Artyom found out about the layoff on a Friday, right before the weekend. The boss called him into his office, explained about “staff optimization” and a crisis in the industry, handed him a notice and severance pay. The thirty-year-old software engineer went home with a heavy feeling in his chest, but tried to stay optimistic.
“Lera, don’t worry,” he told his wife when she got back from work. “It’s temporary. In a month or two I’ll find something better. Maybe the pay will even be higher.”
Valeria, a twenty-eight-year-old journalist at a local newspaper, hugged her husband and did her best to support him. She understood that losing a job is serious stress for anyone. The family lived in a one-room apartment on the outskirts of the city; they’d been renting for three years. They had enough to live on, but no cushion. Artyom’s salary made up the bulk of the family budget.
“It’s okay, we’ll manage,” Lera reassured him. “I have income too—we’ll get by.”
In the first days after he was let go, her husband really did throw himself into the job hunt. He reworked his résumé, sent it to dozens of openings, called former colleagues and acquaintances. Every morning he sat down at the computer, studied listings on job sites, and replied to ads. Lera saw his efforts and supported him as best she could.
But after two weeks the enthusiasm began to fade. Replies to his résumé were rare, and invitations to interviews rarer still. And the companies that did consider Artyom offered salaries far below his previous one or unsuitable conditions. He got upset, railed at employers, and complained about the unfairness of the labor market.
“They’ve gone completely crazy,” Artyom fumed over evening tea. “They want five years’ experience in a technology that’s been around a year and a half. And they want to pay like it’s an internship.”
“Maybe you should look at related fields?” Lera suggested. “Or try remote work?”
“Remote isn’t serious. And related fields… I’m a top-class specialist, I’m not going to spread myself thin on nonsense.”
Little by little, the time Artyom spent on the job search shrank, while the pauses between actions grew. He more and more often visited gaming forums, read the news, watched video reviews. He said he needed to distract himself from the stress and recharge for new attempts.
By the end of the first month of unemployment, looking for vacancies had become a formality. Artyom still sat down at the computer every morning, but instead of opening his résumé, he opened an online game. He could spend six to eight hours at it straight, only occasionally breaking off for a cursory glance at new listings.
“Tomorrow I’ll definitely get serious about the search,” he promised his wife. “My brain’s not working today, I need to unwind.”
At first Lera didn’t press him. She understood that prolonged failures can throw a person off balance, that everyone needs time to regain their footing. She worked at the paper, collected her modest salary, and tried to economize on everything. But the money clearly didn’t stretch to their usual standard of living.
So she quietly began looking for extra income. In the evenings after her main job, she took on side gigs—wrote website copy, helped colleagues with pieces, consulted acquaintances on public relations. At first these were one-off orders for small sums.
Artyom didn’t show much interest in where his wife found the time and energy for extra work. He was preoccupied with his own worries and virtual battles. Sometimes he asked if Lera wasn’t staying up too late with her laptop, but paid no attention to explanations.
“Just finishing something up for the paper,” she would answer without going into detail.
Two months after her husband’s dismissal, the situation in the family changed drastically. Lera’s freelance work took off. Clients recommended her to friends; the number of projects grew, and the pay became steady. In a week of extra work, Lera could earn as much as she did in a month at the newsroom.
There was once again enough money for all the essentials—groceries, utilities, household expenses. But now the family budget rested entirely on the wife’s efforts. Artyom kept insisting he was actively job-hunting, though he was doing less and less in reality.
He quarreled more and more often with his mother on the phone. Galina Petrovna called every week, asked about progress, offered advice, and criticized her son’s passivity. Artyom bristled, complained about life’s unfairness, and blamed employers for inflated demands and low salaries.
“Mom, you don’t understand what the market’s like now,” he said into the phone. “Everywhere they want slaves for peanuts. I’d rather wait for a decent offer than jump at just anything.”
