Letting a Husband Into Your Premarital Apartment Is Like Taking In a Stray Cat
Letting a husband into your premarital apartment is like taking in a stray cat.
At first, he modestly huddles in the hallway and gratefully eats store-bought dumplings. A couple of years later, he is confidently sleeping on your pillow and demanding that you transfer the living space into his name.
The scale of Pavel’s and his mother’s audacity reached absurdity gradually.
Galina Stepanovna inspected my two-room apartment during every visit with the air of a shrewd construction foreman accepting a poorly finished job. That Saturday was no exception. She marched around my living room like the owner, measuring it with her steps and unceremoniously moving chairs aside.
“The corner is empty. My cherrywood sideboard would go perfectly there. Everything you have looks so toy-like, so unserious,” she declared, tapping on my chest of drawers.
“Family means one common pot, Anya. And what do you have? Your apartment, while Pasha only has slippers by the door. That’s not how decent people live. A wife should follow her husband, not sit on her own square meters like some noble lady.”
Pavel, who until then had been silently clicking the television remote, suddenly found his voice. The words poured out smoothly, as if he had rehearsed them at home in front of the mirror.
“Mom has a point. We’re one unit of society. But we live like strangers in a hotel. We need to expand, put down roots.”
“Look at Seryoga. His wife sold her three-room apartment and they opened a business for her husband. That’s what trust looks like!”
I only snorted. The apartment had been bought by me five years before the registry office, without loans and without anyone’s help. I had no intention of letting someone else’s roots grow on my square meters.
“Galina Stepanovna,” I replied calmly, taking my crystal vase out of her hands, “when Pavel earns money for his own pot, we’ll definitely discuss where to put your sideboard. For now, everything here is mine, as far as I’m concerned. And Seryoga’s business, by the way, went bankrupt after six months.”
My mother-in-law twisted her face, ended her inspection, and went back to her village. But the seeds had been planted.
A week later, Pavel decided to play his trump card. We were driving back from the supermarket when, with the solemn look of a magician, he pulled a glossy country real estate catalog out of the glove compartment.
“Look at these plots!” Pavel announced with the enthusiasm of a market hawker trying to push cheap Chinese junk.
“We’ll sell your concrete box and buy a house closer to the earth. For our future children, for fresh air! We’ll finally live properly. Here’s a bathhouse, here’s a garage for two cars.”
I flipped through the pages covered with price tags full of six zeroes and casually tossed the catalog onto the back seat.
“My ‘box’ is five minutes from the metro. And your ‘fresh air’ is two hours in traffic, without kindergartens or schools. If you want a house, take out a loan in your own name, buy a plot, and build. Who’s stopping you?”
“They won’t approve a mortgage. My official salary is tiny,” my husband immediately backed down.
“Why overpay the bank when we already have an asset? Your apartment is our starting capital! We’re a team!”
“My apartment is my apartment. Starting capital is earned with your hands, not with a stamp in your passport. I’m not the sponsor of your fantasies.”
Pavel got offended. For three days, he spoke only in monosyllables, presenting himself with his whole appearance as an unrecognized genius whose hard-hearted wife had clipped his wings. Then he abruptly changed tactics.
We were standing in the hallway. I was getting ready for work when he blocked my way with an expression of universal grief on his face.
“Anya, here’s the thing. It’s hard for Mom alone in the village. Her health is failing. Let’s temporarily register her at our place. She needs it for the city clinic, so she can properly see a cardiologist.”
“A temporary registration can be done through State Services for a rented apartment,” I cut him off, fastening my bag.
“What, you’re begrudging your husband’s own mother a corner?” Pavel flared up, instantly forgetting his grief.
“It’s just a stamp on a piece of paper! It won’t cost you anything!”
“That stamp gives her the legal right to live here. And with her pressure, by the evening of the first day she’ll throw my things onto the balcony.”
“I’m not registering anyone in my property. Let her go to a private clinic. You can pay for her appointment. Period.”
I expected a grand scandal, packing of bags, and a dramatic departure into the fog, but that evening real miracles began. My husband did not start a fight. He transformed into the perfect roommate from a cheap melodrama.
I came home from work and found the faucet fixed — the one that had been dripping for the last six months. On the table was a bag of expensive groceries. Pavel was bustling around the stove with the grace of a circus bear waiting for a lump of sugar. He had even washed the dishes after himself — an event worthy of being recorded in the chronicles.
