
What hurt the most wasn’t even the cleaning and the injections. I could handle the physical work. What really wore me down was the attitude. Zoya Mihailovna never asked for anything—she just ordered me around. ‘Bring that,’ ‘do it again,’ ‘go there,’ ‘can’t you see?’ And if I tried to push back, she’d instantly remind me that Oleg is her only son and she ‘has the right to expect help from the family.’ And Svetlana, on the phone, would agree with her mom but then text me separately: ‘Don’t pay attention, she’s like this with everyone.’ So it ended up pretty convenient for them: one person is rude, two others explain why you shouldn’t be bothered by the rudeness, and the fourth does all the work.
‘I work too, Oleg,’ I told him. ‘Eight hours a day. Then I go to your mother’s place. That’s another two or three hours. Then I finally go home. I do this six days a week. On my day off, I make food for two days, clean the bathroom, and change the bedding. When am I supposed to actually live my own life?’
‘I asked you to help, not to exhaust yourself,’ Oleg replied.
‘Really? Then who calls me at lunch and says, “Lena, you have to stop by today, Sveta can’t make it again”? Who sends me the shopping lists from the pharmacy? Who keeps saying, “Mom can’t manage alone, please just hang in there a bit longer”?’
Oleg looked away and opened the fridge.
‘Is there anything to eat?’
At first, I couldn’t believe he was actually asking me this right now.
‘Are you serious?’
‘I just got home from work. I’m hungry.’
“There are cutlets in the fridge. Heat them up.”
He slammed the fridge door shut.
“Great. Now we’re about to have protests right at home too.”
Lena let out a short, harsh laugh.
“That’s exactly why I’m not going anywhere anymore. It’s easy for you. Really easy. I work, I take care of your mother, I’m supposed to greet you with dinner at home, and then you tell me you had a hard day.”
“And what, my day is easy?” Oleg immediately raised his voice. “You think I just sit there and drink coffee for eight hours?”
“I don’t care what you do for eight hours. Because after work, you go home. And after work, I go to carry out responsibilities that are actually supposed to be yours and Sveta’s.”
“Sveta can’t do it every day.”
“And I can, I guess?”
“Your schedule is more flexible.”
“My schedule is exactly the same!” Lena smacked the table with her palm. “You just decided that my time is worth less than yours.”
Oleg was now truly getting angry. He took off his watch, tossed it down near the breadbox, and sat heavily.
“Let’s not do this. Mom is seriously ill. She needs help.”
“I’m not arguing that she needs help.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is she has a son and a daughter. Not a free caregiver in the form of her daughter-in-law.”
“You’re my wife.”
“So what?”
“That’s the point. You joined our family. It’s normal to help your husband’s parents.”
Lena stared at him for several seconds. There it was. What he’d always hinted at gently, he was finally saying directly.
“Helping is normal,” she replied. “Helping. Sometimes. When the person treats you like a human being. But taking out the chamber pot every single day for a woman who spits in my face with her words while her own children go about their lives—that’s not help.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“I’m not exaggerating. Today I mopped her floor twice. Once just because it was dirty. The second time because she purposely dumped her bowl of porridge. Do you understand the word ‘purposely’?”
“How do you know it was on purpose? Maybe her hand just shook.”
Lena froze in place.
“She looked straight into my eyes before she tipped over the bowl.”
“Well… maybe you imagined it.”
This was even worse than a direct insult. In six years of marriage, Oleg had always chosen the easiest option for himself: if Lena complained about his mother, it meant she ‘misunderstood’ her; if Zoya Mikhailovna said something outright rude, then ‘that’s just the way she is’; if Svetlana didn’t show up, then ‘she has her own problems.’ There were never any problems for Lena. She was just always expected to be available.
“I did not imagine it,” she said. “And I’m not going over there again.”
“You will.”
Lena even smirked at his confidence.
“No.”
“Lena, don’t start. She needs her injection at seven tomorrow evening.”
“You’ll give it to her yourself.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’ll learn. I didn’t know how at first either.”
“I have a meeting tomorrow until half past six.”
“Then Sveta will go.”
“Sveta has a child!”
“He’s sixteen, Oleg. He’s not a baby anymore.”
“She has a family.”
“And I don’t, is that it?”
He suddenly stood up.
“You’re turning everything upside down on purpose!”
“No. This is the first time I’m refusing to be convenient.”