One evening Lera overheard a conversation that made her see things in a new light. Artyom was talking to some buddy, describing his situation:
“It’s all fine, man. My wife’s carrying us for now; I can sit it out a bit longer. Why rush if there’s a chance to rest? I worked my tail off for years—I’ve earned a breather.”
Lera stood in the hallway, a bag of groceries in her hands, unable to believe what she’d heard. So her husband wasn’t just struggling with job-search setbacks—he was consciously using his wife as a source of funding? She slipped quietly into the kitchen, trying to digest the revelation.
Over the next few days she watched her husband closely. Artyom woke up around eleven, had breakfast, and sat at the computer. Before lunch he played an online strategy game, then watched video reviews of games or movies. In the evening he might open a couple of job sites, scroll through listings for twenty minutes, and then go back to entertainment.
He also forgot about chores. Dishes piled up in the sink until Lera got home. The vacuum cleaner didn’t leave the closet for weeks. Shopping was entirely on her. Artyom only took out the trash now and then, and only after reminders.
“You’re home all day,” Lera finally snapped. “Maybe at least keep an eye on the place?”
“I’m not a housewife,” he shot back. “I’m looking for work—my head’s on serious things. I haven’t got time for rags.”
“Serious things? Like what exactly?”
“I’m analyzing the market, studying offers, planning my search strategy.”
Lera glanced at the screen where tanks from a popular online game filled the display, but didn’t argue. She realized her husband had sunk fully into self-deception and had no intention of admitting reality.
One August evening something happened that finally clarified everything. Lera landed a big order—content for a corporate website. The client wired a solid advance, and after delivery paid the balance. In the end, in one week she earned more than Artyom used to make in a month.
She decided to treat the family and bought supplies for a nice dinner—salmon, shrimp, good wine, fruit. She spent as much as they usually did on several days’ worth of groceries. She came home with heavy bags in high spirits.
Artyom met her with a wary look. He saw the pricey food, mentally tallied the cost, and frowned.
“Where’d you get the money for that? A journalist’s salary doesn’t cover this.”
“I got a good order and thought I’d celebrate,” Lera said calmly, putting the food in the fridge.
“What order? What kind of order would a provincial newspaper journalist have?”
“I write website copy in my free time. It’s extra income.”
Artyom grew even more alert. Suspicions began to take shape in his head. His wife spent her evenings on a laptop, money was appearing from somewhere, she was buying expensive things. What if the “extra work” was just a cover? What if Lera had a benefactor generously paying for her attention?
“Show me this order,” he demanded. “I want to see what kind of work is so lucrative.”
“Why?” Lera was surprised. “Don’t you trust me?”
“I’m just curious. The wife suddenly out-earns the husband—that’s suspicious.”
“Out-earns the husband?” Steel crept into her voice. “And how much has the husband earned in the past three months?”
Artyom felt the conversation turning in an unwelcome direction, but it was too late to retreat. The suspicions gnawed at him and demanded answers.
“Where are you getting that kind of money?!” he flared, raising his voice. “And don’t dodge the question!”
Lera stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked at her husband closely. Artyom sat in his usual spot—the couch in front of the TV. He was wearing the same T-shirt as three days ago. His hair was unwashed, his face covered with three days’ stubble. He smelled of stale clothes and long hours at home.
“And what gives you the right to ask when you’ve been on that couch for three months?” she asked quietly but distinctly.
“How am I on the couch?!” Artyom protested. “I’m looking for work! It’s a complex process that takes time and patience!”
“Where are the results? How many interviews have you had in the last month?”
“None of your business! You answer my question—where’s the money from?”
He got up from the couch and stepped closer. An unhealthy spark of suspicion and jealousy burned in his eyes. He reached toward her purse as if to look into her phone.
“Show me your messages with these clients. I want to make sure it’s just work.”
Lera pulled back and hugged her bag to her.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I have a right to know what my wife is doing! Especially when she suddenly has big money!”
Silently, the woman went into the living room and opened her laptop on the coffee table. For a few minutes she searched through folders, then turned the screen to her husband.
