“Why should I sell my home just to make your family like me?” I challenged my husband.
“Why should I sell my home just to make your family like me?” I challenged my husband.
Ulyana met Denis at an exhibition. She owned a successful souvenir workshop, while he was a graduate student. Their relationship developed quickly, but her very first meeting with his parents, Galina Pavlovna and Viktor Andreevich, was tense.
“So, you own a business?” her future mother-in-law asked with poorly concealed condescension. “And is making little trinkets profitable?”
Denis’s parents came from several generations of intellectuals and regarded Ulyana’s business as something inferior compared with an academic career. Denis reassured his fiancée, promising that they would accept her eventually.
For her mother-in-law’s anniversary celebration, Ulyana decided to break the ice and gave her an expensive gold bracelet decorated with emeralds.
“How… lovely,” Galina Pavlovna said in a tone better suited to the word “tasteless.” “It must have been terribly expensive.”
Throughout the evening, Ulyana could feel people studying her. The final humiliation came when her mother-in-law began speaking in front of the guests.
“You know, Svetlana, young people these days care only about money,” she said loudly to her friend while looking directly at Ulyana. “Education and genuine refinement are no longer valued. Take our Ulyana, for example. She never finished university, but she gives me gold jewelry. Apparently, she wants to prove that even without an education, a person can still… succeed.”
Ulyana froze. Her cheeks burned with humiliation.
At home, instead of supporting his wife, Denis began criticizing her.
“You’re exaggerating. Mom simply… sees the world in her own way. And your gift was too expensive. It looked as though you were showing off your money.”
“Showing off?” Ulyana gasped indignantly. “I was only trying to make your mother happy!”
“You have to understand, Ulya… My parents are third-generation intellectuals,” her husband continued. “They are used to being at the top. Then you appear—young and successful—and demonstrate that someone can live better than they do without earning any academic degrees. To them, it feels like… an insult.”
“So I’m supposed to pretend to be less successful to avoid hurting their fragile egos?”
“I’m only asking you to understand them. Maybe you should sell your apartment in the city center and move somewhere farther away. And your business… We could live more simply, but we would be happier.”
Ulyana stared at her husband with wide eyes.
“Are you seriously asking me to give up everything I have built just so your parents can feel more comfortable?”
“I only want peace in the family!” Denis protested.
“At the cost of my identity? No. I will not do that.” Ulyana shook her head.
She walked into the bedroom and took a suitcase out of the wardrobe.
“What are you doing?”
“Packing my things. I’ll stay with a friend for a while.”
“Because of one argument? Ulya, this is ridiculous!”
“This is not about the argument,” she said, turning toward him. “It is about the fact that you made a choice. And you did not choose me.”
“I love you!”
“But not enough to accept me as I am,” Ulyana replied quietly.
She called a taxi and left.
Raising Children
The divorce was finalized quickly. Ulyana threw herself into her work, expanded her business, and soon signed her first major international contract.
That evening, she remained in her office for a long time, gazing at the city lights glowing in the darkness. She felt peaceful.
She knew that she would never again diminish her accomplishments or reshape herself to satisfy someone else’s expectations.
She had paid far too high a price to learn that lesson.