My mother-in-law decided her son would make me financially support her relatives. But when he started talking about money, it wasn’t with me.
“Vitya, I’ve made up my mind,” my mother-in-law announced confidently through the phone speaker. “Irina will transfer 25,000 rubles to Zoya every month and 20,000 to Grisha. He also needs another 45,000 right now for the down payment on a car. You’ll explain it to her.”
Viktor calmly placed his cup on the table and looked at me.
“I heard you, Mom. I’ll come over tomorrow.”
He ended the call.
“So what exactly are you planning to explain to me?” I asked, setting the kitchen towel aside.
“Nothing,” my husband replied with a shrug. “There will be a conversation, but not with you. I’m simply going to remove your money from their calculations. After that, they can sort everything out themselves.”
I work as a laboratory technician at a large food manufacturing plant. Every day of my life revolves around strict procedures, chemical reagents, and detecting foreign substances. Perhaps that is why I can identify lies and manipulation just as quickly as I can detect palm oil in cottage cheese from a street market.
And in Lydia Pavlovna’s maternal concern, I could clearly taste the bitter aftertaste of my salary.
Viktor and I had been married for many years, and our financial system was firmly established. We transferred previously agreed amounts into a shared budget for groceries, utilities, and major household purchases. Whatever remained from our salaries, bonuses, and side jobs belonged to each of us individually.
My money was my money.
And I had absolutely no intention of using it to finance someone else’s laziness.
My husband’s relatives were quite a colorful group.
My mother-in-law’s younger sister, sixty-seven-year-old Zoya, lived in her own two-bedroom apartment and received her pension regularly, but she firmly believed the world owed her a permanent celebration.
Her thirty-nine-year-old son, Grisha, was a completely healthy man who chronically avoided steady employment and survived on occasional temporary jobs.
We later discovered that my mother-in-law had already given her relatives financial guarantees, and they had immediately begun acting on those promises.
Zoya ordered a huge television for 58,000 rubles, with payment due upon delivery. However, she had already paid 1,500 rubles for shipping and for carrying it upstairs. If she refused the television, that money would not be refunded.
Grisha, meanwhile, had found a used Hyundai he wanted to buy on credit.
The required down payment was 60,000 rubles. He had already paid 15,000 to reserve the car, borrowing the money from an acquaintance. He expected to receive the remaining 45,000 from me immediately, along with a guarantee that I would make his monthly loan payments of 20,000 rubles.
The seller had warned him that if the entire down payment was not collected by Saturday evening, the reservation would be canceled and the car would be sold to the next buyer.
Viktor planned everything perfectly.
After learning the deadlines from his mother, he deliberately scheduled a family meeting for Saturday at noon. Zoya’s television was supposed to arrive at one o’clock, while Grisha’s deadline for paying the rest of the car deposit expired later that same day.
I did not go with my husband.
They were his relatives, and he would set the rules himself.
That evening, Viktor repeated the conversation to me almost word for word. He had an excellent memory for numbers and other people’s shamelessness.
My husband entered Lydia Pavlovna’s living room, where the relatives were already gathered in full force, eagerly waiting for their first payments.
He pulled up a chair and calmly addressed everyone.
“So, Aunt Zoya gets 25,000 rubles, Grisha gets 20,000 every month, and another 45,000 immediately. Did I miss anything?”
The relatives smiled happily. Grisha even rubbed his hands together with satisfaction.
“Excellent,” Viktor continued, looking his mother directly in the eyes. “Irina’s money will remain with Irina. Now you can decide among yourselves who is going to pay for your purchases.”
The room went completely silent.
Their smiles slid from their faces like poorly glued wallpaper.
“What do you mean?” Zoya was the first to recover her voice. “Lida, you promised Vitya would force Irina to pay! My television will be here in an hour! You pay for it now!”
“With what pension, Zoya?” my mother-in-law shrieked, pressing her hands to her chest. “I gave you my winter coat last year! And I paid for a taxi to take you to the market three times!”
At that moment, Grisha joined the argument, suddenly realizing that the car was slipping through his fingers.
“You promised Aunt Ira would give me the down payment and cover the monthly installments! Mom, Aunt Lida, split the cost between you! I’m about to lose my reservation!”
“Split the cost?” Zoya roared at her son. “You parasite! You’ve been storing your winter tires on my balcony for five years! And you eat everything in my refrigerator every Friday!”
“And who gave you 2,000 rubles when you broke your phone screen?” Lydia Pavlovna asked venomously, turning on her nephew.
Zoya spun around to face her older sister.
“Well, since we’ve started counting! Lida, you took four jars of pickles from me in November, but you only returned one, and it was empty! Where are my pickles?”
At this point, Viktor took a sip of water and admitted to me that he had barely managed to keep from laughing.
Their family generosity turned out to be like a cheap umbrella: it opened beautifully indoors in front of a mirror, but the moment the first drops of real rain appeared, it immediately turned inside out.
The argument was interrupted by a phone call.
The delivery driver informed Zoya that he had arrived with the television and was waiting for payment.
Zoya began rushing around the room, demanding money from her sister, but Lydia Pavlovna merely waved her away.
In the end, Zoya had to cancel the order while listening to the courier’s irritated complaints and realizing that the 1,500 rubles she had paid for delivery were gone.
Then Grisha’s phone rang.
His time had run out, and the seller was demanding the rest of the deposit.
Neither his mother nor his aunt gave him a single ruble.
After a short conversation, Grisha informed the family gloomily that the seller was canceling the reservation, keeping the 15,000 rubles, and selling the car to someone else.
Viktor rose from his chair.
“Adults pay for their own purchases,” my husband said firmly, his voice cutting through the noise. “Do not include Irina’s salary in your plans again. The cash register is closed. I’ll close the door myself.”
I sat in our kitchen laughing sincerely at how quickly their great family unity had collapsed into old tires and empty pickle jars the moment access to my wallet was cut off.
However, Lydia Pavlovna was not used to surrendering so easily.
The next day, she decided to bypass her son and call me directly.
“Irochka, Vitya misunderstood everything,” she cooed into the phone in a velvety voice. “We were only talking about a little help for the family.”
I did not argue or try to justify myself.
“I understood everything perfectly, Lydia Pavlovna,” I replied in an even, icy tone. “The monthly amount for Zoya is zero. For Grisha, also zero. That is the final estimate. Your project failed laboratory inspection because the concentration of other people’s shamelessness was far too high.”
I ended the call.
The consequences of the failed plan ricocheted through the family.
Zoya remained without a new television and lost the delivery fee.
Grisha missed out on the car and then spent a long time repaying the acquaintance who had lent him the 15,000 rubles for the reservation.
And Lydia Pavlovna lost her prestigious role as the family benefactor.
For several weeks, they did not speak to one another at all.
Then they began calling Viktor one by one to complain about each other, but my husband refused to act as the family arbitrator.
At the first attempt, he answered briefly:
“Mom, this subject is closed. I’m hanging up.”
Absolutely nothing changed in my life with Viktor, except that every attempt to distribute my income ended once and for all.
And that was how the family charity fund named after my salary officially shut down.
The television went back to the store, the Hyundai went to another buyer, and the only remaining asset was an empty pickle jar.
