My husband announced in front of our guests that he was the one supporting the family. I asked him to name three things he had bought for the house, and after his answer, the whole table fell silent.
“I’m the one feeding this family, and you waste your salary on nonsense,” Slava said, leaning back in his chair.
We were at Dimka and Olya’s place, a Saturday, grilling kebabs at their dacha. Four adults, the kids bouncing on the trampoline. A perfectly normal evening. It had been normal—until that sentence.
I’d been hearing that for twelve years. Not every day, no. Once a month, once every couple of months. But regularly. Like utility bills, which, incidentally, I also pay.
“Slav,” Dimka laughed, “that’s harsh.”
“What? It’s true. I make ninety-five. She makes eighty-two. I carry the mortgage, I maintain the car. And her? Clothes, little creams, manicures.”
Olya looked at me. I knew that look—Are you going to stay quiet or not? I set my wine glass down on the table. Took off my glasses. Placed them beside it.
“Slava,” I said calmly, “name three things you bought for the house in the last month.”
He looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
“Groceries. Household supplies. Clothes for Yulia. Anything. Three things.”
Silence. Dimka stopped chewing. Olya hid a smile behind her napkin.
Slava crossed his arms over his chest. His favorite pose.
“I pay the mortgage,” he said. “Thirty-two thousand every month. And gas. And insurance.”
“That’s two things. And both are for you too. The mortgage is for our apartment. The gas is for your car, the one you drive to work. I take the metro.”
“So what?”
“The point is that groceries for a family of three are twenty-eight thousand a month. Utilities are seven. Yulia’s school plus swimming lessons are twelve. Clothes for the child average five. Household supplies are three and a half. I can keep going.”
Slava stared at me as if I’d suddenly started speaking another language.
“And all of that,” I finished, “comes out of my salary. Out of the eighty-two that I supposedly ‘waste on nonsense.’”
Dimka cleared his throat.
“Slav, looks like that’s checkmate,” he said.
Slava turned crimson.
We drove home in silence. Yulia was asleep in the back seat. I looked out the window and thought about numbers. I’m an accountant, after all. Numbers are my language. And I knew those numbers better than my own birthday.
Out of my eighty-two thousand, I had maybe twenty thousand left for myself. Of that, ten went to lunches at work and transportation. Which meant: ten thousand rubles a month for “clothes, little creams, and manicures.” And I was apparently supposed to feel guilty about that.
Out of his ninety-five—thirty-two for the mortgage, another eight for gas and insurance. The remainder: fifty-five thousand rubles. Every month. For himself. I knew exactly where it went. Headphones for twenty-seven thousand—the box was still sitting on the shelf in the hallway. Sneakers for nineteen—“well, that’s an investment in my health.” Streaming subscriptions, an online movie service, some poker club—four thousand a month in total. Lunches at the café near his office—not food packed from home, no. A business lunch for four hundred fifty rubles, every weekday.
Twelve years.
When we got home and put Yulia to bed, I sat down at the kitchen table. Slava poured himself some tea and sat across from me.
“You humiliated me in front of Dimka,” he said.
“I stated the numbers.”
“You did it on purpose. In front of people.”
“And you said in front of people that I waste money on nonsense. So we’re even.”
He hit the table with his spoon. Not hard. But the sound was sharp.
“I work. I come home. I’m tired. And I’m not supposed to know how much a pack of buckwheat costs!”
I stood up. Walked to the refrigerator. Opened it.
“Look,” I said. “All of this is bought with my money. Every day. Milk—seventy-nine rubles. Chicken breast—three hundred forty. Butter—two hundred ten. Tomatoes—two hundred eighty per kilo.”
He stared into the refrigerator as if it were an abyss.
“So what are you suggesting?”
I closed the door.
“An experiment. For one month, we live on your salary. Everything—groceries, utilities, school, activities, gas, mortgage. Everything comes out of your ninety-five. My eighty-two stays in a separate account. We don’t touch it.”
Slava snorted.
“Easy.”
He even smiled. Confidently. The way he smiled when he bet on Spartak and was absolutely sure of the outcome. Spartak, incidentally, lost every other time.
“Easy,” he repeated. “Starting on the first?”
“On the first.”
We shook hands. Like business partners. Not like husband and wife.
I put my glasses back in their case, turned off the kitchen light, and went to the bedroom. Numbers buzzed in my head—the familiar background noise of my life.
The first of the month. Slava got his salary. Ninety-five thousand four hundred twelve rubles—after income tax.
Mortgage—thirty-two thousand. Deducted automatically. Sixty-three left.
Gas—he filled the tank. Five thousand eight hundred. Fifty-seven left. Car insurance—four thousand two hundred, monthly payment. Fifty-three left.
