Why are you home so early today? Did Mom push you over the edge again?”
Oleg had barely taken off his jacket when he spotted Lena in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, still in her work clothes—jeans and a dark sweater—with messy hair and a face pale from exhaustion. Next to her sat a medical bag stuffed with packs of syringes, bandages, and a box of ampoules. Usually at this hour, Lena would just be leaving Zoya Mikhailovna’s place, returning home closer to nine or even later.
Oleg tossed his keys on the dresser and walked into the kitchen.
“Well? What happened now?” he asked, already feeling annoyed. “Did she say something again?”
Lena looked up at him. For half a year, she had endured her husband asking the same thing every time. Not “How are you?” Not “Are you tired?” Not “Maybe I could go instead today?” Just “what did she say again,” as if it was only about a few unpleasant words one could simply ignore and keep going.
“Enough! That’s it! I’m not going over there to care for your mother anymore! That’s your responsibility as her son, or your sister’s! But it’s definitely not mine! I will not set foot in that old woman’s house ever again!”
Oleg froze. He clearly expected complaints, tears, another story about his mother’s nitpicking—but not this.
“Why are you yelling?” he frowned. “Are you serious right now?”
“And how else should I talk? Whisper? Just so it’s easier for you to pretend nothing is happening?”
“So what happened this time?”
Lena suddenly pushed herself up from the table.
“Porridge happened! Your mom deliberately spilled her bowl on the freshly cleaned floor, looked right at me and said, ‘Well, since you’re here, clean it properly. You’re not good for anything else anyway.’ Then she called me a clumsy pauper. And when I said I didn’t have to listen to this every day, she replied I’m a nobody in your family and should be grateful they even tolerate me here.”
Oleg frowned in annoyance.
“Come on, Mom is just a blunt person. You know that.”
“I know?” Lena shot back. “Of course I know. I’ve known it every day for the past six months.”
She spoke quickly, barely pausing for breath. She just couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Six months ago, Zoya Mikhailovna had a bad fall near the store and broke her hip. After surgery, she was allowed to come home, but she couldn’t manage alone. She needed help: with cooking, cleaning, pharmacy runs, giving prescribed injections, helping with showers, taking out the trash, sometimes simply bringing food or checking blood pressure. The first two weeks, Oleg and his sister Svetlana actually took turns. Then Svetlana ran into trouble at work, Oleg got busy with a new project, and everything gradually landed on Lena.
At first, it felt temporary.
“Lena, you work nearby anyway,” Oleg would say. “It’s just a twenty-minute bus ride for you. I have to cross the whole city.”
Lena agreed. Back then, she thought it would be no big deal to help for a month. Zoya Mikhailovna had always been a difficult woman, even before she got sick, but Lena hoped that in this situation she might at least stop making scenes.
She was wrong.
My mother-in-law criticized everything. The soup was too salty. The floor wasn’t cleaned properly. I had bought the ‘wrong’ wipes at the pharmacy. The shot I gave her hurt too much. The tea was too hot. The porridge was too runny. The bed sheet was crooked. If I arrived at half past six, Zoya Mikhailovna asked why I was so late. If I came at six, she instantly found more chores for me — after all, ‘there’s plenty of time.’
Meanwhile, her own kids slowly disappeared from the schedule. Svetlana called their mom almost every day, but only visited once every two weeks and stayed just about forty minutes. Oleg stopped by on Sundays, dropped off groceries, and kept telling me that he was ‘helping too.’
All the real work was left to me.
At first, I tried to split our duties fairly. On Sundays, I’d write in the family chat which days I could come next week — Monday and Wednesday for me, then Oleg on Tuesday, Svetlana on Thursday. But almost every schedule fell apart by the middle of the week. Oleg suddenly had a meeting with a client, Svetlana had a parent-teacher conference, a manicure, shopping with her son, or simply ‘an exhausting day.’ Both would text me the same thing: ‘You’re closer, please cover for us today.’ One time I said no because I had a fever myself, and that evening Zoya Mikhailovna personally called me.
continued in the comments
“I see how it is with you,” my mother-in-law said. “When you were healthy you wanted to be part of the family, but as soon as the old person needed help, you suddenly got sick.”
