“We’re Getting Divorced, We’ll Split Everything Fifty-Fifty,” My Husband Smirked. But He Forgot the Apartment Was Registered in My Mother’s Name
“Let’s not get hysterical, Marina,” Vadim said, carefully dabbing his lips with a paper napkin and pushing his empty plate away with visible distaste. “We’re adults. The feelings are gone. I met someone else, and you… well, you’ve just become too domestic, you know? We’re getting divorced, and we’ll split everything fifty-fifty.”
Marina tensed.
“Fifty-fifty?” was all she managed to force out as she automatically turned off the water. There was a strange buzzing in her head. No tears, no screaming. Just the bewilderment of someone who had just had a brick dropped on her head while no one had the slightest intention of apologizing for it.
“Exactly. According to the law. Everything we acquired during the marriage,” Vadim said, leaning back in his chair and casually crossing one leg over the other. There was a tiny grease stain from the cutlet he had enthusiastically eaten five minutes earlier on his house T-shirt. “I’ve already sketched out a rough plan so we don’t waste time on lawyers and unnecessary fighting.”
He reached toward the windowsill, picked up his worn leather notebook—the one in which he usually drew charts for his grandiose but perpetually unsuccessful business ventures—and took out a pen. Marina dried her wet hands on a waffle-weave towel and slowly sat down on the stool across from him.
At that moment, their fat ginger cat Barsik softly jumped onto the table. Vadim immediately swatted him away in irritation.
“Shoo! Oh, and speaking of the cat, you can keep him. He sheds too much, and Elechka is allergic.”
“Elechka?” Marina echoed, feeling an icy, almost scientific curiosity beginning to push its way through the shock inside her.
“Yes, Eleonora. My woman. Don’t get hung up on words—we’re not talking about her right now,” her husband said with a grimace, opening the notebook. “So…”
He drew a crooked vertical line down the page, dividing it into two halves.
“I’m taking the car, obviously. You understand, with my status I can’t be without wheels. I’m constantly meeting with investors. Besides, it’s hard for Elechka to take the subway—there are drafts down there. And your office is only three tram stops away. Walking will be good for your figure. You’ve gotten too sedentary sitting around in that accounting office of yours.”
Marina stared at the man she had been married to for seven years and barely recognized him. The car—a brand-new Hyundai Solaris—had been purchased with an auto loan that Marina had spent two years paying off from her salary. During that time, Vadim had scraped by on occasional jobs while sitting at home eating expensive cured sausages and artisanal cheeses.
“How generous of you, Vadik,” she said evenly. “A truly unprecedented display of charity. And what about the loan I paid off while you were meditating on the couch? Are we going to split that fifty-fifty too?”
“Marina, why are you starting with these petty calculations?” he sighed in the tone of an exhausted sage. “I contributed to the family too. Energetically. I was building the foundation. Besides, I’m leaving you all the kitchen appliances. The refrigerator, the oven, the coffee machine. And the robot vacuum. You have to admit, that’s noble of me. I could sell it on Avito—it’s practically new.”
Her coworkers had given her the robot vacuum for her thirtieth birthday. She had bought the coffee machine with her annual bonus because Vadim couldn’t drink instant coffee—it supposedly “ruined his aura.”
“Got it. The vacuum is mine,” Marina nodded, resting her cheek on her hand. “What’s next on the list? Are we splitting my winter boots too? Or are they not Elechka’s size?”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” Vadim said sternly, looking at her over the notebook. “Moving on. Your parents’ country house belongs to them. I’m not claiming those six hundred square meters with the rotten greenhouses, so relax. My savings in my crypto wallet are my personal risks, so we’re not counting those. And now for the most important thing.”
He paused dramatically. In the silence of the kitchen, they could hear Barsik viciously clawing at one of Vadim’s sneakers in the hallway.
“The apartment.”
Marina narrowed her eyes slightly, feeling her heart skip a beat before beginning to pound steadily and heavily.
“What about the apartment?”
“We’ll have to exchange it for two smaller places. Or sell it and split the money,” Vadim said as casually as if they were discussing a kilogram of yesterday’s potatoes. “It’s a big apartment. Three rooms. Bought during the marriage. We moved in here a year after the wedding. And I laid the laminate flooring in the hallway myself, by the way. I changed the electrical outlets too.”
He took a sip of cold tea from his mug and continued.
“I could meet you halfway, of course. I could buy out your share. But with about a thirty-percent discount, considering the depreciation of the renovation and the urgency. Elya lives in a rented studio apartment right now, and it’s cramped for her. She needs space for creativity. She practices energy work and writes guides about femininity. We’re planning to turn the small bedroom into her office.”
At that moment, Vadim’s phone vibrated on the table. The screen displayed: “Elyusya ❤️.” Vadim wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. He swiped the screen and answered the call right in front of his lawful wife.
“Yes, kitten? Yes, everything’s fine. I’m sorting out our housing situation. Don’t worry, I’ve calculated everything. Kiss you. I’ll be there soon.”
He put the phone back down, screen facing the table, and looked at Marina again with the expression of a winner.
“So, about the apartment. Until we find a buyer or until I pay you your share, we can live here together. You can move into the living room for a while. We can tolerate each other for a month or two. Elya isn’t confrontational, as long as you don’t interfere in our affairs or criticize her diet. She’s vegan, by the way, so it would be better to keep any meat on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.”
Marina watched him busily scribbling numbers on the paper. There was no confusion or hurt left inside her now. Only scorching, crystal-clear fury mixed with amusement.