He went to the store. For the first time in, probably, a year and a half. I didn’t go with him. I said, “You’re the breadwinner. You can handle it.”
He came back an hour later. With three bags. I looked at the receipt. Seven thousand four hundred. For three days. He had bought steaks, avocados, shrimp, blue cheese, and a bottle of wine.
“That’s for three days,” I said.
“So?”
“If you shop like this, groceries will cost seventy thousand a month.”
“Well, I’m not going to buy steaks every day.”
“Fine. We’ll see.”
By the fourth day, the steaks were gone. The avocados had turned black—he didn’t know you had to eat them within the first two days. He boiled the shrimp without salt, and Yulia refused to eat them.
He went to the store again. This time he bought sausages, pasta, bread, and ketchup. Receipt: one thousand two hundred. Yulia looked at dinner and said:
“Dad, are we going to have real food?”
I sat at the table, eating the same sausages. Silently.
On the fifth day, Slava paid the utility bill. Seven thousand three hundred. Balance left on the card—thirty-eight thousand. Twenty-five days until payday.
On the sixth day, Yulia’s teacher called.
“Vyacheslav Andreevich, the payment for after-school care is two days overdue… To be continued just below in the first comment.”
“I’m the one feeding the family, and you blow your salary on nonsense,” Slava said, leaning back in his chair.
We were at Dimka and Olya’s place, a Saturday, grilling shashlik at their dacha. Four adults, the kids on the trampoline. A normal evening. It had been normal—until that line.
I’d been hearing this for twelve years. Not every day, no. Once a month, once every two months. But regularly. Like utility bills, which, by the way, I also paid.
“Slav,” Dimka laughed, “that’s harsh.”
“What? It’s true. I make ninety-five. She makes eighty-two. I’m the one paying the mortgage and maintaining the car. And her? Clothes, creams, manicures.”
Olya looked at me. I knew that look—are you going to stay quiet or not? I set my wine glass down on the table. Took off my glasses. Placed them beside it.
“Slava,” I said calmly, “name three things you bought for the house in the last month.”
He looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
“Groceries. Household supplies. Clothes for Yulia. Anything. Three things.”
Silence. Dimka stopped chewing. Olya hid a smile behind her napkin.
Slava crossed his arms over his chest. His favorite pose.
“I pay the mortgage,” he said. “Thirty-two thousand every month. And gas. And insurance.”
“That’s two things. And both are for you, too. The mortgage is for our apartment. The gas is for your car, the one you drive to work. I take the metro.”
“So what?”
“The point is, groceries for a family of three are twenty-eight thousand a month. Utilities are seven. Yulia’s school and swimming lessons are twelve. Clothes for the child average five. Household supplies are three and a half. I can keep going.”
Slava looked at me like I’d started speaking another language.
“And all of that comes out of my salary,” I finished. “The same eighty-two thousand that I supposedly ‘blow on nonsense.’”
Dimka cleared his throat.
“Slav, looks like checkmate,” he said.
Slava turned crimson.
We drove home in silence. Yulia was asleep in the back seat. I looked out the window and thought about numbers. I’m an accountant. Numbers are my language. And I knew these numbers better than my own birthday.
Out of my eighty-two thousand, I had about twenty left for myself. Out of that, ten went to lunches at work and transportation. Which left ten thousand rubles a month for the “clothes, creams, and manicures” I was apparently supposed to feel guilty about.
Out of his ninety-five, thirty-two went to the mortgage, another eight to gas and insurance. That left fifty-five thousand rubles. Every month. For himself.
I knew where it went. Headphones for twenty-seven thousand—the box was still sitting on the shelf in the hallway. Sneakers for nineteen—“it’s an investment in health.” Streaming subscriptions, an online movie service, some poker club—four thousand a month in total. Lunches at the café near the office—not a container from home, no. A business lunch for four hundred fifty rubles every weekday.
Twelve years.
When we got home and put Yulia to bed, I sat down at the kitchen table. Slava poured himself some tea and sat across from me.
“You humiliated me in front of Dimka,” he said.
“I stated the numbers.”
“You did it on purpose. In front of people.”
“And you said in front of people that I spend money on nonsense. So now we’re even.”
He banged his spoon on the table. Not hard. But the sound was sharp.
“I work. I come home. I’m tired. I’m not obligated to know how much a pack of buckwheat costs!”
I stood up. Walked to the fridge. Opened it.
“Look,” I said. “All of this—my money. Every day. Milk—seventy-nine rubles. Chicken breast—three hundred forty. Butter—two hundred ten. Tomatoes—two hundred eighty a kilo.”
He stared into the fridge like it was an abyss.
“So what are you suggesting?”
I closed the door.
“An experiment. For one month, we live on your salary. Everything—groceries, utilities, school, swimming lessons, gas, mortgage. Everything comes out of your ninety-five. My eighty-two goes into a separate account. We don’t touch it.”
