Her Husband Left Her for Another Woman, and for the First Time, His Ex-Wife Allowed Herself to Live Lavishly in Her New Apartment
Galina Petrovna stood in the middle of the room where she had lived for almost thirty years, staring blankly at the suitcase by the door. Viktor methodically packed his belongings—shirts, trousers, sweaters. All the things she had washed, ironed, and carefully arranged on the shelves for years.
“Thirty years, Vitya. Thirty years down the drain,” she said quietly, not expecting an answer.
Viktor froze for a moment, then continued packing as though he had not heard her.
“Galya, let’s not make a drama out of this. I’ve made my decision. Raisa is a woman my age. She understands that life can be different. You and I have always just… existed.”
Galina gave a bitter smile.
“I see. And thirty-eight years of marriage were just a warm-up before your real life began?”
Viktor finally turned toward her, and something resembling regret flickered in his eyes.
“The apartment is yours. It’s new and comfortable. What else do you need at your age? You’ll be able to live peacefully.”
“Peacefully?” Galina felt something breaking inside her. “Do you really think that all I ever dreamed of was a peaceful life?”
When the door closed behind Viktor, Galina slowly lowered herself onto the sofa.
She was fifty-eight years old. She had no children and no grandchildren. There was only the apartment they had bought a year earlier after selling their old Khrushchev-era flat and their country house.
An apartment in which she was now completely alone.
For the first few weeks after the divorce, Galina lived on autopilot.
She left the apartment only to buy groceries, cooked simple meals that would last for a single day, and saved electricity by turning off the lights whenever she left a room. Those habits had become deeply ingrained after decades of married life.
“Galochka, you should be happy that you got the apartment!” her younger sister, Lyudmila, said during one of their rare phone calls. “Now Vitya will have to buy himself a new place.”
“Happy about what? That he found someone else while I was left alone?” Galina replied bitterly.
“Oh, come on! You have your own life now. You can do whatever you want!”
Whatever you want.
Those words echoed through the empty apartment. Galina could not remember the last time she had done something simply because she wanted to. There had always been responsibilities, work, the household, and her husband.
One morning, the doorbell rang.
Viktor stood on the doorstep. He looked thinner, but there was a new gleam in his eyes.
“I forgot some documents and my father’s watch,” he said as he walked past her into the apartment. “I see nothing has changed.”
He looked around at the bare walls and minimalist furniture they had bought when they moved in.
“Why should I change anything?” Galina shrugged. “I’m fine as I am.”
“Of course,” Viktor said with a barely noticeable, condescending smile. “You were always satisfied with very little. You know, sometimes I used to think…”
“What did you think, Vitya?” Galina suddenly asked.
For some reason, it had become important for her to hear his answer.
“That you’re afraid to live, Galya. You always have been. You saved everything for a rainy day, endured everything, and postponed everything until later, until the future. But when exactly is that future supposed to arrive?”
He fastened the bag containing his documents.
“I have to go. Raisa is waiting for me.”
After he left, his words would not leave Galina alone.
Afraid to live? Her?
The woman who had carried the family on her shoulders for thirty years while Viktor moved from one job to another in search of his “true calling”? The woman who had saved every last kopeck so that they would have enough money in their old age?
“Afraid to live,” she repeated aloud as she stood in front of the mirror.
A tired woman with dull eyes and tightly pressed lips stared back at her.
Once, she had dreams.
Once, she had wanted a bright, exciting life.
The ringing telephone broke the silence of the apartment.
It was Nina, a friend from her school days. They had not seen each other in several years. First, Nina had gone abroad for work, and after she returned, they had communicated only by telephone.
“Listen, I’m coming to your city for the weekend. Shall we meet?” Nina’s voice sounded energetic and youthful.
“I don’t know…” Galina hesitated. “Something happened here…”
“I already know. Lyudmila told me. That’s even more reason for us to meet! I’ll come straight to your place from the railway station. Send me your address.”
Nina burst into Galina’s apartment like a hurricane—bright, noisy, dressed in an orange coat, with red hair that was obviously dyed.
“My God, Galka, your apartment is sterile! It looks like an operating room!” She hugged her friend. “No, this won’t do. We’re going out right now.”
“Where?” Galina asked, confused.
“To a beauty salon! And then shopping. Don’t argue with me! I spent three hours on a train just to shake you out of this mood.”