Oleg walked through the kitchen, then stopped by the window. You could tell he wasn’t just irritated by his mother’s condition. What really bothered him was something else: tomorrow he’d have to call his sister, deal with figuring out the schedule again, listen to her excuses. Maybe he’d have to go himself, change his plans, stop by the pharmacy, cook meals, clean up. Everything he had managed to avoid for the last few months.
“Do you realize that if you stop going, everything will fall apart?” he asked.
“I understand.”
“Svetka and I are going to argue all over again.”
“That’s your relationship.”
“Mom will be left alone.”
“Then make a proper schedule. Or hire a helper.”
“With what money?”
“With yours. You’re her son, and Svetka’s her daughter.”
Oleg turned to her.
“Do you even hear yourself? Our money is family money.”
“Ours, yes. But I’m not going to hand over half my salary to a caregiver just because you don’t want to go visit your mother yourself.”
“So now you’re counting money too?”
“Who isn’t? We’re paying a mortgage. Our car’s been in the shop for three months now. I’m not buying winter boots for myself because we keep saving everything. And in the last six months, I’ve spent more than twenty thousand of my own money on your mom’s groceries, meds, and taxis.”
“She’s still Mom!” Oleg snapped.
“Your mom.”
He slammed his hand on the table. The cup jumped, the spoon clattered against the edge.
“Why do you keep repeating: ‘your mom,’ ‘your mom’! Are you my wife or what? If I have parents, then they’re your parents too!”
“No, Oleg. I have my own parents. And when my mom had eye surgery last year, who visited her? Me. Who took time off work? Me. Who brought groceries? Me. You took me there twice by car and thought that was plenty. So why didn’t my mom automatically become your responsibility too?”
“Because she handled things herself!”
“And if she couldn’t, would you have gone to see her every day after work?”
He fell silent.
The answer was painfully obvious.
Lena sat back down, exhausted. After all the anger, a strange clarity set in. That morning, she’d thought she’d have to explain, persuade, prove, tell her husband in detail what her mother-in-law had done. But now she realized the problem was never Zoya Mikhailovna. She just took advantage of what was allowed. The real issue for Lena was something else—Oleg knew exactly how hard it was for her, and yet he still thought everything was just conveniently arranged.
“Do you know what I realized today?” Lena said. “In all these six months, you haven’t once asked if I want to keep doing this. Not once. Every night, you just checked if I’d been to your mom’s and got everything done.”
“Because we agreed on this!”
“It was supposed to be for a couple of weeks.”
“Until she was back on her feet.”
“No. Not at all. You said, ‘Lena, help out a bit until Svetka and I figure it out.’ But you never sorted it out. You both just disappeared.”
“I was working!”
“So was I.”
“I have more responsibility!”
“Why?”
“Because I earn more!”
Lena fell silent. He’d never said it so bluntly before. There really was a gap in their salaries—Oleg made about a third more. But they paid the mortgage together, bought groceries together, and split the household expenses without counting every penny. Lena had never thought her husband saw her time as less valuable just because she earned less.
“I see,” she said.
“What exactly do you see?”
“Why you think it’s normal to send me instead of yourself. You’ve decided that since my work hour is cheaper, my life must be too.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Then what exactly did you say?”
“I said I have more responsibility at work! If I start leaving every evening to visit mom, they’ll just show me the door.”
“Then work it out with your sister.”
“Sveta works too.”
“Great. Then hire someone.”
“I already told you, we don’t have the money for that!”
“Then split the duties. But I’m no longer part of this schedule.”
Oleg paced back and forth from the table to the fridge several times. Lena could see he was searching for the argument that would make her agree again. Usually, one phrase was enough: “But you understand, mom is alone.” Lena always did. Then she would go.
Today, that leverage stopped working.
Suddenly, Lena remembered something she hadn’t thought was so important before. In the past six months, Oleg hadn’t missed a single Friday night with his friends. Every week, he’d go to the bar near his office because, as he put it, “a guy needs to clear his head.” Svetlana went to the pool and got massages on Saturdays because her back hurt. Lena, meanwhile, canceled everything. When her coworkers invited her to a birthday dinner after work, she went to give an injection. When Irina bought theater tickets and asked her to come, Lena gave the ticket to someone else because Oleg suddenly announced he couldn’t make it to his mom’s. In time, she even stopped explaining her refusals to people. She simply said, “I can’t.”
And neither her husband nor her sister-in-law ever saw anything unusual in this. For them, Lena giving up her own life became just another part of the schedule—like water delivery or paying for internet.
