“Starting January, everyone’s on their own,” my mother-in-law declared. My husband followed her advice—then got a New Year’s lesson he never saw coming.
That year, the smell of mandarins and fresh pine brought no joy. December 31 in Ira and Zhenya’s apartment felt stretched tight, like an old guitar string ready to snap. Early that morning Vera Ignatyevna arrived with her sister Lyuda—and from the doorway they started giving orders as if they owned the place.
At the table, Vera Ignatyevna sat like royalty, smoothing the folds of the festive tablecloth and acting like the mistress of a home that wasn’t hers—despite having her own apartment. Next to her, nodding along and tapping a spoon against the porcelain, perched her younger sister, Aunt Lyuda: a heavy woman with a permanent scowl and bold, darting eyes. Lyuda lived separately too and came “for the holiday” mainly to feed her sister “wise” advice and push her to press down on the younger couple.
“Alright then, kids,” Vera Ignatyevna said, dabbing her lips with a napkin as if stamping a verdict. “Times are hard. Prices are climbing, and my pension isn’t made of rubber. Lyudochka opened my eyes. Starting January—everyone fends for themselves.”
Ira froze with the salad bowl in her hands.
“What do you mean, Vera Ignatyevna?” she asked. “My husband and I already split the utilities, and I buy the groceries…”
“That’s exactly what we mean!” Aunt Lyuda cut in, boldly spearing a chunk of roast pork. “You, Ira, make restaurant wages—tips too, I bet. But my nephew Zhenya breaks his back at the factory. You’re young, you’re a family, and Vera here is an older woman. Enough living off the mother. Starting January—separate budgets. Your money is yours, Zhenya’s is his. For the apartment, you’ll pay according to the meters. And for food—each of you buys for yourselves.”
Ira looked at her husband. Zhenya, a broad-shouldered thirty-year-old who worked as a loader at a furniture plant, sat staring down into his plate of aspic. He hated conflict. It was easier for him to stay quiet than to argue with his mother—who came as a guest but spoke as if she had the right to decide their life.
“Zhenya?” Ira asked softly. “Are you really okay with this? We’re a family. We’ve always had one shared pot.”
Zhenya lifted his eyes—heavy with guilty misery—and muttered, “Well… Mom says it’s fairer. Saving money, Ira. Let’s try.”
Something in Ira snapped cleanly inside. She set the salad bowl down with such a hard thump that Aunt Lyuda jumped.
“Fine,” Ira said, her voice turning icy, like January wind. “Everyone for themselves. Remember this day.”
January arrived harsh and snowy, and the new rules started immediately.
Ira worked as a sous-chef at a restaurant called Cozy. The job was brutal—twelve hours on her feet, heat and steam all day—but the team was warm and supportive. Before, she’d come home with heavy grocery bags, cook multi-course dinners to please her husband, wash his clothes, clean the apartment. Now she changed tactics.
At the restaurant, staff got two meals a day—real food: thick soups, meat stews, fresh salads. The head chef, Uncle Misha, a big Armenian man with kind eyes, always told her, “Irochka, if you work hard, you should eat well. Take some—don’t be shy—bring food home.”
But Ira didn’t bring anything home anymore. She ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at work. She came home full and calm. She bought only what she needed for herself—yogurt for mornings, fruit, good tea.
At home, the fridge turned into territories. Top shelf: Ira’s. Greek yogurt cups, cheese, avocado. Bottom shelves: Zhenya’s. At first it was dumplings, cheap bologna, and white bread.
Zhenya—used to homemade cutlets and rich borscht—grew miserable fast. A loader’s job demands calories. You can’t haul wardrobes on sandwiches forever.
“Ira… are we having dinner?” he asked one evening, peering into an empty pot.
“I ate at work, Zhenya,” she replied. “Separate budget, remember? Everyone feeds themselves. Boil yourself some pasta.”
Zhenya chewed plain pasta with slumped shoulders while Ira, wearing a face mask, read a book. She realized how much free time she suddenly had. No stove, no greasy dishes piled up. And the money that used to vanish into a “shared hole” started staying on her card. Ira bought new winter boots she’d dreamed of for two years and booked a massage.
Two weeks later, Zhenya found a solution: he started going to his mother’s for dinner.
At first, Vera Ignatyevna felt triumphant. Her son was with her again! Lyuda praised her: “See? He ran back to Mommy—his little dizzy wife won’t feed him.”
But that victory didn’t last.
Zhenya was a big man with a wolf’s appetite. After a shift, he’d arrive and demolish half a pot of soup, ask for second helpings, and drink tea with cookies.
“Mom, got any more cutlets?” he’d ask, wiping the plate clean with bread.
Vera Ignatyevna’s lips would pinch into a thin line. Her pension wasn’t terrible, but she had her own needs—and feeding a grown man “like a slaughterhouse” every day was not part of her plan. Groceries disappeared before her eyes. Meat, butter, vegetables—everything fell into the bottomless pit of Zhenya’s stomach.
By late February, Vera Ignatyevna finally snapped. When Aunt Lyuda stopped by, she found her sister at the stove—red-faced, sweaty, furious.
“Vera, why do you look half-dead?”
“It’s that Zhenya!” Vera Ignatyevna threw down a ladle. “He eats like he’s possessed! I cook enough for three days—he wipes it out in one evening. I don’t even have money left for my medicine. We’re flushing it all down the toilet!”
“Then tell him to pay!” Lyuda prodded.
“To my own son? It’s awkward…” Vera Ignatyevna groaned. “This is all Ira’s fault—snake! She’s starving him on purpose just to spite me!”
The showdown came on the first Sunday of March.