She remembered how six years earlier her mother, Nadezhda Pavlovna, had sold the old two-bedroom apartment in the city center that she had inherited, along with her cozy country house in the suburbs. She had sold them so she could buy this spacious, bright apartment in a good neighborhood for “the young couple.” Marina remembered how Vadik had rubbed his hands together happily when he heard about the purchase and immediately ordered an enormous flat-screen television online.
And she remembered her mother’s quiet, insinuating voice in the hallway before they went to the notary:
“Marinochka, men are here today, and tomorrow they’re having a midlife crisis. Real estate needs to be rock-solid. Let’s register everything in my name. Just to be safe.”
Marina had even been offended at the time. How could her mother think that? She and Vadim were in love. They trusted each other. They were a family!
But her mother had been as unyielding as a concrete slab.
Vadim, meanwhile, had been so absorbed in choosing a gaming console for the new television that he hadn’t taken any interest whatsoever in the paperwork. He simply knew they were moving into a new apartment and sincerely believed that, since they already had a marriage stamp in their passports, the square meters automatically became joint property—by virtue of his masculine majesty.
“So you want to bring your vegan Elya here, move her into my bedroom, and send me to sleep in the living room?” Marina clarified, folding her arms. Her voice was frighteningly calm.
“Well, why not?” Vadim looked genuinely surprised by her inability to understand. “We’re civilized people! She’s even willing to teach you forgiveness meditation. It would do you good to get rid of all that negativity. You’ve become kind of edgy lately. Probably your age catching up with you.”
Marina stood up from the table. Laughter was rising in her throat, tickling her ribs.
She walked over to the kitchen cabinet and opened the top drawer where they kept important documents, utility bills, and warranty papers.
Vadim never looked inside it. Paying the bills had always been one of her invisible responsibilities, just like buying toilet paper and laundry detergent and paying for the internet.
“I’m glad you’re taking all this reasonably,” Vadim said, stretching comfortably in his chair, clearly pleased with himself. “So pack your things by the weekend, okay? Clear out the closet in the bedroom so Elya and I can move her boxes in without any problems. And clear a shelf in the bathroom too. She has a lot of skincare products.”
Marina pulled out a thick blue plastic folder and snapped it open.
Inside were an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate, the purchase agreement, and a thick stack of receipts.
“Vadik, do you remember what year we moved in here?” she asked, casually flipping through the heavy sheets of paper.
“2019. In the fall. What difference does it make?” He picked up another napkin and began methodically cleaning dirt from beneath one of his fingernails. “Like I said, it was bought during the marriage. The law is the law. Family Code, Article 34. I Googled it.”
“He Googled it,” Marina repeated thoughtfully.
She walked over to the table and placed a single sheet of paper with a blue stamp in front of her husband.
“Take a look right here, my armchair lawyer. Second line from the top. The box marked ‘Owner.’”
Vadim sighed irritably, stopped what he was doing, and lowered his eyes to the document.
At first, his face showed nothing but condescending boredom. He was still living in his own reality—the successful businessman generously allowing his wife to keep the vacuum cleaner.
Then his eyebrows slowly crept upward, creating deep wrinkles across his forehead.
He blinked.
He rubbed his eyes as though he couldn’t believe the printed words.
Then he leaned closer to the paper.
“Sinitsyna… Nadezhda Pavlovna…” he read aloud in a strained, hoarse whisper. “That’s… your mother.”
“Remarkable powers of observation for a man with such a delicate aura,” Marina said with a smile.
It was a cold smile.
“My mother, Vadik. The woman who sold her inheritance to buy this apartment. And she registered it in her own name because she always thought you were a blowhard. So the only jointly acquired property in here is your couch, the stain on your T-shirt, and the television.”
Vadim rapidly turned pale.
The confidence that had filled the entire kitchen only a minute earlier began evaporating, leaving behind a pathetic, bewildered man.
“Wait… What do you mean it’s in your mother’s name?” He swallowed nervously, crumpling the napkin in his hand. Sweat appeared on his forehead. “But we’re a family! We were married! That’s illegal! I laid the laminate flooring here! I bought the outlets!”
“We bought the laminate with my vacation pay, and you installed it so badly that one of the boards in the hallway still squeaks,” Marina replied calmly. “So everything is completely legal, darling. The article you Googled doesn’t apply to somebody else’s property.”
She walked around the table, elegantly pulled the notebook containing his “brilliant plan” for dividing their assets out from under his nose, and casually tossed it into the trash can beneath the sink.
His pen followed.
“And now let’s revise your plan,” Marina said, placing both hands on the table and leaning over her suddenly deflated husband.
“We’re selling the car and splitting the money exactly fifty-fifty, because I paid off the loan during our marriage, and that actually is marital property. Your crypto savings—the ones you’ve been hiding so carefully—we’ll divide through the courts. My lawyer will be delighted to make the appropriate inquiries. I’m keeping the vacuum cleaner. But you can have the television. You and Elechka can use it to watch programs about vegans.”
“Marina, what are you doing…?” Vadim tried to force out a pitiful imitation of a smile, but his lips were trembling and his voice rose into a squeak. “We can work something out. Where am I supposed to go now? Elya’s studio is only nineteen square meters. She doesn’t even have a washing machine… You’re not really going to throw me out onto the street, are you? We’re not strangers, after all!”
Marina looked down at him.
All the exhaustion of the past several years, all those unappreciated dinners and ironed shirts, his condescending tone, his laziness disguised behind lofty talk—all of it suddenly seemed incredibly distant and absurd.
She felt as if she had finally taken off a pair of shoes that had been painfully squeezing her feet for seven whole years.
She picked up his empty borscht plate from the table and dropped it into the sink with a loud clatter.
“Take the television,” Marina said in an even, icy voice filled with absolute freedom.
“And take your things with you today. By eight o’clock tonight.”