Slava snorted.
“Easy.”
He even smiled. Smugly. That was the same smile he wore when he bet on Spartak and was absolutely sure of the result. Spartak, by the way, lost every other time.
“Easy,” he repeated. “Starting on the first?”
“On the first.”
We shook hands. Like business partners. Not like husband and wife.
I put my glasses back in their case, turned off the kitchen light, and went to the bedroom. My head hummed with numbers—the familiar background noise of my life.
The first of the month. Slava got paid. Ninety-five thousand four hundred twelve rubles—after income tax.
Mortgage—thirty-two thousand. Deducted automatically. Sixty-three left.
Gas—he filled the tank. Five thousand eight hundred. Fifty-seven left. Car insurance—four thousand two hundred, the monthly payment. Fifty-three left.
He went to the store. For the first time in, probably, a year and a half. I didn’t go with him. I said, “You’re the provider. You’ll manage.”
He came back an hour later. With three bags. I looked at the receipt. Seven thousand four hundred. For three days. He’d bought steaks, avocados, shrimp, blue cheese, and a bottle of wine.
“That’s for three days,” I said.
“So?”
“If you shop like that, you’ll spend seventy thousand a month on groceries.”
“Well, I’m not going to buy steaks every day.”
“All right. We’ll see.”
By the fourth day, the steaks were gone. The avocados had turned black—he didn’t know you had to eat them in the first two days. He boiled the shrimp without salt, and Yulia refused to eat them.
He went to the store again. This time he bought sausages, pasta, bread, and ketchup. Total: twelve hundred. Yulia looked at dinner and said,
“Dad, are we going to have normal food?”
I sat at the table and ate the same sausages. In silence.
On the fifth day, Slava paid the utilities. Seven thousand three hundred. Balance on the card: thirty-eight thousand. Twenty-five days until payday.
On the sixth day, Yulia’s teacher called.
“Vyacheslav Andreevich, the after-school payment is two days overdue.”
Four thousand. Balance: thirty-four.
On the seventh day, out of habit, Slava stopped by the café for lunch. Business lunch. Four hundred fifty rubles. That evening, I saw him staring at his card balance.
“Rita,” he said, “how much are the swimming lessons?”
“Eight thousand. Payment’s due on the fifteenth.”
He didn’t say anything. But the sneakers he’d picked out online on sale—he closed that page and put his phone away.
Second week. Balance: twenty-six thousand. Eighteen days until payday.
Slava stopped going out for lunch. Started taking a container. But he cooked for himself—pasta with sausages, cheese sandwiches. The same thing every day.
On the ninth day, Yulia whispered to me:
“Mom, are we out of money?”
“We have money,” I answered. “Dad is just learning how to count.”
On the tenth day, I found out from Marinka—her husband works with mine—that Slava had borrowed five thousand from a coworker. “Until payday.”
I didn’t say anything to him. I just wrote it into the spreadsheet. Day ten. Minus five thousand. Borrowed.
On the eleventh day, the bill for the swimming lessons came. Eight thousand. Slava looked at the balance. Then at me.
“Maybe she can skip a month?” he said.
“The lessons?” I asked.
“Yeah. Just one month. Nothing will happen.”
I took out my phone. Opened my notes. Showed him.
“Coffee from the vending machine at work. Three times a day at one hundred twenty rubles. Over ten workdays, that’s three thousand six hundred. Business lunches for the first six days—two thousand seven hundred. That’s six thousand three hundred spent on your own pleasures in half a month. And the child’s lessons are eight. And you’re proposing to cut the child.”
He stood in the middle of the kitchen holding a mug of cold tea.
“You’re keeping track?” he asked.
“I’m an accountant, Slav. I always keep track.”
He set the mug down in the sink sharply. Tea splashed the wall.
“That’s not fair,” he said. “You’re controlling me.”
“No. I’m doing what I’ve been doing for twelve years. The only difference is that before, you didn’t notice because I was the one in control. Quietly.”
He went into the living room. Turned on the TV. Loud.
I paid for the swimming lessons with my own card. Subtracted it from the spreadsheet. Marked it: Slava couldn’t handle it. Day eleven.
Day fourteen. Sunday. His parents—Nikolai Sergeyevich and Tamara Ivanovna—came over for lunch.
Slava cooked lunch. Because of the experiment. He boiled potatoes and fried meat patties from ground meat. It was the cheapest ground meat—on sale. The patties fell apart.
Tamara Ivanovna looked at her plate.
“Slavik, so what—Rita doesn’t cook anymore?”
“Rita’s resting,” Slava said through clenched teeth.
“What do you mean?”
He stayed silent.
Tamara Ivanovna turned to me.