Even then, I got up, took a pill, and went. Oleg didn’t stop me. He just said that if it was really bad, I could take a taxi and use the family’s money. I was mad at my husband for days after that, but he just smoothed things over: brought home a cake, hugged me in the evening, and promised that soon things would get easier, that his mom would get better and this would all be over. But nothing changed.
The worst part wasn’t even the cleaning or the injections. Physically, I could handle it. It was the attitude that got to me. Zoya Mikhailovna never asked — she ordered. “Bring it,” “Do it again,” “Go there,” “Can’t you see?” And if I dared to object, she’d remind me that Oleg was her only son and she had ‘a right to rely on the family.’ Meanwhile, Svetlana agreed with her mom on the phone but would privately message me: “Ignore her, she’s like that with everyone.” It was convenient for everyone — one person was rude, two explained why I shouldn’t take offense, and the fourth just kept doing all the work.
“I work too, Oleg,” I said. “Eight hours a day. Then I go to your mother’s — that’s another two or three hours. Then I come home. That’s six days a week. On my day off, I cook for her for two days, clean her bathroom, and change her sheets. When am I supposed to have a life?”
“I asked you to help, not to wear yourself out there.”
“Really? Who calls me at lunchtime and says, ‘Len, you have to go today, Sveta can’t again’? Who sends me lists from the pharmacy? Who tells me ‘Mom can’t cope alone, just hang in there a little longer’?”
Oleg looked away and opened the fridge.
“Is there anything to eat?”
It took me a moment to realize he was actually asking me that — 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. So now we’ll have protests at home too.”
Lena let out a short, bitter laugh.
“That’s exactly why I’m not going anywhere anymore. It suits you. It’s so convenient. I work, I take care of your mother, I’m expected to greet you at home with dinner, and then you tell me you’ve had a tough day.”
“And mine is easy, huh?” Oleg immediately raised his voice. “You think I just sit around drinking coffee for eight hours?”
“I don’t care what you do for eight hours. Because when your shift ends, you come home. But when mine ends, I go take care of things that are supposed to be your and Sveta’s responsibility.”
“Sveta can’t do it every day.”
“So I can, then?”
“Your schedule is easier.”
“My schedule is the same!” Lena slapped her palm on the table. “You just decided my time is worth less than yours.”
Now Oleg was genuinely getting angry. He took off his watch, tossed it near the breadbox, and sank heavily into a chair.
“Let’s not start this. Mom is sick. She needs help.”
“I’m not saying she doesn’t need help.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“The issue is that she has a son and a daughter. Not a free caretaker in the form of her daughter-in-law.”
“You’re my wife.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means you joined our family. It’s normal to help your husband’s parents.”
Lena just stared at him for a moment. There it was. What he used to hint at, he finally said outright.
“Helping is normal,” she replied. “Helping. Occasionally. When the person treats you like a human being. But carrying out a bedpan every day for a woman who spits words in my face 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. The first time because it was actually dirty. The second because she deliberately dumped her oatmeal on the floor. Do you understand the word ‘deliberately’?”
“How do you know it was on purpose? Maybe her hand slipped.”
Lena froze.
“She looked me right in the eyes before flipping the plate.”
“Well… maybe you imagined it.”
That was even worse than a direct insult. In six years of marriage, Oleg had perfected the skill of always taking the easier side: if Lena complained about his mother, she must have misunderstood; if Zoya Mikhailovna was openly rude, well, she ‘just had that kind of personality’; if Svetlana didn’t show up, she ‘had her own problems.’ Only Lena was expected to have none. For some reason, it was always assumed she’d be available.
“I didn’t imagine it,” she said. “And I’m not going there anymore.”
“Yes, you will.”
Lena even smirked at his certainty.
“No, I won’t.”
“Lena, don’t start. She needs her shot at 7 p.m. tomorrow.”
“You give it to her.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You’ll learn. I didn’t know how either before.”
“I’ve got a meeting until six-thirty tomorrow.”
“Then let Sveta go.”
“Sveta has a child!”
“He’s sixteen, Oleg. Not an infant.”
“She’s got a family.”
“And I don’t?”
He stood up abruptly.
“You’re twisting everything on purpose!”
“No. I’m just finally not agreeing to be the convenient one.”
