Larisa sat in the kitchen as usual, dressed in a tank top with knees worn thin on her pants, gazing at her phone. She wasn’t flicking through posts nor lost in thought; instead, her eyes were fixed on the screen as if it held some profound symbol. A zero blinked, then a three appeared, followed by a string of zeros—three million. Actual money. Reflected in her bank balance. Each ruble earned through relentless effort, patience, and countless refusals: “No, thanks, I brought my own.”
She swiped lightly across the display. No illusions. This wasn’t just a fantasy. The funds were tangible, irrefutable, and belonged solely to her.
From the hallway, a muffled voice called out:
“Lara, where are you?” The tone resembled that of someone who had misplaced their slippers rather than their partner.
“In the kitchen, where else?” she responded, swiftly closing the app and slipping the phone into her robe pocket, as though concealing a secret lover.
Andrey emerged in the doorway, looking every bit the battle-hardened office warrior. His tie hung like a strangling loop, his shirt appeared as though it had been ransacked, and his hairstyle bore the chaotic charm of a ‘Gone with the Wind’ drama.
He collapsed into a stool, visibly exhausted after hours of relentless mouse-clicking.
“How’s everything?” he queried without peeling his gaze from the room, his voice a peculiar blend of a stoker’s grit and a poet’s softness.
“Fine. And you?” Larisa replied while pouring tea, anticipating with resignation the discomfort the upcoming conversation might bring. Recently, he had grown unusually sentimental.
“Same as usual,” he sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Remember when we discussed having savings?”
That was the cue—the preamble to something inevitable. Larisa tensed, reminiscent of a cat confronted with its favourite catnip dish.
“Which savings exactly?” she narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“You know… we agreed to save separately.”
“Right, and?”
“I was just wondering how much you’ve put aside so far,” Andrey tried to sound casual, but his tone betrayed a thinly veiled intent: “I’m inquiring now, but later I might demand my share.”
Larisa sized him up, much like a butcher assessing a batch of less-than-fresh minced meat.
“And how much do you have?” she asked evenly, though her voice carried an edge sharp enough to break a thermometer under strain.
He averted his gaze, sounding like a schoolchild caught in a lie.
“Not much yet… expenses, you know…”
She understood perfectly—brand new iPhone, sneakers, outings with friends, “just coffee” that mysteriously cost four thousand rubles. Generosity was one-sided; he was extravagant with others but sparing with himself.
“And do you think that entitles you to pry into my finances?”
“Lara, we’re family!” he suddenly burst out, steam venting from the kettle. “How can you say ‘your’ money when it’s ours!?”
“That’s the same money I denied myself indulgences like rolls and shoes for years to build up. Does that ring a bell?”
“Oh, come on!” he waved dismissively. “Back then, we didn’t even know how we’d make ends meet.”
“And now you disregard every agreement we made as if it were worthless?”
“What agreements?” he muttered. “Normal families pool all their finances!”
“Sure! Especially when the wife holds three million, and the husband dreams only of a car.”
He fell silent. His fingers tapped the tabletop restlessly, searching for a solid counterargument that wouldn’t betray foolishness.
“Let’s continue this later, okay? I’m exhausted,” he said, standing but pausing in the doorway. “So… how much have you saved?”
“Andrey, please, leave me be.”
“I’m not asking you to transfer anything! Just curious.”
“Then hold onto that curiosity.”
He froze.
“So now we’re keeping secrets?”
“Not secrets. Respecting personal savings.”
“Got it…” he mumbled, leaving like a disgruntled soap opera character.
The silence was soon shattered by the television’s sudden roar from the living room, signaling an emotional outburst akin to an attention-demanding plea: ‘Notice me, I’m offended.’
“Lara!” he shouted suddenly. “Mom’s on the line! She wants to speak to you!”
Rolling her eyes skyward, Larisa braced for the heavy artillery: Galina Petrovna, the family’s de facto finance minister.
“Larisa, darling!” cooed her mother-in-law, saccharine as borscht with sugar. “How are you and Andryusha? All right?”