“Here’s a spreadsheet of orders for the last two months. These are screenshots of payments received. And here are the chats with clients. Every order, every income, every contact. Take a good look.”
Artyom bent over the screen and ran his eyes down the lines. Indeed, it all looked like ordinary freelance work. No suspicious contacts, no ambiguous messages, no strange transfers. Just the work his wife did in the evenings while he entertained himself with games.
“Did you contribute anything to this besides criticism?” Lera asked, closing the laptop.
Artyom opened his mouth to object, but no words came. What could he say? That his wife had no right to work extra? That it was wrong to earn money for the family? That she should sit idle like her husband?
Lera gathered up the laptop, her phone, and her tablet from the table and headed for the door of the living room.
“There are groceries in the fridge. If you want something for dinner besides prepared foods, cook it yourself.”
She went into the bedroom and shut the door firmly.
Artyom remained standing in the living room, staring at the closed bedroom door. For the first time in three months he felt awkward about his situation. His wife worked late, earned the money, kept the family afloat—and he had suspected her of cheating only because he himself was doing nothing to improve things.
The next morning Lera woke earlier than usual. She got ready for work in silence, ate breakfast, and took her bag. Artyom tried to start a conversation, but got only polite one-word answers. After she left, he discovered he could no longer log into the banking app on the shared tablet. The password had been changed.
He tried on his own phone—the same result. Lera had cut off his access to all the family accounts and cards. Artyom was taken aback. She had never done anything like that before. They had always discussed finances together and had equal access to the family money.
When Lera came home from work, he tried to find out the reason.
“Why can’t I see our accounts? What’s with these childish games?”
“Ours?” she echoed, not looking up from her dinner. “What exactly is ‘ours’ about that money?”
“What do you mean? We’re a family—everything should be shared.”
“What should be shared is participation. Right now the only thing you participate in is spending, not earning.”
Lera didn’t go into detailed explanations. She felt explanations were owed to people who did something for the family, not to those who only demanded and consumed. For several days Artyom tried to restore the old order, but his wife was unbending.
A week later he tried to make peace. He bought flowers with the last of his pocket cash and cooked dinner from whatever was in the fridge. He greeted Lera with apologies.
“Sorry about that night. I just snapped, you know? I’m nervous about work and I take it out on you. It’s not right.”
The words sounded forced, rehearsed. Artyom said what he thought his wife wanted to hear. Meanwhile he still wasn’t looking for work and no longer even pretended. He spent the entire day at the computer playing, watching movies, chatting on forums. He had completely abandoned the job search.
“Thanks for dinner,” Lera said after tasting the pasta with sausages. “But one gesture won’t fix the situation.”
“I’ll change. Just give me time.”
“You had three months. What’s changed in that time?”
Artyom had no answer. Indeed, apart from promises, nothing in his behavior had changed. His wife knew that perfectly well and no longer intended to settle for empty words.
On Friday Lera took two unpaid days off. She packed a small bag and left her husband a note on the table: “I need space where no one devalues my efforts. I’ll be back Monday.” She went to a holiday camp in a neighboring district where you could rent a cabin by a lake.
Artyom found the note only in the evening when he started to worry about her absence. He immediately called Lera.
“What nonsense is this? Why go anywhere? We agreed to discuss everything calmly.”
“We didn’t agree on anything. You only promised to change and didn’t take a single real step.”
“You can’t treat your husband like that! That’s pure selfishness!”
“Selfishness is living at someone else’s expense while giving nothing in return.”
Lera hung up. Artyom called several more times and sent messages accusing her of coldness and indifference to the family. But he didn’t make a single concrete proposal—neither about chores, nor about the job search, nor about real participation in family life.
Two days in nature gave Lera a chance to think calmly. It became clear: Artyom had no intention of changing. He had gotten used to freeloading and considered this state of affairs normal and fair. The wife should work, earn, serve, while the husband had the right only to consume and criticize.