At the salon, Galina initially felt uncomfortable. The young receptionist offered them tea, coffee, or champagne.
“Champagne, definitely!” Nina exclaimed. “We’re celebrating the beginning of a new life!”
“What new life?” Galina whispered. “I’m fifty-eight. What kind of new life could I possibly have?”
“Are you planning to die?” Nina asked. “My mother is seventy, and she recently started dancing! Meanwhile, you’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself.”
Nina winked at her.
“Come on, choose a new haircut. And a new hair color. And a manicure. It’s my treat.”
“No, I can’t…” Galina protested.
“Why not?” There was a challenge in Nina’s eyes. “Are you afraid?”
That word again.
Afraid.
She had been afraid all her life.
“All right,” Galina suddenly said with determination. “Do whatever you want with me.”
Two hours later, a different woman emerged from the salon.
She had a new, light haircut, softly chestnut-tinted hair, and a neat manicure.
“You’re beautiful!” Nina exclaimed admiringly. “Now we’re going shopping. You need new clothes and a few things for your apartment.”
“I already have everything,” Galina began out of habit, but stopped when she caught her friend’s expression. “All right. Maybe a few little things…”
They returned to the apartment loaded with bags. Two new blouses, a skirt, and a pair of shoes—Galina could hardly believe that she had allowed herself to buy so many things at once.
“Now let’s hang these paintings,” Nina said, taking two bright abstract canvases out of a bag. “And we’ll put out these vases and add cushions to the sofa. A home should feel alive!”
After Nina left, Galina could not fall asleep for a long time.
She walked around the apartment, looking at everything. It felt so unfamiliar.
“Could it really be true that I never even started living?” she asked her reflection in the mirror.
The woman looking back at her still appeared tired.
The following day, Galina finally decided to open the savings account she had kept hidden from Viktor for many years.
There was a substantial amount of money in it—everything she had put aside from every paycheck “for a rainy day.”
“What if the rainy day has already come and gone?” Galina murmured.
She laughed aloud.
It was the first time she had laughed in months.
That same day, Galina went to a furniture store. She spent a long time walking between rows of sofas, armchairs, and tables, running her fingers over the different textures.
“May I help you?” a young sales assistant asked.
“Yes,” Galina replied decisively. “I need a new sofa. Something bright. And perhaps an armchair. And a floor lamp.”
When Galina gave her address for the delivery, the assistant smiled.
“Oh, that’s a new building. A lot of people there are renovating their apartments now. Did you move in recently too?”
“Yes.” Galina paused for a moment. “You could say that. I recently began a new life.”
“That’s wonderful!” the young woman said sincerely. “You know, we have an excellent interior designer. She works with people of your…”
She hesitated.
“With people who have a wealth of life experience. Perhaps you would like to consult with her?”
Two months later, the apartment was unrecognizable.
There was a bright turquoise sofa covered with colorful cushions, a comfortable rocking chair, beautiful lamps, paintings, and decorative ornaments.
“Galochka, have you lost your mind?” Lyudmila exclaimed when she visited for the first time after the renovation. “You spent so much money! What about…”
“What about what?” Galina asked calmly as she poured tea into her new porcelain tea set.
“Well… old age. Medicine…”
“Lyuda, I’m fifty-eight. I’m not going to spend the next thirty years preparing for the inevitable,” Galina said, handing her a cup. “Try the cookies. I enrolled in a pastry-making course.”
“A course?” Lyudmila’s eyes widened. “What kind of course?”
“A pastry course. I also go to yoga now. Can you imagine? And dancing. It’s a class for people of ‘elegant age.’”
She laughed.
“There are some remarkable women there. One of them is seventy-two, and she could put many young women to shame!”
Lyudmila shook her head in disbelief.
“But where is all this money coming from? Surely you haven’t spent everything you saved…”
“No, not everything,” Galina replied seriously. “I’m a sensible person, Lyuda. I still have a financial safety net. But I realized something—you can’t postpone your whole life until later. Later might never come.”
After her sister left, Galina sat in her favorite rocking chair beside the window.
During the past few months, her life had changed beyond recognition.
She had made new acquaintances, mostly women her own age. Many of them had also experienced divorce or the loss of a husband. They went to exhibitions and theaters together and took turns hosting friendly gatherings in their homes.