Ira was home alone, enjoying the quiet, sorting clothes in the closet. The doorbell rang. Vera Ignatyevna stood on the threshold. Without being invited, she marched in—muddy boots and all—and went straight to the kitchen.
“What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” she started, not even saying hello. “Starving a man? He’ll be living with me soon, because at home there’s nothing!”
Ira calmly poured herself a glass of water.
“Vera Ignatyevna, this was your decision. ‘Everyone for themselves.’ I work at a restaurant—they feed me there. Zhenya works at the factory—he earns a salary. Let him buy food and cook. Or eat at a cafeteria. I’m not his servant.”
“You’re his wife!” the mother-in-law shrieked, spraying spit. “It’s your duty to feed your husband! I fed his father my whole life!”
“Don’t lecture me,” Ira set the glass down. Her voice stayed quiet, but it carried steel. “You destroyed our marriage with your greedy little ‘advice.’ Was it money you couldn’t bear to share? Or did you just want control?”
“You… ungrateful!” Vera Ignatyevna gasped. “I’ll tell Zhenya—you’ll be divorced! You’re a terrible homemaker!”
And that’s when Ira finally exploded. Years of swallowed hurt, exhaustion from constant nitpicking, from her husband’s weakness—everything burst out.
“I’m terrible?” Ira stepped closer. Vera Ignatyevna instinctively backed away. “No, Vera Ignatyevna. You’re a terrible mother. You didn’t raise a man—you raised a helpless child and a doormat. He can’t take one step without you. The second something happens, he runs to hide behind your skirt. You’re proud he eats at your place? Then feed him! He’s your ‘product.’ You wanted him close to you? Congratulations—keep him. I’m done. I didn’t sign up to serve a grown man who can’t even defend his wife when people smear her.”
The mother-in-law bolted out as if scalded, slamming the door hard enough that plaster shook loose.
That evening Ira felt sick. Dizzy, nauseated. She assumed it was stress. But the next morning, the feeling was different—familiar from friends’ stories, yet still shocking. A pregnancy test she bought on the way to work showed two clear lines.
Ira sat on the edge of the bathtub and cried—half joy, half fear. How do you raise a baby in a home like this? With a husband who obeys his mother and a mother-in-law who hates her?
Zhenya came home late. Dark as a storm cloud. His mother had already called and painted Ira as a monster who’d screamed at her and practically attacked her.
“Ira, we need to talk,” he began harshly. “Mom said—”
Ira lifted tear-swollen eyes. In her hands she held the white plastic test.
“Zhenya. Sit down.”
He stopped short. Saw her pale face, her trembling hands.
“What happened? Are you sick?”
“I’m pregnant, Zhenya. Six weeks.”
The silence in the room turned thick, cottony. Zhenya stared at the test, then at Ira. You could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes. He remembered his mother shouting into the phone earlier: “Throw her out! She’s not good enough for you!” He remembered how Ira had been quietly carrying his unemployment, his helplessness, their cold everyday life.
And suddenly the picture clicked into place. The “separate budget” drama was petty nonsense. Running to Mommy for borscht instead of buying meat and cooking dinner together was stupid—and cruel. He realized he could lose them: Ira, and the tiny life inside her.
“Pregnant…” he whispered. “Ira… is it… mine?”
“Ours, idiot,” Ira sobbed.
Zhenya dropped to his knees in front of her. A strong factory man who hauled sofas up five flights of stairs buried his face in her lap, shoulders shaking.
“Forgive me,” he said thickly through tears. “Forgive me for being an idiot. Forgive me for letting them interfere. I didn’t know… I thought that’s how it should be—Mom said she meant well…”
Ira stroked his coarse hair, crying too.
The next day Vera Ignatyevna called her son, ready for another round of accusations.
“Zhenya, did you deal with that rude woman?”
“Mom,” Zhenya’s voice was so cold and hard Vera Ignatyevna barely recognized it. “Shut your mouth.”
“What?!” she choked. “How dare you speak to your mother like that? She taught you this!”
“Listen carefully,” Zhenya cut her off. “Ira is my wife. She’s carrying my child. If you or Aunt Lyuda say one crooked word about her, if you come into our family with your advice or demands—you will never see me again. Ever. Do you understand?”
Silence.
“Zhenya… a grandchild?”
“Grandson or granddaughter is none of your business until you learn to respect the child’s mother. That’s it. We live by our own heads now. And our budget is shared again—like normal people. You spend your money on yourself and Lyuda. Don’t call us for now. I’ll call when I’m ready.”
He hung up. His hands were trembling, but inside he felt clean and bright—like after a thunderstorm.
That evening he came home with a huge bouquet of white chrysanthemums—Ira adored them—and heavy bags of groceries: beef, fruit, cottage cheese.
“What’s all this?” Ira smiled when she met him in the hallway.
“This,” Zhenya said, lifting her carefully like she was made of glass and spinning her gently, “is family, Irochka. I’m cooking now. The guys at the plant taught me how to pick good meat—look at the cut, they said. The fibers should be firm, the color bright, not dark. And marinate it in kefir. Want шашлык?”
“I do,” Ira laughed.
Justice isn’t when you punish the guilty. Justice is when people finally wake up and start valuing what they have.
Vera Ignatyevna quieted down. Aunt Lyuda tried to throw in a few sharp comments, but Vera shut her down fast: the fear of losing her only son and never meeting her grandchild was stronger than sisterly influence. She was afraid to meddle.
Seven months later, Ira and Zhenya had a boy—sturdy, just like his father. When Vera Ignatyevna came timidly to the hospital discharge, standing off to the side with a small gift bag, Zhenya called her over himself—while holding Ira’s hand tightly, not letting go for a second. The boundary had been drawn, and no one dared cross it again.
