“You Came Here Penniless, and You’ll Leave Penniless,” Alla Snapped. Her Husband Thought She Would Tolerate His Affairs, but He Badly Miscalculated
At the age of fifty, Denis had never shouted so loudly in his life.
He paced around the kitchen, waving his arms and showing absolutely no restraint in his choice of words. From time to time, his voice rose into a shrill screech. He was scolding his wife, Alla, as though she were a schoolgirl who had misbehaved.
He reminded her that she was already forty-seven years old. That they had two grown children, Semyon and Olya. That they even had grandchildren growing up now, and she was supposed to set a good example for them.
Alla sat at the table and calmly ate her dinner. She did not even look at her husband.
That morning, Denis had said he would be home late and told her not to wait for him before eating. So she had not waited. The fact that her husband had suddenly rushed home with his face twisted in rage seemed to be of no concern to her.
When Denis finally ran out of breath and demanded an explanation for the hundredth time, Alla silently pushed her plate aside. She stood up, gave her husband an indifferent look, and said that she was no longer going to discuss or coordinate anything with anyone. She had a new life now.
She went into the living room, lay down on the sofa, and turned on the television. The dishes remained on the table.
To Denis, this was unthinkable. His perfect Alla, who had flawlessly served the entire family for twenty-eight years, had not even washed her own plate!
Blinded by fury, he stormed into the room and yanked the television cord out of the socket. At that exact moment, the heavy remote control flew straight at his face.
It struck him directly on the bridge of the nose.
Denis howled in pain and grabbed his face as blood poured out between his fingers.
Instead of rushing to her husband with apologies and a towel, Alla slowly rose from the sofa. She pushed her whimpering husband aside, picked up the remote, plugged the television back in, and hissed through clenched teeth that if he touched the television again, she would put it over his head.
Holding his broken nose, Denis ran to the bathroom.
Alla closed the door behind him and turned up the volume of the movie. She had no intention of listening to either his shouting or his groaning anymore.
The day had begun quite normally for Denis, until his mother called him.
Tatyana Lvovna was hysterical. She had just returned from a friend’s country house, where she had heard some absolutely outrageous news.
Apparently, someone had purchased a luxurious three-story mansion on a twelve-hundred-square-meter plot in that same elite gated garden community.
And that “someone” was her daughter-in-law, Alla.
Tatyana Lvovna was deeply offended. How could her son have bought a country house without inviting his own mother to see it? How could he have failed to consult her?
Denis tried to defend himself. He swore that his mother had misunderstood something and that they did not own any country house.
But his tireless mother had tracked down the chairman of the community. There could be no mistake. The new owner was Alla.
And that was not all.
The neighbors of the luxurious estate had whispered to Tatyana Lvovna that its owner was now spending entire days in the countryside because she had quit her job.
That was the real blow.
Denis felt as though the ground had disappeared beneath his feet.
Alla had worked as a chief engineer. Her salary had not merely been good—it had been enormous.
It was only thanks to that money that Denis, a modest research assistant, had been able to enjoy what he called “the good life.” Because of his wife, he replaced his car every three years, wore expensive suits, ate excellent food, and received thick envelopes of “spending money.”
Alla was also paying the mortgage on the enormous four-room apartment in central Moscow that Denis’s parents had purchased a year earlier.
Every month, Alla handed out large sums to their grown children: money for their son Semyon to visit ski resorts, money for their daughter Olya to vacation by the sea, and money for their daughter-in-law and son-in-law to buy designer clothing and send the grandchildren to private schools.
For twenty-eight years, Alla had earned money and given it away.
Denis spent his own salary exclusively on himself.
After learning from his mother that his wife had quit her job, Denis understood that his comfortable life was hanging over the edge of a cliff.
He immediately called Angela.
The girl was nineteen years old.
Denis had been seeing her for quite some time. He regularly declared his passionate love for her and showered her with gifts purchased with his wife’s money.
He hurriedly told Angela that they would not be able to meet that evening because an urgent problem had arisen at home.
A spoiled, icy voice answered him.
Angela declared that if a fifty-year-old man had something more important to do than spend time with her, she would quickly find a replacement. There were plenty of interested candidates.
Then she hung up.
Denis stood there in a cold sweat.
He understood that Angela was not bluffing. Without Alla’s money, he would no longer be able to support his young mistress.
There was no real choice between his wife and his youthful lover.
A beautiful young mistress was wonderful, of course, but it was his lawful wife who fed, clothed, and supported Denis.
He had to rush home immediately and save his main source of financial support.
During the entire journey home, he prayed that his mother had made a mistake.
What mansion? What resignation?
Could Alla really have made such important decisions without his knowledge?
But Alla not only confirmed all the rumors—she also nearly broke his nose.
Sitting in the kitchen with his swollen nose, Denis began calling his relatives.
An hour later, the apartment resembled a disturbed beehive.
Everyone had arrived.
His mother, Tatyana Lvovna, and his father, Gennady Petrovich, rushed over. Their twenty-seven-year-old son Semyon arrived with his wife, Marta, and their son, Vasya. Their twenty-six-year-old daughter Olga came running with her husband, Arthur, and their son, Charles.
They crowded into the kitchen and whispered nervously among themselves.
No one understood what had happened to their endlessly accommodating and obedient Alla.
Why had she suddenly rebelled?
Alla could hear that the apartment was full of people, but she did not even come out to greet them. She could not have cared less.
In the past, she would already have been rushing around, setting the table, and asking who wanted tea and who preferred coffee.
But that Alla—the submissive sponsor of the entire family—had died two months earlier.
Her relatives simply did not know it yet.
For those two months, she had quietly prepared her escape. She had transferred assets, wrapped up matters at work, and arranged her new home.