“Galina Petrovna, you look absolutely radiant today!” her neighbor exclaimed when she met her near the elevator.
“Thank you, Tamara Sergeyevna,” Galina said with a smile. “I’m coming back from a painting workshop. Can you imagine? At my age, I finally picked up a paintbrush!”
“And rightly so,” the neighbor said with a nod. “I keep thinking about trying something new, but I never manage to begin.”
“Come and join us! We have an entire group. There’s even one lady who is eighty-four, and you should see how beautifully she paints!”
Galina took out her phone.
“Look, this is my latest work.”
Tamara Sergeyevna examined the landscape on the smartphone screen with interest.
“You’re doing wonderfully, Galochka. I’m just afraid to start something new.”
“Afraid?” Galina looked at her neighbor with understanding. “You know, I was afraid my entire life. Now I understand that there was no reason to be.”
The most frightening thing was to live your entire life without ever trying what you had dreamed of doing.
That evening, Galina looked through the photographs in her album.
Over the previous six months, she had taken more photographs than she had during the five years before that.
Here she was with her new friends during a tour of an old country estate. In another photograph, she was attending a cooking class, covered in flour and standing beside a sheet of rolled-out dough. In the next picture, she was at a dance evening, wearing a beautiful dress she would never previously have dared to put on.
The doorbell caught her by surprise.
Viktor stood on the doorstep. He looked thinner, and exhaustion was written across his face.
“Vitya?” Galina asked in surprise. “Has something happened?”
“No, not really…” He hesitated. “May I come in?”
Galina stepped aside and allowed her former husband into the apartment.
Viktor stopped dead as he looked around the transformed space.
“Goodness,” he breathed. “What have you…”
“I renovated the apartment and bought new furniture,” Galina replied calmly as she walked into the living room. “Would you like some tea?”
Viktor lowered himself onto the turquoise sofa, still staring around the room.
“Where did you get… I mean, I wanted to ask…”
“The money?” Galina smiled as she took cups out of the cupboard. “It was always there, Vitya. I used to save it and economize. I was saving for the future, for old age, for a rainy day. Then I realized that we only have one life, and it is happening right now.”
Viktor looked confused.
“I heard that you had changed. I didn’t believe it. I thought…”
“You thought I would sit here crying while you enjoyed your life?”
Galina placed a cup of fragrant tea in front of him.
“Try this. I made it myself. I learned to bake during my course.”
“A course?” Viktor choked on his tea. “You’re attending courses?”
Galina sat opposite him and crossed one leg over the other.
“Why does that surprise you so much? Did you think I wouldn’t be capable of living a full life without you?”
There was no anger in her voice, only gentle irony.
Viktor lowered his eyes in embarrassment.
“No, I… The thing is, things didn’t work out between Raisa and me. She turned out not to be the person I thought she was…”
“And you decided to come back?” Galina raised her eyebrows. “After everything you said when you left?”
“I thought that perhaps we could try again.” He looked at her, hope visible in his eyes. “After all, we spent so many years together…”
Galina stood and walked over to the window.
The evening city stretched out before her—bright, vibrant, and filled with possibilities.
“You know, Vitya,” she said, turning toward him, “I’m grateful to you.”
“Really?” His expression brightened.
“Yes. Had you not left, I might never have understood how beautiful life could be. Now I’m free, and I do what I want.”
Galina walked over and sat beside him.
“But I don’t want to return to the past. I like my new life. I like the person I have become.”
“You really have changed,” Viktor murmured. “You’re a completely different person…”
“No, Vitya. I was always this person inside. I simply never allowed myself to show it. I was afraid of being judged, afraid of standing out, and afraid of living life to the fullest.”
When Viktor left, Galina returned to her chair beside the window.
She felt neither bitterness nor regret.
There was only quiet confidence.
The following morning, she made herself coffee, cut a slice of pie, and stepped out onto the balcony. The spring sunlight caressed her face, and a gentle breeze played with her new hairstyle.
“Good morning, world,” Galina whispered. “Thank you for giving me the chance to begin again.”
Her phone rang. It was Nadezhda, a new friend from her painting group.
“Galochka, you haven’t forgotten, have you? We’re visiting the country estate today. It’s an all-day excursion!”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten! I’m already getting ready,” Galina replied with a smile.
She looked back at her apartment—bright, colorful, and filled with life.
It was just like the new life she had finally found the courage to live fully.