“Fine, more or less.”
“He says you’re having disagreements. You know, I always thought…”
“The budget should be joint,” Larisa interrupted. “Yeah, yeah, it’s your recurring forecast.”
“Well, how else? Your father and I have always managed everything together.”
“We choose a different path.”
“Larisa, dear, a family isn’t supposed to be this way…”
“Galina Petrovna, I’m the one who decides what ‘family-like’ means. Andrey and I agreed on this.”
“You’re a clever girl…” the tone sickened with sweetness. “But he’s hurt. Intensely. His heart aches.”
“Perhaps his heart aches over the car, not anything else.”
A momentary vocal adjustment from the other end.
“Laročka… men find saving harder! Their minds are impulsive.”
“Then he must control those impulses. We don’t operate a casino here.”
“Larisa, don’t be so cold…”
“And don’t be manipulative.”
Shock silent gasping from the mother-in-law. The call hissed slightly.
“Just consider this. Family means compromise.”
“Compromise involves mutual concessions, not one saving while the other pokes into the money.”
She ended the call and moved toward the living room. Andrey sat on the couch, clutching the remote like a weapon—news, sports, cooking show, back to sports.
“So? Did you talk to her?” he asked without turning his eyes from the screen.
“She’s on your side.”
“And you?”
“I support agreements and individual dreams.”
“The car isn’t just mine; it’s ours,” he insisted.
“I don’t drive.”
“And I don’t save,” he retorted bitterly.
Silence. The TV turned off. Andrey rose.
“So you won’t chip in?”
“Would you help me if I had three million and asked for cosmetics?”
He made no reply, leaving the room with a door slam behind.
Larisa remained alone, with nothing but a profound silence filling the apartment and a swarm of thoughts spinning in her mind like buzzing bees trapped in cotton.
Andrey had evidently chosen to mount a full offensive with his mother commanding the front—an alliance protecting the aggrieved husband.
The phone buzzed with a message:
“I’m staying at Mom’s tonight. Think about what I said.”
Larisa scoffed and shook her head.
“Yeah, I’ll think… I wonder if he came up with this drama himself or had Mom assist.”
She checked her balance: three million, gleaming like a strange creature beneath a streetlamp—her fortune now under siege by greedy seagulls.
The next morning, an insistent call from Galina Petrovna interrupted her sleep: round one of the family bullfight.
She hung up quickly. Moments later, round two.
“Larisa, dear!” babbled Galina Petrovna, as sugary as candy rather than a mother-in-law. “How did you rest?”
“Fine. You?” Larisa pushed a strand of hair back, bracing for another verbal spar.
“Poor Andryusha came home distressed, tossing all night.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Larisa replied coldly, reaching for her cup.
“We talked… he’s very worried!”
“About what suddenly?”
“What about! You hide things from him! That’s unnatural!”
“Galina Petrovna, enough. I told you—no secrets. We have an adult, mutual agreement.”
“Which agreement?! A family is a single unit! Not two separate wallets!”
“We decided to save independently. It worked for us.” Larisa deliberately skipped the word “before.”
“Nonsense!” the mother-in-law erupted. “In normal families, everything is shared!”
“Then why didn’t Andrey propose that right after the wedding?” She sipped her coffee, looking out the window.
“He… well… hoped you’d understand on your own.”
“Sure, like a fairy tale: guess the prince’s desires without a word.”
“Larisa, stop with the sarcasm. Let’s meet—the three of us—and talk openly.”
“No way.”
“Why? We’re family!”
“Exactly.” She hung up.
Morning routine: shower, rushed coffee, work messages. Her mind resembled a buzzing beehive—overloaded and restless. Andrey’s messages appeared hourly—first apologies, then supplications, followed by accusations: a classic pattern from “sorry” to “it’s all your fault.”
By evening, Larisa switched off her phone. Enough was enough. If he wished to communicate, he could write by carrier pigeon.