“By the way, my mom always accepted you,” he finally said.
Lena couldn’t hold it anymore and burst out laughing.
“Accepted me? She told my aunt at our wedding that you could’ve married someone more respectable. After the wedding she called my job ‘secretarial fuss,’ even though I’m an accountant. She spent two years asking when I’d have a baby, and when she found out about my surgery, she said you should’ve found someone healthy. Is that what you call acceptance?”
“She doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“I don’t care if she’s mean or just bored. I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“So now my sick mother is bothering you?”
“It’s not your sick mother. It’s the fact that you made her my responsibility that’s bothering me.”
Oleg slammed his palm on the table again, even harder this time.
“Enough! I’m tired of hearing this too! A good wife would support her husband in this kind of situation, not create a scandal! Do you even understand that a family means responsibility? Or is it only convenient for you to live with me?”
Lena slowly stood up.
“You’re the one who actually finds it convenient to live with me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I cook for you, do your laundry, pay half the mortgage, have a job of my own, and for the past six months I’ve been taking care of your mother. And you have the nerve to ask if it’s convenient for me?”
“No one’s forcing you to do my laundry!”
“You’re right. No one is. And from now on, I’m not doing any of it at all.”
Oleg turned pale with anger.
“Is this some kind of blackmail?”
“No. This conversation is over.”
Lena grabbed the medical bag and carried it into the hallway. Was she planning to take medicine to Zoya Mikhailovna in the morning? No. Oleg would have to figure out which ampoules to use, when to give them, and where the prescriptions were kept. Everything was labeled; she’d shown him the instructions more than once.
He followed after her.
“Where are you taking the bag?”
“I’m leaving it here. You can take it tomorrow.”
“I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. I have work.”
“Then call your sister.”
“I told you, Sveta can’t!”
“Then you both will have to sort out a problem you’ve been dumping on me for six months.”
“You have to go!” Oleg shouted. “You have to, you understand? You’re my wife! My mother is sick, and I’m not going to humble myself and beg you every time. In normal families, things like this are never even discussed!”
Lena looked at him and suddenly felt exhausted. She didn’t even want to yell anymore.
“In normal families, the wife isn’t handed over to the mother as a servant.”
“Servant? What servant? You spend two hours a day there!”
“Sometimes four.”
“Oh, poor you! Such hard labor. Giving an injection and cooking some soup.”
Those words were the final straw.
Lena turned around and went to the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Oleg yelled.
She didn’t answer.
She took the sports bag they used to take to the beach out of the closet and started packing her things. Jeans. Two sweaters. Underwear. Phone charger. Makeup bag. Documents. Laptop. She did it all calmly, almost mechanically.
Oleg appeared in the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
Lena kept packing.
“Lena, I’m talking to you!”
She zipped up the side pocket of the bag.
“Are you putting on a drama right now? Fine, don’t go to Mom’s tomorrow. One day. Cool off — then we’ll talk.”
Lena stayed silent.
“Are you seriously leaving?”
She put her toothbrush in the bag, then went back to the room for a warm sweater.
“Where are you even going to go?”
“To Irina’s.”
“To your friend? Great. Go tell her what a tyrant I am.”
Lena zipped up the bag.
“Who would even want you with all your drama?” Oleg continued, completely losing control. “You think anyone wants to hear how hard it is for you to cook soup for an old person? My mother was right: you’re selfish. It’s always about you. You joined the family, but you don’t want to take responsibility for anything.”
Lena picked up her bag and walked past him.
“Go!” he shouted after her. “But don’t come back later when you’ve cooled off! I need a wife, not a spoiled brat!”
She put on her shoes, grabbed her coat, and picked up her keys.
Oleg stood in the hallway, still seeming to expect her to stop. Usually, after the worst arguments, Lena was the first to calm down and try to find a compromise. This time, she opened the door.
“Lena!”
She turned around.
“What?”
“Are you going to my mom’s tomorrow or not?”
Even now, even as she stood by the door with her bag, that was still his main concern.
“No,” Lena said.
And she left.
Irina lived in another neighborhood in a studio apartment. When she opened the door, she didn’t even ask any questions. She saw the bag, saw her friend’s face, and silently stepped aside to let her in.
“Come in. Want some tea?”
Lena nodded.
