My Husband Promised His Relatives Gifts and Lavish Feasts, Then Handed Me the Bills. That Scheme Ended at His Mother’s Anniversary Celebration
“Natasha, urgently transfer forty thousand to my Sberbank account. I’ve run into a minor technical issue,” Misha announced from the kitchen doorway, radiating the condescending confidence of a chairman of the board.
The fifty-one-year-old “chairman’s” actual assets consisted of a developing belly, three maxed-out credit cards, and me, his lawful wife.
“Your technical issue, Misha, is with understanding cause and effect,” I replied without looking up from chopping the salad. “And that forty thousand is my advance payment, which I planned to use for utilities and groceries.”
“Natasha, don’t be so difficult. I paid for Sveta’s bathroom renovation materials. It’s Italian porcelain tile, and we couldn’t wait for delivery. Nothing is too good for family! Come on, transfer it. I need to make the minimum payment before the bank freezes my limit. I’ll get my bonus tomorrow and pay you back.”
“Misha, an advance payment isn’t just an abstract number on a screen. It’s our food money for the month,” I said calmly, carefully placing the sliced cucumbers into the salad bowl. “Your sister could have managed perfectly well without Italian tiles.”
“How can you not understand?” Misha threw up his hands in irritation. “Family isn’t about debits and credits! It’s about relationships! Sveta has dreamed of renovating for years. I’m a man. I’m supposed to help. Your narrow-minded practicality is destroying the creator and head of the family inside me!”
“You’ve certainly become an excellent creator, Misha. You’re especially talented in the fantasy genre when filling out credit applications,” I shot back.
That was my husband’s philosophy of life. For several years, Mikhail had lived as though he were running an attraction devoted to unprecedented generosity. At family celebrations, he paid for restaurants, gave his nephews expensive gadgets, and helped his sister with renovations. His relatives looked at him with reverence, believing him to be a successful businessman, even though he worked as an ordinary sales manager with a very average salary.
All that glitter he threw into people’s eyes was financed from my wallet. As an experienced accountant, I managed the family budget and paid for our real, boring life: electricity, water, meat in the refrigerator, and laundry detergent. Whenever Misha lacked the money for another credit payment taken out to fund some grand gesture, he demanded that I “lend him something until payday,” while strictly forbidding me from mentioning it in conversations with his mother.
Tamara Ivanovna visited us the following day to discuss her upcoming anniversary celebration.
“A man should be a provider and a strategist,” she proclaimed while stirring her tea with a silver spoon. “Misha knows how to turn inflation to his advantage. For my anniversary, he ordered a Japanese massage chair worth two hundred thousand. That’s a real investment in health!”
“It will become an investment when Misha pays for it with his own money,” I replied calmly, pouring myself coffee. “At the moment, I don’t see that kind of money in our budget.”
My mother-in-law pursed her lips and demonstratively turned toward the window, as though she had been served a stale cracker instead of an exquisite dessert.
“You accountants are completely lacking in imagination! All you know how to do is arrange your miserable pennies into columns. You’ll never understand the breadth of a true Russian soul!”
The anniversary approached. Misha reserved a hall at a restaurant called the Empire. The day before the celebration, he came to me wearing the mildly concerned expression that usually preceded major financial losses. He needed to pay the banquet deposit, but all his credit cards had been blocked because of overdue payments.
“Natasha, withdraw one hundred and fifty thousand from your savings account,” my husband ordered casually while adjusting his cuff links in front of the mirror. “I’ll cover the shortfall, they’ll approve a new loan, and I’ll pay everything back. Otherwise, Mom’s celebration will be ruined. She deserves this party. She devoted her life to me. Do you really begrudge money for someone close to us?”
“No, Misha. My savings account is our emergency fund. Your debts exist because of your promises. I’m not paying them anymore. Figure it out yourself.”
He was terribly offended, slammed the door, and borrowed the money somewhere else. As I later discovered, he had taken it from a microfinance company at an extortionate interest rate. But at the anniversary dinner, he sat at the head of the table, glowing with self-satisfaction and accepting endless praise.
The table was overflowing with delicacies. Svetlana, Misha’s forty-five-year-old sister, eagerly helped herself to sturgeon while making plans for the future.