Oleg paced around the kitchen, then stopped by the window. It was clear his irritation wasn’t really about his mother’s condition. Something else was bothering him: tomorrow he’d have to call his sister, sort out the rotation schedule again, listen to her excuses all over. He might even end up having to go himself, shift his plans, drop by the pharmacy, prepare food, clean up. All those things he had gladly gotten used to not doing in recent months.
“Do you realize if you stop going, everything will turn to chaos?” he asked.
“I understand.”
“Svetka and I will end up fighting again.”
“That’s your relationship.”
“Mom will be left alone.”
“Then make a proper schedule. Or hire some help.”
“With what money?”
“With yours. You’re her son, Svetka’s her daughter.”
Oleg turned to her.
“Do you even hear yourself? Our money is family money.”
“Ours, yes. But I’m not about to give up half my paycheck to a caregiver just because you don’t want to visit your mom yourself.”
“So now you’re counting money, too?”
“Who doesn’t? We’re paying off a mortgage. Our car’s been in the shop for three months. I haven’t even bought myself winter boots because we keep saving every penny. And for your mom, in just the past six months, I’ve spent over twenty thousand of my own money on groceries, meds, and taxis.”
“But she’s my mom!” Oleg snapped.
“Your mom.”
He suddenly hit the table with his palm. The cup jumped, and the spoon clinked against the edge.
“Why do you keep harping on about ‘your mom, your mom’?! Are you my wife or not? If I have parents, they’re supposed to be yours too!”
“No, Oleg. I have my own parents. And last year, when my mom had her eye surgery, who went to her? Me. Who took time off work? Me. Who brought groceries? Me. You drove me there twice and think you did your part. Why wasn’t my mom automatically your responsibility, too?”
“Because she managed on her own!”
“If she hadn’t managed, would you have visited her every day after work?”
He went silent.
The answer was all too obvious.
Lena slumped back down in her chair. After all that anger, a strange clarity set in. Just this morning she thought she’d have to spend the evening explaining everything in detail to her husband, persuading him, recounting everything his mother had done. Now she saw: the problem wasn’t Zoya Mikhailovna. She was simply taking what she was allowed to. The real problem was something else—Oleg knew perfectly well how hard this was for Lena, yet still felt this arrangement was just fine.
“You know what I realized today?” Lena said. “Not once in the past six months have you asked if I wanted to keep this up. Not once. Every night, you just checked if I’d gone to your mom’s, if I’d done everything.”
“Because we agreed to it!”
“We agreed it would be for a couple of weeks.”
“Until she was back on her feet.”
“No, Oleg. That’s not it. You said: ‘Lena, help out a bit while Svetka and I sort things out.’ But you never sorted anything. You both just vanished.”
“I was working!”
“So was I.”
“I have more responsibility!”
“Why?”
“Because I make more money!”
Lena stayed silent. He had never said it this directly before. The truth was, Oleg really did earn about a third more than she did. But they both paid the mortgage together, did the grocery shopping together, and split household expenses without counting pennies. Lena had never thought that her husband valued her time less just because she earned less.
“I understand,” she said.
“What is it that you understand?”
“Why you think it’s fine to send me instead of yourself. You’ve decided that since my hourly wage is lower, my life is less valuable too.”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“Then what exactly did you mean by that?”
“I meant that I have more responsibility at work! If I start running off to my mom every night, they’ll eventually just tell me to leave.”
“Then coordinate with your sister.”
“Sveta works too.”
“Perfect. Then hire someone to help.”
“I already said we can’t afford that!”
“Then share the responsibilities. But starting now, don’t count on me for this anymore.”
Oleg walked several times from the table to the fridge. Lena could see how desperately he was searching for another argument that would make her agree again. Usually, all it took was one line: “Well, you understand, my mom’s alone.” Lena did understand. And then she’d go.
Today, that lever broke.
Suddenly, Lena remembered something else that hadn’t seemed so important before. Over the past six months, Oleg never once canceled his Friday meet-ups with friends. Every week, rain or shine, he went to the bar near work—because “a man needs to unwind, too.” Svetlana spent Saturdays at the pool and massage because her back hurt. Lena, on the other hand, canceled everything. When colleagues invited her out after work to celebrate a birthday, she went to give injections instead. When Irina invited her to the theater, Lena gave the ticket to someone else because Oleg said at the last minute he couldn’t make it to his mother’s. Eventually, she stopped explaining her reasons to people at all. She just said, “I can’t.”
