Valya stood in the kitchen doorway and barely recognized the sound of her own voice when she said, “No.”
The word came out quietly, but there was something firm and final about it. That seemed to make Vitya explode.
“Are you kidding me?” He shot up from the stool so abruptly that it toppled over behind him with a loud crash. “I’m serious, Valya. I need that money.”
“You don’t have any because you wasted it,” she replied, trying not to look at his bloodshot eyes, the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave for weeks, or the T-shirt he seemed to have been wearing for several days straight. “And I’m not going to keep paying for this.”
“This is my apartment!” he shouted, his voice cracking into a hoarse rasp. “Who are you here, anyway? A guest?”
Valya said nothing.
Her heart was pounding so violently that she felt as though the entire building could hear it.
“Either you transfer your salary to me, or you get out of my apartment,” he said through clenched teeth, staring at her from beneath lowered brows as though, for the first time, he saw an enemy standing in front of him instead of his wife. “Choose.”
She looked at him—the man she had spent years beside, the man with whom she had shared a bed, breakfasts, plans for a summer cottage, and late-night conversations about the children they kept postponing until “later.”
But the person standing in front of her now seemed like a stranger.
He looked exhausted and agitated, his hands trembling slightly.
Valya turned around, walked into the bedroom, and closed the door behind her.
Vitya continued shouting something from the other room, but she could no longer make out the words. Only one thought remained in her head, cold and perfectly clear, as if it had finally emerged from the fog that had surrounded her for the past several months.
This wasn’t just another argument.
This was the end.
She simply didn’t know yet what that ending would look like.
Six months earlier, none of this had seemed possible.
Or perhaps the signs had already been there. Valya simply hadn’t wanted to see them.
Vitya had inherited the apartment—a two-bedroom place in an old building with unusually high ceilings and creaking parquet floors. They had talked for years about replacing the flooring, but somehow they had never gotten around to it.
After the wedding, Valya gave up the small studio apartment she had been renting on the outskirts of the city and moved in with him.
At first, everything seemed to be falling into place.
They both had decent jobs. They both had ambitions. They talked about building a future together and perhaps having a baby within a year or two.
Vitya worked for an IT company, dividing his time between the office and remote work. His position had something to do with analytics. Valya never paid much attention to the technical details. She only knew that he earned good money and that his colleagues seemed to respect him.
She worked in the accounting department of a large company, and her own salary was solid enough to make their shared plans feel realistic.
In the beginning, they divided household expenses fairly, saved money together, and made plans.
Vitya used to be thoughtful.
He brought her flowers for no particular reason. He remembered that she hated onions in salads. Sometimes he called her from work simply to ask how her day was going.
Back then, Valya believed she had been extraordinarily lucky.
The changes came slowly.
At first, it was only a game.
A multiplayer strategy game Vitya played in the evenings after work because, as he put it, he needed “something to relax.”
Valya didn’t mind.
Everyone needed a hobby. She liked knitting and watching TV series, so why shouldn’t he have something of his own?
But evenings gradually turned into late nights.
Then he started logging into the game during the day whenever he was working from home.
“I just need to check the raid.”
“Five minutes.”
“My team is waiting.”
Five minutes became an hour.
An hour became the rest of the evening.
Valya began noticing that Vitya smiled less and snapped over insignificant things more often. Whenever she tried to discuss their plans, his responses became reduced to distracted phrases such as, “Yeah,” or, “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Do you actually still work?” she asked him one afternoon after finding him in front of his computer in the middle of a workday, headphones covering his ears and an excited gleam in his eyes.
“I’m working,” he muttered without looking away from the screen. “There’s just a gap between tasks.”
Those gaps kept getting longer.
Valya tried to discuss it without accusing him.
She suggested that they go out in the evenings, spend a weekend visiting friends, or return to their old conversation about starting a family.
Vitya brushed her off.
He kept promising that things would get back to normal soon.
But instead, he disappeared deeper and deeper into the virtual world—a place where he had status, authority, a reputation, and a team that depended on him.
Valya didn’t immediately realize that the game had become more important to him than real life.
By the time she finally understood, gentle conversations were no longer enough.
One evening, Vitya came home earlier than usual. His face was pale, and he was strangely quiet.
“What happened?” Valya asked as she set dinner on the table.
“I got fired,” he said without looking at her. “They cut the department. And me along with it. Apparently I’ve been missing too many deadlines lately.”
Valya felt a chill run through her.
She had a fairly good idea why his work had been suffering, but she didn’t say it aloud.
There was no point kicking someone when he was already down.
