“Go to Mommy, You Freeloader,” My Husband Said When I Was Seven Months Pregnant. So I Left.
“Go back to your parents, you burden. I’m sick of your whining. The baby is heavy, apparently, your back hurts, you want to eat at night. What am I to you — an ATM and a nurse rolled into one?”
Anton stood in the hallway of our rented two-room apartment, arms crossed over his chest, looking at me as if I had burst a radiator pipe. And I — seven months pregnant, in a bathrobe, with swollen feet — stood opposite him and, for the first time in a year and a half of marriage, did not cry.
I simply stayed silent.
He took my silence as “she finally gets it.”
“Pack a suitcase. I’ll call you a taxi. It’s three hours to your mother’s village — you’ll make it.”
I nodded. Went into the room. Opened the wardrobe.
And at that moment — God, I don’t know what clicked inside me. Maybe the baby kicked. Maybe I was just very tired. But I took the small suitcase — the one I had planned to pack for the maternity hospital — and put only the essentials inside. Documents. A charger. Two changes of underwear. A couple of books. My grandmother’s cross.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t shout. I didn’t beg.
Anton even looked confused.
“Why are you so… calm?”
“What should I do, throw a hysterical fit?” I asked. “So you can feel even more right?”
He muttered something and turned back toward the television.
Twenty minutes later, I closed the door behind me. I didn’t slam it — I closed it quietly. I’ve never liked noise.
My name is Anya. I’m 28. Anton is 32. We got married a year and a half ago — quickly, for love, or so it seemed. He worked as a sales manager for auto parts, and I worked remotely as an illustrator, drawing pictures for children’s books. By the way, I earned more than he did — but he never liked being reminded of that.
When I got pregnant, everything began to change. Slowly at first.
“You’re working less now?”
“Yes, the morning sickness is bad. I can’t sit at the computer for long.”
“Well, pull yourself together somehow. We have a mortgage.”
The mortgage was in his name — but we paid it together. Or rather, I paid most of it, because he was always either on vacation or “waiting for his bonus.”
By the seventh month, I was barely working at all — the doctor told me to take care of myself, my blood pressure kept jumping. Anton started getting irritated over everything. The borscht wasn’t right. I went to bed too early. I got up too late. I was “turning down orders again — are we supposed to live on my salary?”
That evening, he came home from work angry. I heated up dinner. He tasted it and said:
“What even is this?”
“Buckwheat with chicken.”
“The chicken is dry.”
“Sorry, I’m tired. This was the best I could do.”
“Can you do anything at all? You sit at home, do nothing, and whine. Go back to your parents, you burden.”
Just like that. Simple and without unnecessary words.
My parents live in a village near Ryazan. Mom is a retired teacher, Dad is a carpenter. Good, kind people. I would have gone to them — but not right away.
In the taxi, on the way to the train station, I called Sveta. I’ve known Sveta since university — she rents a one-room apartment on the outskirts of Moscow, lives alone, and works as a copywriter. I told her everything in three sentences.
“Anya, come to me. For as long as you need. Until the birth, after the birth — however long.”
I arrived at her place at eleven at night. Sveta opened the door, looked at my belly, my suitcase, my face — and simply hugged me in silence. No questions.
And do you know what I did when I stepped into her hallway?
I breathed in.
Deeply.
For the first time in a month.
Day one. I slept. I simply slept — without shouting, without doors slamming, without “Anya, get me something to drink.” Twelve hours. In the morning, Sveta fed me oatmeal and said:
“You understand that you absolutely should not go back to him, right?”
“Sveta, I’m having a baby. In two months.”
“All the more reason.”
Day two. I called my mother. I told her everything as it was. Mom was silent for a moment and then said:
“Anyechka. Dad and I will come if you need us. But if you want to stay with Sveta for now, stay there. The main thing is, don’t go back to him right now. Not while emotions are running high — absolutely not.”
In the background, Dad grumbled into the phone:
“I’ll twist his head off.”
“Dad, don’t. He’s not worth it.”
Day three. Anton started calling. First angrily: “When are you coming back? I have no food here.” I didn’t answer. Then softer: “Anya, come on, you’re being dramatic. I lost my temper.” I didn’t answer. Then a message: “I understand. I was wrong. Come back, we’ll talk.”
I looked at those messages and felt nothing. No anger, no pain, no desire to return. Empty.
Day four. I was sitting in Sveta’s kitchen, scrolling through Avito just out of boredom. Then I saw an ad: “Urgently looking for an illustrator for a children’s book. Permanent work. Remote. Moscow.”