When Lera came back on Monday, Artyom wasn’t home. On the kitchen table lay a sheet of paper listing complaints. He had drawn up a list of his wife’s “unjustified expenses”: the trip to the camp, the pricey groceries the previous week, a new blouse Lera had bought a month earlier. Next to each item stood a sum and a comment about the imprudence of the spending.
She calmly read the list, crumpled the paper, and threw it in the trash. There was no one there to explain the obvious. All the money had been earned by her own labor and spent on family needs or small personal pleasures. For three months Artyom hadn’t contributed a penny to the family budget, yet he felt entitled to control every expense.
The next day Lera took a personal day and went to see a lawyer. She needed to draw up an agreement to divide jointly acquired marital property. There was hardly any joint property, though. The apartment was rented, the furniture was old and inexpensive, and the appliances had been bought before the marriage or on credit that she had paid off. There was practically nothing to divide.
“A divorce by mutual consent will take a month,” explained the lawyer, Marina Sergeevna. “If your spouse doesn’t agree voluntarily, the process will drag on two or three months.”
“He won’t agree,” Lera sighed. “Life is too convenient for him as it is.”
That evening, when Artyom returned from yet another meetup with friends, his wife informed him of her decision.
“I’m filing for divorce. The paperwork is already in motion.”
“What?!” He was taken aback. “Out of the blue? Because of one argument?”
“Not because of an argument. Because of three months of freeloading and an unwillingness to change anything.”
“You can’t do that!” Artyom began to shout. “Wives don’t abandon their husbands in hard times!”
“Hard times are when a person is trying to find a way out. When he chooses to live off someone else—that’s called parasitism.”
Artyom tried to play on her pity, reminded her of their plans, swore he would start looking for work immediately. He said the divorce would make him look bad to relatives and acquaintances, that people would condemn his wife for cruelty.
“You did that to yourself,” Lera replied calmly. “By your actions, not by my decisions. For three months everyone’s seen what you do instead of looking for work.”
She avoided long arguments and squabbles. The decision had been made deliberately; she wasn’t going to change her plans. Artyom could shout, reproach, accuse—it no longer affected the situation.
A week later, when he realized he was losing control, his tactics changed. Artyom begged for one last chance, promised a radical transformation, even drew up a job-search plan for the coming month. But it was already too late.
“You had three months’ worth of chances,” Lera said, packing his things into a suitcase. “Every day was an opportunity to change something.”
“Do three years of marriage mean nothing to you?”
“They do. But the last three months showed that from here it will only get worse.”
Lera helped her husband gather his personal belongings and called a taxi. Artyom went to his mother, Galina Petrovna, who had been calling her daughter-in-law for a week, asking her to “come to her senses” and “not destroy the family.” Lera listened politely but didn’t feel the need to explain.
The next day a locksmith changed the locks on the apartment. Lera collected all spare keys from the management company. Now, in the rented one-room flat, no one played computer games until dawn, rummaged through someone else’s bank accounts, or accused the wife of being obligated to support a healthy adult man.
Because now it was home to a woman who knew the value of her own work and wouldn’t let anyone devalue the effort that kept that home afloat. The apartment became quieter, but far more peaceful. Lera could work as much as she deemed necessary, spend what she earned on her own needs, and plan a future without glancing back at someone else’s ego.
The divorce was finalized a month and a half later. Artyom tried to drag out the process to the end, but in the end he agreed to all the terms. He didn’t have much choice—there was practically no jointly acquired property, and neither side had claims against the other.
Six months later Lera heard from mutual acquaintances that her ex-husband still hadn’t found a permanent job. He scraped by on odd jobs, lived with his mother, and complained to everyone about the unfairness of fate and his ex-wife’s cruelty. Lera felt neither anger nor pity toward Artyom. Just indifference to a man who had chosen the role of permanent loser for himself.
As for Lera, over the year she greatly expanded her freelance work, found regular clients, and increased her income. She moved to a better apartment and started saving for a place of her own. Life without a dependent turned out not only calmer, but far more promising.