“You’ll find another job,” she said, trying to encourage him. “You have good experience. Your résumé is strong.”
Vitya nodded, but his eyes looked empty, as though his mind was already somewhere else.
She discovered where later that same evening when she heard the familiar opening music of the game coming from the next room.
During the first few weeks after losing his job, Vitya genuinely seemed to try.
He sent out résumés, went to interviews, and even received a couple of offers.
But every time, he found some reason to reject them.
The schedule was inconvenient.
The salary wasn’t good enough.
The conditions weren’t right.
Valya told herself he was stressed. Losing a job could shake anyone. He probably just needed time to recover and find his confidence again.
But he never did.
His days settled into an endless routine.
Vitya woke up close to noon, turned on the computer, and barely moved away from it until late at night.
He played for hours.
He argued loudly with people through his headset.
Sometimes he celebrated a victory so enthusiastically that the neighbors knocked on the wall.
Meanwhile, ordinary life seemed to disappear from his awareness.
Utility bills, grocery shopping, cleaning, household responsibilities—everything landed on Valya.
Whatever money Vitya had left after losing his job disappeared quickly.
Some of it went toward purchases inside the game.
Valya discovered that almost by accident after seeing banking notifications on the laptop they both used.
At first she kept quiet.
Then she tried bringing it up carefully.
“Vitya, maybe you should stop spending money on the game for a while. We have bills piling up.”
“It was a one-time purchase,” he replied irritably. “I’ll sort it out.”
But there were more and more of those “one-time” purchases.
Eventually, he approached her himself.
For the first time in weeks, he actually looked embarrassed.
“Valya, can you lend me a little money? I need to buy something for the team. I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
She gave it to him.
They were married, after all. She didn’t keep count.
Some time later, he asked again.
Then again.
And again.
Soon Valya was no longer worried only about their finances.
She was worried about Vitya himself and about the person he was becoming.
He was constantly irritated, obsessed, and emotionally absent, as though everything outside the computer screen had become background noise.
Eventually, she confronted him directly.
“I think you need help. Not from me—from a professional. This can’t keep going.”
“You think I’m sick?” he snapped. “I don’t need a therapist. I need money!”
With every new request, he became more demanding.
And whenever Valya refused—even calmly, even with perfectly reasonable explanations—his reaction became increasingly explosive.
She could see his expression change every time she said no.
First confusion.
Then wounded pride.
Then anger.
An anger that seemed to accumulate somewhere inside him until it demanded a way out.
The evening she finally refused without excuses, without explanations, and without apologizing, everything burst open.
After their argument, Valya sat alone in the bedroom for a long time, staring into the darkness beyond the window.
The apartment had gone quiet.
Vitya had probably returned to the computer or gone into the kitchen as though nothing had happened.
Valya wasn’t thinking about money anymore.
Money was the easiest part.
Money could be earned again.
Savings could be rebuilt.
What she couldn’t stop thinking about was what had happened to the man she had once chosen as her husband.
It wasn’t ordinary selfishness or greed.
It looked more like an illness—something obsessive, destructive, and capable of consuming a person completely.
At some point in the past, Valya had read articles about gaming addiction. She had never imagined that any of it might apply to her own family.
Now she mentally went through the signs, one after another, and the picture fit with frightening accuracy.
Loss of control.
Aggression whenever someone tried to limit the behavior.
Neglect of work and responsibilities.
A willingness to damage relationships with loved ones just to keep playing.
Valya understood something important.
If she transferred the money now, nothing would become easier.
It would only get worse.
Vitya would learn that shouting, threatening, and pressuring her worked.
And if she refused but stayed, the arguments would continue over and over until whatever warmth she still felt toward him was completely burned away.
She couldn’t—and didn’t want to—remain in a home where someone shouted at her and gave her ultimatums.
But simply walking out and leaving Vitya alone with his problems also felt wrong.
Despite all her anger, she was still worried about him.
That night, after Vitya finally fell into a restless, nervous sleep on the living-room sofa, Valya quietly picked up her phone and wrote to his mother.
“Tamara Nikolaevna, I’m sorry for messaging you so late. We need to talk about Vitya. I think he has a serious problem, and I can’t handle this alone anymore.”
The reply came almost immediately.
Apparently, her mother-in-law was still awake.
“What happened? Is he all right?”
Valya explained everything as calmly as she could: the job loss, the game, the debts, the angry outbursts, and the ultimatum he had given her that evening.
Writing it all down turned out to be harder than she expected.
Putting the situation into complete sentences made it real in a way that frightened her.
It meant admitting that this was not going to disappear on its own.