Returning home, she paused in the kitchen, taken aback. A humble bouquet of roses sat in a vase. Nearby, Andrey shone expectantly like a spotlight in the hallway, arms open in ceremonious welcome.
“Hi, darling!” he greeted, stepping closer.
“Uh-huh. Nice flowers. How much?” Her face was expressionless, not even a flicker of a smile.
“Around fifteen hundred.”
“Fifteen hundred rubles? For blooms destined to wilt in two days?” She peeled off her jacket.
“Lara, stop penny-pinching! You need to learn to enjoy life!”
“Sure, but on my money, right? To enjoy?”
“No, ours! God! Everything belongs to both of us!”
She exploded. The facade fell, her voice sharp as a sharp-witted news anchor:
“Shared? Since when?”
“Since the wedding!”
“Interesting. When was the last time you added a ruble to the joint funds?”
“Forget it!” he waved off. “Normal families don’t tally expenses!”
“And normal families’ men don’t live off their wives! You’ve been depending on me for three years!”
“I wasn’t living off you! I was investing!”
“Investing in what? Sneakers? Twenty-thousand-ruble headphones? Restaurant takeouts while I ate buckwheat for three days straight?!”
“Sorry. Should I look like a beggar?”
“You already are! Just with lofty dreams!” She threw her hands up. “I was saving for an apartment. You were saving for looking cool!”
“Nobody forced you!”
“My dream forced me! My own apartment! Without you!”
He stepped back. This was not the Larisa he knew; the fiery eyes and trembling hands made her a stranger.
“Let’s discuss this calmly…”
“Too late. Take your flowers!” She grabbed the bouquet and tossed it into the trash. “That’s where they belong!”
“It was just a peace offering!”
“Peace offering? You think flowers can buy me off? Perhaps next time, get a ring so I’ll jump back into the ‘shared budget’!”
He said nothing.
“Better go to your mother’s. She probably understands joint budgets, care, and slipper sizes.”
“Lara…”
“Goodbye! I’m done with this drama!”
The bedroom door slammed with such force that Andrey startled. Left in the kitchen, holding a bin full of wilted roses and shattered dreams, he stood silently.
The following morning, Larisa’s suitcase, laptop, and passport lay ready. She was prepared.
“Where are you going?” Andrey blocked the doorway, looking like a child caught unprepared.
“I’m moving out.”
“You can’t just leave like this!”
“I can, and I will.”
“Because of money?!”
“No. Because of you. You aren’t who I thought you were.”
He hurried to block her exit.
“Wait! It will be different! Forget about the money!”
“How will we live? Like before? When I saved and you spent?”
“I… well…”
“Trust between us is dead, Andrey. Along with that bouquet in the trash.”
He followed her like a lost puppy.
“Lara, please don’t go. I’ll change. I won’t ask anymore…”
“You won’t. Because soon, there won’t be anyone left to ask.”
She closed the door, leaving the stairwell silent. Suitcase in hand, an emptiness inside, yet a strange sense of liberation.
Six months later.
In a developer’s office, a young manager with a neat beard and charismatic voice presented the opportunity.
“Corner unit, eighth floor, park view. Down payment—three and a half million. Shall we proceed?”
Larisa nodded.
“I will.”
Pen in hand, she signed, each stroke marking a step upwards—towards independence, towards reclaiming her own life.
Andrey called only for two months. Flowers, soft words, and reminders from his mother carried no weight. Their divorce was swift and without tears—there was little left to divide besides disappointed hopes.
Now, she lived alone in a studio apartment awaiting the keys. Free from advisors, indulgent mother-in-laws, and the burdens of a “joint budget.”
Gazing at her reflection in a shop window, she saw a woman who succeeded by choosing herself over convenience—the authenticity of autonomy over compromise that stifles.
Key Insight: True partnership respects individual goals alongside shared dreams, and self-worth flourishes when personal boundaries and agreements are honored.
Ultimately, Larisa’s journey teaches that financial independence, mutual respect, and clear agreements form the foundation of a healthy relationship, and sometimes one must choose oneself to thrive.