And neither her husband nor her sister-in-law found anything unusual about this. For them, Lena giving up her own life had become just another part of the schedule—like water delivery or paying for internet.
“You know, my mom always accepted you,” he finally said.
Lena couldn’t help but laugh.
“Accepted me? At our wedding, she told my aunt that you could’ve found a better wife. After the wedding, she called my job ‘secretarial nonsense,’ even though I’m an accountant. She asked me for two years when I’d have a baby, and after my surgery, she said you should have chosen ‘a healthy one.’ That’s what you call acceptance?”
“She didn’t mean it in a bad way.”
“I don’t care if she meant it badly or just out of boredom. I’m done listening to it.”
“So now you’re saying my sick mother is ruining your life?”
“It’s not your sick mother. What’s ruining my life is how you made her my responsibility.”
Oleg slammed his hand down on the table again, this time even harder.
“Enough! I’m sick of hearing this, too! A good wife would support her husband in a situation like this, not start a scene! Do you even understand that family means having responsibilities? Or is it only convenient for you to live with me?”
Lena slowly got 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, work, and for six months I’ve been taking care of your mother. And after all of that you still ask if it’s convenient for me?
— No one is forcing you to do my laundry!
— Right. No one. And from now on, I won’t be doing any of it at all.
Oleg turned pale with anger.
— Is this some kind of blackmail?
— No. This is the end of the conversation.
Lena grabbed the medical bag and took it to the hallway. Was she planning to deliver the medicine to Zoya Mikhailovna in the morning? No. Let Oleg figure out by himself which ampoules to give when and where the prescriptions are. Everything was labeled; she’d shown him the instructions more than once.
He followed her.
— Where are you taking the bag?
— I’m leaving it here. You’ll take it tomorrow.
— I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. I have work.
— Then call your sister.
— I told you, Sveta can’t do it!
— Then the two of you will finally have to solve a problem you’ve been dumping on me for six months.
— You’re obligated to go! — Oleg yelled. — Obligated, do you understand? You’re my wife! My mother is sick, and I won’t lower myself to beg you every single time. In normal families, things like this aren’t even discussed!
Lena looked at him and suddenly felt so tired. She didn’t even want to yell anymore.
— In normal families, the wife isn’t handed over as a servant to the mother.
— What servant?! You spend two hours a day there!
— Sometimes four.
— Oh, poor you! Sounds like hard labor. Just giving an injection and making some soup.
Those words were the final straw.
Lena turned and went to the bedroom.
— Where are you going? — Oleg shouted.
She didn’t reply.
She took a sports bag out of the closet—the same one they used for trips to the sea—and started packing her things. Jeans. Two sweaters. Underwear. Charger. Makeup bag. Documents. Laptop. She did it all calmly, almost automatically.
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 seriously putting on a drama right now? Fine, don’t go to my mom’s tomorrow. One day. You can calm down—and then we’ll talk.
Lena said nothing.
— Are you actually leaving?
She put her toothbrush in the bag, went back to the room for a warm sweater.
— Where are you even going to go?
— To Irina’s.
— To that friend of yours? Wonderful. You’ll go running to her, telling her what a tyrant I am?
Lena zipped up the bag.
— Who would even want you with your tantrums? — Oleg kept going, losing it completely now. — Do you think anyone cares to listen to how hard it is for you to cook soup for an old person? My mother was right: you’re selfish. Only think about yourself. You joined this family but refuse to take any responsibility.
Lena picked up her bag and walked past him.
— Go! — he yelled after her. — But don’t come crawling back when you’ve calmed down! I need a wife, not a spoiled little girl!
She put on her shoes, threw on her jacket, and grabbed her keys.
Oleg stood in the hallway, seemingly still waiting for her to stop. Normally after the worst fights, Lena was the first to start speaking calmly, to look for a compromise. This time she opened the door.
— Lena!
She turned back.
— What?
— Are you going to my mom’s tomorrow or not?
Even now, standing there with her bag by the door, that was still his main concern.
— No, — Lena said.
And she left.
Irina lived in another neighborhood in a one-bedroom apartment, and when she opened the door, she didn’t ask any questions. She just saw the bag and her friend’s face, stepped aside in silence.
“Come in. Do you want some tea?”
Lena nodded.