“Natasha is such a practical woman,” Svetlana observed with a sigh, putting a piece of fish into her mouth. “She doesn’t understand the joy of giving. Misha takes after Dad—generous and noble. But you, Natasha, are always hunched over your spreadsheets like Koschei the Deathless guarding his gold.”
“For Koschei to have any gold to guard, someone has to earn it instead of merely handing out promises,” I replied calmly, dabbing my lips with a napkin.
“Oh, you always ruin everything with your ridiculous numbers!” my sister-in-law exclaimed. “Misha, you promised to renovate the exterior of my country house next month, didn’t you? Misha promised to hire the best crew!”
“Misha promised you that without involving me,” I said with a smile. “Discuss with him who is going to pay for it.”
Svetlana snorted, confident that her brother would arrange everything as usual, and stared resentfully at her plate.
At last, the moment of reckoning arrived. The waiter brought the bill in an elegant wooden box. With a careless gesture, Misha pulled a bank card from the inside pocket of his jacket and tapped it against the payment terminal.
The machine beeped and printed a receipt reading: Declined. Insufficient funds.
Misha gave a nervous laugh, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
“That bank security department,” he said loudly for the benefit of the guests. “They’re always blocking large transactions.”
Then he leaned toward me and hissed furiously into my ear:
“Natasha, transfer one hundred and twenty thousand quickly. Don’t humiliate me in front of my mother! I’ll repay every last kopeck on Monday!”
I pushed back my chair, made myself comfortable, and answered in a normal, calm voice without lowering it.
“I don’t have that kind of money, Misha. And even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. My charitable foundation for rescuing your image has officially closed.”
The sound of forks against plates stopped. Svetlana was the first to slowly place her napkin on the table.
“What do you mean, ‘transfer it,’ Misha?” Tamara Ivanovna said slowly, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “Are you asking your wife for money? You said your supplier contract had
been completed!”
I decided it was time to bring the performance to an end.
“Tamara Ivanovna, all of Misha’s generosity is financed by my grocery money and his exhausted credit cards,” I said clearly and deliberately. “I pay the apartment bills, buy the food, and cover his overdue payments so the banks don’t take him to court. He then uses the money he has left to buy porcelain tiles for Sveta and a massage chair for you. He has no money. He only has debts.”
“So you really did buy it on credit? I thought Natasha was exaggerating!” my mother-in-law gasped, staring at her son in confusion.
Mikhail’s cheek twitched.
“Natasha, shut up immediately!” he roared.
“Mikhail signed the contract with the restaurant,” I replied calmly, looking at his pale relatives. “I will not pay for his debts or promises.”
With those words, I rose from the table, picked up my handbag, and headed toward the exit. I did not hurry to leave the restaurant lobby while waiting for my taxi, so I witnessed the predictable conclusion.
The manager, instantly assessing the situation, approached Mikhail directly and politely but firmly asked him to resolve the payment issue. After several unsuccessful calls to his colleagues, Mikhail asked his mother and sister to help.
Tamara Ivanovna initially refused, but the manager reminded her that their entire table had already been served. In the end, she paid part of the amount with her card, and Svetlana had to cover the rest.
The relatives who had happily accepted his gifts and enjoyed the banquet were now angrily and resentfully emptying their own savings to pay for someone else’s illusion.
“I didn’t ruin your reputation, Misha,” I said quietly when he walked past me toward the exit, crimson with embarrassment. “I simply stopped paying for it.”
The moment the front door of our apartment closed behind us, Mikhail demanded to know why I had exposed our family problems in public. He raised his voice and accused me of deliberately humiliating him in front of his mother and sister.
“You humiliated yourself when you promised people things you couldn’t afford,” I replied calmly, looking at his flushed face. “And I bought this apartment before our marriage. I’m no longer willing to tolerate someone else’s debts, lies, and shouting inside it. You have one week to pack your things.”
A week later, Mikhail moved in with his mother, taking his suitcases and loan agreements with him. Now he transfers most of his salary to the banks, and before accepting any of his generous promises, his relatives ask whether he actually has the money to pay for them.
I remained in my apartment and, for the first time in many years, stopped waiting for the next request to “lend him something until payday.”
I did not destroy his image as a successful man.
I simply stopped paying for the scenery.