“Rita, what’s going on? Why is my son cooking?”
“We’re conducting an experiment,” I replied. “Living for a month on Slava’s salary. After all, he tells everyone he’s the one feeding the family.”
Tamara Ivanovna frowned.
“So what? Slavik earns good money. Ninety-five thousand.”
“That’s right. Minus the mortgage—thirty-two. Minus the car—ten. Minus utilities—seven. That leaves forty-six. For food, the child, household needs. Everything. For a month.”
“Well, that should be enough,” Tamara Ivanovna said.
“It’s not enough,” Slava replied.
Everyone turned to him.
“It’s not enough,” he repeated more quietly. “I borrowed five grand from Seryoga at work.”
Nikolai Sergeyevich set down his fork.
“You borrowed money?” he asked.
“I didn’t know there were so many things to pay for. After-school care, swimming, groceries every three days, Yulia tore her tights—and it turns out tights cost six hundred rubles. Six hundred! For tights!”
He was speaking faster and faster. Then he looked at me.
“But you set this up on purpose. You knew it wouldn’t be enough. You came up with this just to spite me!”
I took off my glasses. Placed them on the table. Took out my phone.
“Not to spite you,” I said. “For clarity.”
And I opened the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet. The one I had kept for twelve years.
“Year 2014,” I began. “First year of marriage. My salary—forty-one thousand. Of that, thirty-four went to shared expenses. Year 2015—Yulia was born. My salary—zero, I was on maternity leave. At that point, yes, you supported everything. And back then you walked around with a face like I was robbing you.”
Tamara Ivanovna opened her mouth.
“2017,” I continued. “I came back from maternity leave. Salary—fifty-two. Of that, forty went to the family. By then you were earning seventy-five and spending on the family—the mortgage and gas. Everything else went to yourself.”
“Rita,” Slava stood up.
“2020. Covid. You were switched to working from home, and your salary was cut. I worked full-time in the office. Plus Yulia’s online school—also me. Groceries—me. Medicine when you were sick—me. Masks and sanitizer—me. Tests—me.”
“Rita, enough!”
“2023. You got a raise. Ninety-five thousand. Do you know what you did first? Bought headphones for twenty-seven thousand. The box is still sitting on the shelf. And that same month, I had to borrow three thousand from my mother for Yulia’s winter jacket because I didn’t have enough.”
Silence. Nikolai Sergeyevich looked at his son. Tamara Ivanovna looked down at her plate. Slava stood there with his arms crossed. But it was a different pose now. Not I’m right. More like I don’t know where to put myself.
“In twelve years,” I said, “roughly speaking, about five million rubles from my salary went to the family. Groceries, utilities, the child, household needs. From yours—mortgage and the car. That’s money too. But it’s not ‘you feed the family while I waste money on nonsense.’ The truth is—we both work. The difference is, you spend what’s left on yourself, and I spend it on us.”
I put away my phone. Put my glasses back on.
Yulia was standing in the kitchen doorway. I hadn’t noticed when she came in. She looked at her father. Then at me. Then went back to her room.
Nikolai Sergeyevich stood up. Walked over to Slava.
“You,” he said quietly, “apologize to your wife. Right now.”
Slava looked at his father. At his mother. At me.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. And walked out of the kitchen.
Tamara Ivanovna gathered the plates. Silently. For the first time in twelve years—silently.
I sat alone at the table. My fingers were trembling, but not from fear. From something else. Probably from the fact that, for the first time, I had said out loud the numbers I had carried in my head for years.
The apartment was quiet. Yulia in her room. Slava on the balcony. His parents in the hallway, getting dressed.
From the hallway I heard Tamara Ivanovna’s voice—quiet, cracked:
“Slavik, I’m ashamed of you.”
I heard the front door lock click. His parents left.
It was quiet on the balcony. Slava didn’t come back in. I got up and poured myself some tea. My hands were no longer shaking.
A month passed. Now Slava transfers a fixed amount to the joint account—thirty thousand on top of the mortgage. Every time he writes in the message: Transferred it. Happy now?
My mother-in-law calls less often. But when she does, she speaks to me as if I took something important away from her son.
Slava no longer says in front of friends that he “feeds the family.” But at home, when we argue, he always throws in: “You put me on display in front of my parents. Like some client in your accounting office.”
And I think—how else? I used words for twelve years. He never heard them. He only heard the numbers. Because you can’t argue with numbers. But in front of his parents—that part maybe I shouldn’t have done. Maybe it should have been private. Without Tamara Ivanovna. Without Yulia in the doorway.
Or maybe it was right. Because in private he would’ve just said, “All right, all right, enough,” and forgotten about it a week later. What do you think? Should I have pulled out the spreadsheet in front of his parents? Or could I have handled it without making it public?