I replied. Two hours later, they contacted me. Four hours later, I was already on a video call with the owner of a small publishing house. Her name was Marina, she was over fifty, and she published board books for toddlers. She looked through my portfolio, asked about deadlines, asked about the pregnancy. I was honest: I was due in two months, and afterward I would need a break of three or four weeks.
Marina waved it off.
“Anya, I have three children myself. Work as much as you can. The main thing is, I like your style.”
A contract. An advance payment of 35,000. A permanent agreement — five books a year.
I put down the phone and cried. For the first time in eight days. From relief.
Day five. I went to a new prenatal clinic based on Sveta’s address — her district was better than my former one. The doctor examined me and said:
“Your blood pressure is normal for the first time in a month. What did you change?”
“My habitat.”
She looked at me for a long time and said:
“Well done.”
Day six. I contacted a realtor. I had some money saved — for a stroller, a crib, all of that. About 180,000. Plus Marina’s advance. I found a small studio in the same district where Sveta lived — rent was 32,000 a month. I had enough for the deposit and the first month. I would earn the rest.
That day Anton sent twenty-three messages. I didn’t open them.
Day seven. I moved into the studio. Sveta helped. The studio was small — twenty-four square meters — but bright, clean, with a balcony. I arranged my things, bought a simple desk from Ikea, set up my laptop. I started working on Marina’s first book — about a little fox who got lost in the forest and found a new home.
A coincidence? Maybe.
Day eight. The doorbell rang.
I walked up to the door without opening it.
“Who is it?”
“Anya, it’s me. Open up.”
Anton. How he found the address became clear later: he figured it out through Sveta — or rather, through her husband, whom he had worked with once.
I opened the door. Not because I wanted to see him. Because I wanted to end it.
He stood in the hallway. Rumpled, unshaven, holding a bouquet of carnations — carnations, God, like at a funeral — and a bag from Magnit. Inside the bag were bananas and kefir.
“Anya… forgive me. I was an idiot. I didn’t understand.”
“Mhm.”
“Come home.”
“No.”
“Anya, I’m your husband. This is our child. I… I’m ready to change everything. I’ll go to a psychologist. I’ll learn to cook. I’ll do whatever you want.”
I looked at him and tried to feel at least something. Pity. Warmth. Memories. Anything.
Nothing.
You know how it is when you stare at a familiar word for too long and suddenly it turns into a strange set of letters? That was how I felt about him. A man was standing there. Tall, with a bouquet. And it was as if I were seeing him for the first time.
“Anton. I’m not coming back.”
“Anya, think about it. The child will be without a father…”
“The child will have a father if you want to see her. When she’s born, call me, come to the maternity hospital. You’ll pay child support — I’ll file legally, without scandals. Seeing the child — of course, according to a schedule. But we are over. It’s finished.”
“It’s finished after eight days?!”
I smiled. For the first time during the whole conversation.
“Anton. In eight days, I slept properly, found a job, rented an apartment, and realized that my blood pressure wasn’t jumping because of the pregnancy. I didn’t end in eight days. I began in eight days.”
He stood there silently. The carnations in his hand drooped.
“Anya…” His voice became pathetic and thin. “I… I love you.”
“And I believed you. Turns out, those are not the same thing.”
I closed the door. Quietly. I still don’t like noise.
Two months later, I gave birth to a daughter. I named her Sonya. Anton came to the maternity hospital — I allowed it. He stood there, looked at her, and cried. I stayed silent. Not out of anger — there were simply no feelings left.
Sonya is eight months old now. I work for Marina — we’ve already released three books, and I’m working on the fourth. Anton sees his daughter on Saturdays, brings gifts, tries to “come back” — flowers, tears, “let’s try again.” I smile, pour him tea, hand Sonya over — and that’s all.
We finalized the divorce a month ago. He signed without arguing.
Sometimes in the evening, when Sonya is asleep, I sit by the window with a cup of tea and think: what would have happened if I had cried that night? If I had talked him into calming down? If I had stayed?
I would have given birth under stress. I would have sat at home with a baby, afraid of his moods. I would have quietly faded away, the way I had already been fading for the last six months.
But I simply packed a suitcase and left. Quietly, without slamming doors.
You know what the funniest part is? Back then, he told me, “Go back to your parents, you burden.”
I didn’t go back to my parents.
I went into my own life.
And as it turned out, the burden had been him.
P.S. from the author: Sometimes being “thrown out of the house” is not a catastrophe. Sometimes it is the first door someone finally opens for you. The main thing is not to go back.