“I’m tired of fighting, Anyuta,” he said, pushing a plate toward me.
“You’re right. My mother is my problem. I’ll handle everything myself through a private clinic. The main thing is that there’s peace between you and me.”
For two days, he carried me in his arms. He took out the trash without being reminded, bought my favorite éclairs, and looked at me with devoted eyes. On the third day, when I relaxed, the trap snapped shut.
“Life is such an unpredictable thing,” he began that evening in a syrupy voice, placing a thick sheet of paper on the table.
“Who knows what might happen to me at the construction site. Or to you. Let’s draw up a simple paper with a notary. A general power of attorney for me. So that if anything happens, you or I won’t have to run around to different offices, and everything between us will be honest and transparent.”
A man who could not pay the internet bill without reminders had suddenly started speaking in legal constructions. I ran my eyes over the text.
The power of attorney gave him the right to dispose of all property, including the sale of real estate.
“Leave it. I’ll read it when I have time,” I said neutrally, pushing the paper aside.
A siren went off inside me. He was laying the groundwork far too carefully. My simple village boy turned out not to be so simple after all.
Everything finally fell into place that night. I woke up thirsty and went to the kitchen.
The hallway was dark, and a weak light from a smartphone screen was spilling out of the kitchen. Pavel stood with his back to the door, hurriedly whispering into the phone.
“I’m not pressuring her, Mom! I’m leading her to it gently. She already took the power of attorney to read.”
Galina Stepanovna’s creaky, businesslike voice came from the speaker.
“Don’t you relax over there! As soon as she signs, immediately arrange the sale and purchase deal so the money doesn’t leave the family. Then we buy the house.”
“I remember,” Pavel chuckled quietly. “We register the house in your name.”
“Correct! That’s more reliable. And your wife won’t go anywhere afterward. She’ll come running to the village like a good girl to weed the garden beds. Where else will she go with her bare backside?”
“Everything is going according to plan, Mom. She’s already ripe. Soon she’ll sign everything herself.”
I silently returned to the bedroom. Inside me, everything froze and arranged itself into a clear, cold calculation.
In the morning, I got up an hour earlier. I took his huge checkered duffel bag down from the storage shelf. I threw in his laptop, razor, pants, and those very infamous slippers.
I placed the luggage in the hallway.
Pavel came out of the bedroom in a good-natured mood. Then he saw his luggage.
“What’s this move supposed to be? Did you pack my things for charity?” he tried to joke unsuccessfully.
“The performance is over,” I said evenly. “Neither you nor your mother will be in my apartment anymore. Take your bag and go build your family nest.”
My husband’s face stretched. He portrayed the highest degree of incomprehension.
“What nonsense are you talking about?! What mother? What things? We’re a family! Are you offended because of the power of attorney? It was just a formality!”
“A family where the house is bought in Mom’s name and the wife is left with her bare backside?” I quoted the night broadcast word for word.
“And what deal were we going to conduct, exactly?”
His face instantly lost its benevolent expression. The mask fell.
“You mercenary property owner!” he shouted, stepping toward me. “Who needs you with your square meters?”
“We’re still married anyway. You owe me half! I contributed to the renovation here!”
“Article 36 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation,” I parried with icy calm. “Property belonging to each spouse before marriage is that spouse’s property.”
“And your ‘renovation’ was one shelf screwed into the bathroom. So the only thing you earned here is the right to take out your trash. Right now.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang briefly. Pavel flinched and turned around like a hunted animal.
“And here’s the locksmith,” I explained, opening the latch. “He came to change the locks. So out you go, Pasha. Your general power of attorney has been annulled.”
The handyman with a toolbox stepped into the hallway in a businesslike manner. Pavel, realizing that witnesses were of no use to him and that his grand plan had failed spectacularly, grabbed his bag.
At the end, he tried to say something threatening, but merely tripped awkwardly over the threshold and flew out onto the stairwell.
The door slammed shut. The locksmith’s drill began to screech.
And I stood there smiling. My ex-husband sincerely believed he could pluck me down into a convenient, obedient chicken. But men like that forget one golden rule: if you spend long enough stubbornly trying to break a woman’s wings, she does not fall. She simply picks up a good broom and sweeps all the trash out of her life completely.