It was only when Lena sat in Irina’s kitchen that she finally cried for the first time that night. Not loudly, not hysterically—just from sheer exhaustion. Irina listened quietly, never interrupting. When Lena talked about the mess on the floor, Irina swore without using any curse words, but so expressively that it said it all. When Lena repeated Oleg’s words about his “sacred duty,” Irina just shook her head.
“Are you going back to him?” she asked late that night.
Lena stared at her phone for a long time. Oleg had already sent seven messages. The first ones were angry: “You’re acting like a child.” Then: “Mom needs her injection tomorrow.” Then: “Sveta is refusing too, thank you very much.” A little later, his tone changed: “Let’s talk in the morning.” And finally: “You need to understand, you’ve abandoned me in the hardest moment.”
Not a single message asking if she got home okay.
“No,” Lena answered.
The next day she took the day off from work. Oleg called almost nonstop. Then Svetlana called too. Lena didn’t answer her either. Later, a long message arrived through messenger: “We all know Mom is difficult, but you could have been more mature. Now I have to rearrange my schedule and I have a child and work.”
Lena read the message and blocked the number.
That evening, Irina asked:
“What are you going to do about your things?”
“I’ll pick them up when Oleg’s at work.”
“And after that?”
For the first time, Lena said aloud what had finally become clear to her during the night.
“Divorce.”
Irina didn’t try to convince her to reconsider. Over the past few months, she’d seen Lena slowly disappear from her own life. She would turn down plans because she needed to help her mother-in-law, postpone hair appointments, skip a friend’s birthday, and twice came to work with a fever because she was afraid to take sick leave—there’d be no one to give Zoe Mikhailovna her injections at night.
Two days later, Lena went home while Oleg was at work. Irina came with her. In an hour, they packed everything else: clothes, books, documents, some dishes Lena’s mother once gave her, and a few personal items. The medical bag was gone from the hallway. That meant someone finally had to take care of Zoe Mikhailovna.
On the table was a note from Oleg: “I hope you calm down and stop destroying our family over a single argument.”
Lena read it, turned the page over, and left the keys there.
Exactly a week after that night, Lena filed for divorce.
Oleg didn’t hear it from her. He got a notification, and within ten minutes Lena’s phone was blowing up with calls. She finally answered once.
“So you’ve decided to throw everything away?” he shouted, not even bothering to say hello.
“I’ve made up my mind.”
“Because of my mom?! Just because someone asked you to help a sick person?”
“Not because of your mom. Because of you.”
“What did I do?”
Lena almost smiled. After everything, he still didn’t get it.
“You watched me work for both of us for six months and thought that was normal. When I told you I couldn’t do it anymore, you didn’t ask how I was. You just asked who would go to your mom now.”
“Because this is a real problem!”
“Then go ahead and solve it.”
“Now Svetka and I take turns every other day. Can you imagine what kind of life that is?”
“I can imagine. I lived like that for half a year. Except I went every single day.”
Oleg fell silent.
Lena waited for just a second, hoping he would finally hear his own words. But he didn’t.
“Still, a good wife wouldn’t act like this,” he said. “You left your family when things got tough.”
“No, Oleg. I left when I realized that to you, family just meant having someone around to make your life easier.”
She ended the call and blocked him again.
After Lena left, Zoya Mikhailovna never called her. Not to apologize, thank her for six months of help, or even to ask why things ended this way. But word got to Lena through mutual friends that her mother-in-law now argued with Svetlana about how she “doesn’t clean well enough,” and with Oleg because he buys “the wrong groceries.” Nothing had changed. The only difference was there was no longer a free, always-available daughter-in-law around.
At first, Lena stayed with Irina. Later, she rented a small studio close to work. She actually had a little less money, since she had to pay rent, but her evenings suddenly belonged to herself again. At six she’d leave the office and could just go home. Not to the pharmacy. Not to Zoya Mikhailovna’s. Not to check someone’s blood pressure or listen to complaints about how she chopped carrots.
One Friday, Lena stopped by a store and bought herself the new boots she’d put off getting all winter. Only at the checkout did she realize that, in the past, this money would have probably gone to taxi rides to her mother-in-law’s, medicine, or one more grocery list.
She didn’t feel happy about the divorce. Six years of marriage don’t disappear with a single signature. There were nights when she missed the Oleg she used to know—the trips, the talks, the years when she really thought they were partners. But she didn’t want to go back.
Because that night in the kitchen, everything became way too clear.
Oleg didn’t lose his wife because his mother was ill. He lost her the moment he decided her time, energy, and dignity could be spent endlessly to keep his own life comfortable…