My husband Mark and I have been married for several years. For lack of our own place, we rented an apartment.
My spouse has always had high demands, so I have always tried to jump over my head to be the best for the man I love. Mark believes that the spouse is obligated to feed her husband well, no matter what. I always prepared a variety of dishes for work, and at home the first, second and dessert were obligatory for him.
If I suddenly felt unwell and cooked less, Mark would say that I was a lazy person who didn’t love her husband. Lights out, water outages, or my illness were not excuses: I had to feed Mark delicious food under any circumstances. My husband flatly refused to buy food.
In general, I tried my best to live up to the ideal of a wife that both Mark and his mother had instilled in me. I suspect that it was my mother-in-law who told my son what a wife should be like. Of course, my duties were not limited to cooking. I cleaned up after my husband every crumb and every wrapper, diligently scrubbing our place daily.
And then Mark came home from work recently, showed me the keys and said they were for our apartment. This news came as a complete surprise to me, because we had never talked about the impending purchase.
– Well, it’s time for us to move in,” my husband said happily.
– Where did you get it? It’s so expensive!
– I saved some of the money, and my mother gave me some. So that’s it.
– And how did you arrange it without me? – I wondered.
– Well… – my husband was embarrassed. – The thing is, we decided to register it in my mom’s name.
– My mom? What does she have to do with our apartment?
– Why not? What’s the big deal? You know, a lot of people get divorced these days. I don’t understand your indignation: Mom won’t live with us anyway, it’s just ours. Now you can think about the baby.
– You know I don’t want to. Nobody asked me. When I give birth to a man, I have to make sure that I will not be kicked out on the street and I will not be left without a roof over my head.
A whole scandal ensued. Mark yelled at me, accusing me of only wanting the apartment and not him. But I try to be good for him in everything. Don’t I deserve a share in the family nest? I’m a legitimate spouse, after all, and I didn’t come up with all this on my own. My husband and I discussed that we should take the apartment and make it out to two people. Feeding me promises, Mark silently collected money. It is not normal for me to plan a child, leaving the mother out of the picture, so to speak. I have every right to housing, but what does my mother-in-law?
We never came to an agreement, so we filed for divorce. Yes, it hurts and it hurts. But if I give someone my whole self, trust and care in any state, I can count on giving back. There is absolutely no gratitude or understanding. Maybe someday Mark will realize that this is not the right thing to do.