It was only when she sat in Irina’s kitchen that Lena finally cried for the first time that evening. Not loudly, and without hysteria—just from exhaustion. Irina listened quietly, never interrupting. When Lena described the porridge spilled on the floor, Irina cursed emphatically—though without using any swear words. When Lena reached the part about Oleg’s talk of a “sacred duty,” Irina only shook her head.
“Are you going back to him?” she asked, late at night.
Lena stared at her phone screen 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 refuses to help too, thanks a lot.” Then his tone changed: “Let’s talk in the morning.” And also: “You have to understand you left me at the toughest time.”
Not a single question about whether she made it home safely.
“No,” Lena answered.
The next day she took a day off from work. During the day, Oleg called almost constantly. Then Svetlana called, and Lena didn’t answer her either. Later, she received a long text: “We all know Mom is difficult, but you could have acted more mature. Now I have to change my schedule, and I have a child and a job.”
Lena read the message and blocked the number.
In the evening, Irina asked:
“What will you do about your things?”
“I’ll take them when Oleg’s at work.”
“And after that?”
For the first time, Lena said out loud what had become clear in her mind during the night.
“Divorce.”
Irina didn’t try to talk her out of it. Over the past months, she had watched Lena slowly disappear from her own life. She had turned down invitations because she had to help her mother-in-law. She rescheduled hair appointments. She missed a friend’s birthday. Twice, she came to work with a fever because she was afraid to call in sick—there’d be no one to give Zoia Mikhailovna her injection in the evening.
Two days later, Lena returned home while Oleg was at work. Irina went with her. In an hour, they packed the rest: clothes, books, documents, some dishes Lena’s mother had once given her, and a few personal items. The medical bag had vanished from the hallway—someone must have finally had to take care of Zoia Mikhailovna.
On the table was a note from Oleg: “I hope you’ll calm down and stop breaking up the family over one argument.”
Lena read it, flipped the paper over, and left the keys there.
Exactly one week after that night, she filed for divorce.
Oleg didn’t hear it from her. He got an official notification, and within ten minutes, Lena’s phone was burning with calls. She answered only once.
“Are you really ready to bury everything?” he yelled, not bothering with a greeting.
“I’ve made my decision.”
“Because of my mom?! Because you were asked to help a sick person?”
“Not because of your mom. Because of you.”
“But what did I do?”
Lena almost smiled. Even after everything, he still didn’t get it.
“You spent six months watching me work for both of us like it was nothing. When I told you I couldn’t do it anymore, you didn’t ask if I was okay. You just asked who would visit your mom now.”
“Because this is a real problem!”
“Then go ahead and solve it.”
“Now Sveta and I take turns every other day on the trips. Can you imagine what kind of life that is?”
“I can imagine. I lived like that for six months. Only I went every 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 abandoned the family when things got hard.”
“No, Oleg. I left when I realized that family, to you, is just a place where it’s convenient for you to use me.”
She ended the call and blocked him again.
Since Lena’s departure, Zoya Mikhailovna never once called her. Not to apologize, not to thank her for six months of help, not even to ask why it all ended this way. Instead, Lena heard from mutual friends that her mother-in-law was now bickering with Svetlana for ‘not cleaning well enough,’ and with Oleg for buying ‘the wrong groceries.’ Nothing had changed—except there was no longer a free and reliable daughter-in-law around.
At first, Lena lived with Irina, then she rented a small studio near work. She had a bit less money because of the rent, but her evenings, unexpectedly, belonged to her again. At six, she could leave the office and just go home. Not to the pharmacy. Not to Zoya Mikhailovna’s. Not to check blood pressure or listen to complaints about bad carrot chopping.
One Friday, Lena went to the store, bought herself the new boots she’d been saving for all winter, and only at the register realized that before, this money would almost certainly have gone to taxi rides to her mother-in-law, medicine, or another grocery list.
The divorce didn’t bring her joy. Six years of marriage aren’t erased with a single signature. There were evenings when she missed the old Oleg, their trips together, their talks, those years she believed they were truly partners. But she never wanted to go back.
Because that night in the kitchen, everything became all too clear.
Oleg didn’t lose his wife because of his sick mother. He lost her the moment he decided her time, energy, and dignity could be spent endlessly—just so he wouldn’t have to change his own routines…