Finally gathering their courage, the entire delegation walked into the living room in single file.
The relatives surrounded the sofa and demanded an explanation in unison.
Alla sighed.
She turned off the television, sat up, looked around at her large family, and spoke the words that made an icy silence descend over the room.
She said that she hated all of them.
Every single one.
Tatyana Lvovna theatrically pressed her hands to her chest and gasped in outrage.
How could Alla speak that way to her own family? What had they done wrong?
Alla then calmly, without the slightest trace of hysteria, told them about something that had happened two months earlier.
She had been returning home from work and walking past an expensive restaurant with large glass windows.
Completely by chance, she noticed Denis sitting at a table.
He was not alone.
A young woman was sitting beside him, and Denis was looking at her in a way he had not looked at Alla for twenty years.
Alla entered the restaurant, quietly sat down some distance away, and understood everything.
But that was not the worst part.
She did not cause a scene in the restaurant. Instead, she hired a private investigator.
And she discovered the truth—a truth that permanently burned away every remaining trace of love in her heart.
It turned out that absolutely everyone knew about Angela.
Her mother-in-law knew.
Her father-in-law knew.
Her daughter-in-law and son-in-law knew.
And, most horrifyingly of all, both of her own children—Semyon and Olga—knew.
The entire family smiled sweetly at Alla, accepted thick bundles of money from her, and vacationed at her expense while secretly covering up Denis’s affairs behind her back.
Not one person had told her the truth.
Her mother-in-law had even encouraged her son’s affair, saying that her “boy” needed some excitement because he was tired of his domineering wife.
The children had remained silent because they were afraid that if their parents divorced, their mother would close her bottomless wallet.
That was why Alla had purchased her dream country house not just anywhere, but in the very same garden community that her mother-in-law frequently visited.
She wanted Tatyana Lvovna to be the first to see the mansion—and choke with envy.
The living room became so quiet that they could hear the wall clock ticking.
The mother-in-law was the first to recover.
Realizing how serious the situation had become, she instantly exchanged anger for kindness.
She began flattering Alla, nodding eagerly and promising that they would fix everything.
She swore that Denis would leave Angela immediately and never touch her again.
Denis himself, feeling the millions slipping away from him, nodded desperately.
He began showering his wife with apologies.
He babbled that, for the sake of preserving the family, he was prepared to give up this “youthful mistake.”
Alla gave a cold smile.
“I would never dare deprive my husband of such enormous happiness,” she said.
Realizing that they could not soften her, the family brought out their heavy artillery.
Her father-in-law reminded her about their luxurious apartment in central Moscow.
They had purchased it with a minimal down payment. They still had ten years of mortgage payments ahead of them.
If Alla stopped giving them money, the elderly couple would end up on the street.
Alla yawned and replied that even if they found themselves on the street in twenty-degree-below-zero weather, she would not care at all.
Then they pushed the children forward.
Semyon and Olga nudged little Vasya and Charles toward their grandmother, trying to appeal to her pity.
They shouted that, because of her selfishness, the grandchildren would no longer be able to attend expensive classes and would be expelled from their prestigious school.
Semyon and Olga would have to sell their luxurious cars and move to cheap residential districts on the outskirts.
“Worse things happen in life,” Alla replied indifferently. “You’ll have to find a way to live with it.”
The spouses of her children attempted to speak, but Alla roared so loudly that they pulled their heads down into their shoulders.
She ordered everyone to leave her apartment immediately.
Denis looked confused and asked what he was supposed to do.
His wife looked at him as if he were an empty space.
“This concerns you first and foremost,” she snapped. “Get out.”
Life put everything in its proper place surprisingly quickly.
It turned out that Alla owned a substantial number of shares in the company where she had worked, which she had acquired when she was still young.
The dividends were more than enough for her to live luxuriously in her elite mansion, hire a gardener, and never worry about anything.
Meanwhile, the empire of freeloaders who had depended on her collapsed like a house of cards.
Tatyana Lvovna and her husband had to sell their apartment urgently.
After paying off their debt to the bank, the money remaining from the sale of the luxury property was only enough to purchase a cramped one-room apartment on the very outskirts of the region.
Alla’s children also failed to cope with the harsh reality of life.
Without his mother’s financial support, Semyon could no longer afford his demanding wife.
Marta packed her suitcases and ran away to Sochi with another man, leaving Semyon alone with their eight-year-old son.
Arthur abandoned Olga in exactly the same way.
He disappeared in the direction of Kislovodsk with a new lover as soon as he realized that his mother-in-law’s financial support had ended forever.
The grandchildren now attended ordinary, free neighborhood schools.
And what happened to Denis?
As promised, nineteen-year-old Angela erased him from her life on the very day she realized that her “sugar daddy” no longer had money or a car.
The former “master of life” was now crammed into a tiny apartment with his elderly parents, barely surviving on his miserable government-funded salary.
Alla did not file for divorce.
Why would she?
She had purchased the city apartment before the marriage, and the company shares belonged solely to her as well. She had prudently registered the new country house in the name of her best friend.
There was absolutely nothing she would be required to divide with Denis in court.
She simply erased those people from her reality.
Now she enjoys the fresh air, takes care of herself, and watches from a distance as her former family struggles in the circumstances they deserve.
Sometimes she thinks that she could help her son and daughter find good jobs.
She could.
But only if they came to her, looked her in the eyes, and sincerely apologized for their betrayal.
However, pride and greed keep them away from the gates of her country house.
And Alla is in no hurry.
She has nowhere she needs to rush anymore.
What do you think? Was Alla right?
After all, her children were also left with nothing.
Should Semyon and Olga have told their mother about their father’s affairs, even at the risk of destroying the family, or was their silence a form of complicity that can never be forgiven?