“Please come and talk to him,” she wrote at the end. “I’m going to stay with my mother for a while. I need some time away from this apartment.”
The next morning, while Vitya was still asleep, Valya packed a small bag.
She took only the essentials—her documents, laptop, clothes, and a few personal things.
Before leaving, she placed a short note on the kitchen table.
“I’ve gone to stay with Mom. I already contacted your mother, and she knows what’s happening. We have a lot to discuss, but not today and not while you’re speaking to me like this.”
The days at her mother’s apartment passed in a strange emotional haze.
Sometimes Valya would suddenly start crying over a cup of tea that had gone cold.
At other moments, anger surged through her so strongly that she wanted to smash plates against the wall.
And then, unexpectedly, she would feel relieved.
For the first time in months, she no longer had to listen nervously for signs that another argument might erupt in the next room.
Her mother didn’t pressure her with questions.
She was simply there.
She cooked, put on old movies, and sometimes quietly wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders when she saw that Valya was struggling.
Tamara Nikolaevna visited her son the day after Valya left.
Valya never learned everything that happened during their conversation.
She heard only part of the story a few days later when Vitya himself called her.
His voice sounded unusually quiet.
The aggression was gone.
“Valya, Mom told me what you wrote to her,” he said. “I… I guess I really have been doing something wrong to myself. I didn’t realize how serious it had become.”
Valya listened without interrupting.
One part of her, still raw from everything he had said and done, wanted to hang up.
Another part—the part that still remembered the caring man he had once been—wanted desperately to believe him.
“I made an appointment with a specialist,” Vitya continued uncertainly. “Mom insisted. Maybe you could come home? We could work through this together.”
“I’m glad you’re getting help,” Valya said carefully. “I really am. But that doesn’t erase what happened between us.”
She didn’t have the strength to explain every wound again.
Instead, she added quietly,
“I need time. I’m not ready to talk about coming back.”
But time did not change her decision.
If anything, it made her more certain.
Not long afterward, Valya filed for divorce.
It wasn’t an easy decision.
Still, whenever she looked back at the months of shouting, debts, pressure, and accusations, she couldn’t find any desire inside herself to return to that life.
Vitya tried to reach her in every way he could.
He sent long messages apologizing for everything.
He called.
Once, he even came directly to her mother’s apartment carrying a bouquet, his expression full of guilt.
“Valya, give me a chance to fix this,” he said from the doorway, nervously crushing the flower stems between his fingers. “I’m seeing a psychologist. I barely play anymore, I swear. Mom helps me keep everything under control. I understand what I did.”
Valya looked at him.
He had lost weight. There were dark circles under his tired eyes.
For once, she saw no irritation in his face.
Only genuine regret.
She felt sorry for him.
But feeling sorry for someone and wanting to return to life with them were two completely different things.
“I believe that you’re trying,” she said calmly. “And I truly hope you get better. But I can’t forget the way you shouted at me. The way you threatened me and gave me ultimatums. If it had happened once, maybe I could call it a breakdown. But it happened again and again. And every time, the message was the same—either give me money or get out of the apartment. I don’t want to live like that anymore, even if you change.”
“So that’s it?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Valya replied.
This time, her voice did not tremble.
“I’m sorry it ended this way. But yes. It’s over.”
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t shout.
He simply nodded, turned around, and slowly walked back toward his car.
The divorce went through without unnecessary conflict.
Valya made no claim on the apartment. It had belonged to Vitya before their marriage, and she had never considered it hers.
She took only her personal belongings and a few things they had bought together over the years.
Eventually, fragments of news about Vitya reached her through mutual friends.
He continued seeing the specialist.
He found another job.
Little by little, he began paying off his debts.
His mother said he had matured, become calmer, and no longer disappeared into his phone or computer for entire days.
Valya sincerely hoped he would recover and build a better life.
But she had learned something herself, and the lesson had come at a painfully high price.
Love and patience are not unlimited powers.
You cannot rescue someone who refuses to admit that they need rescuing.
Valya had done the only thing she could truly control.
She had refused to remain in a place where she was being disrespected.
And she had stopped trying to save a man who, at that point, had not yet decided to save himself.
Several months later, she rented a small apartment not far from her office.
She began arranging it exactly the way she wanted, without having to consider anyone else’s habits, moods, or demands.
Some evenings, she knitted.
Other evenings, she simply sat beside the window with a cup of tea and listened to the silence.
There were no raised voices anymore.
No accusations.
No threats.
No ultimatums.
And strangely enough, that quiet began to sound almost like happiness.
