“I Don’t Understand Why We Can’t Rent Out Your Second Apartment and Split the Income Fifty-Fifty?” the Mother-in-Law Protested
The call came on Wednesday, around lunchtime. Anna was checking account balances at the time—an accountant’s work didn’t tolerate distractions—but the number was unfamiliar, a landline, and something made her answer immediately.
The notary spoke calmly and matter-of-factly, as though he were reading the weather forecast: her grandmother, Antonina Yegorovna, had passed away the previous autumn, leaving behind a small apartment on the outskirts of town. Anna was the sole heir.
It was a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor, with old furniture and cracked asphalt in the courtyard. Anna sat for a long time with the phone in her hand, staring out the window at the gray sky, and for some reason remembered the smell of her grandmother’s cabbage pies—the kind of smell that soaked into the kitchen curtains and lingered for weeks.
That evening, she told Andrey.
Her husband was sitting in the kitchen, slowly stirring sugar into his tea, thoughtfully, as though solving a difficult problem.
“Are you going to sell it?” he asked without looking up.
“I don’t know.” Anna shrugged and sat opposite him. “I don’t really want to. It was Grandma’s apartment… Maybe I could rent it out?”
Andrey put down his spoon and looked at her carefully.
“Well, rent it out. Extra money wouldn’t hurt. With this mortgage, every ruble counts right now.”
They really were paying off the mortgage together. Andrey had bought their apartment on credit before they got married, and the monthly payment was substantial. For the past few years, Anna and her husband had counted every ruble, postponing restaurant outings and vacations until “someday later.” So the idea sounded reasonable.
Anna got her grandmother’s apartment into shape within a couple of weeks. She threw out the old junk and hired someone to repaint the walls. A month later, a young couple moved in, willing to pay thirty-five thousand rubles a month.
The first rent payment went into a separate account and felt almost unreal, like lottery winnings they were afraid to spend.
But gradually, they got used to it.
Six months later, Anna had stopped checking supermarket receipts three times over. They bought a new washing machine to replace the old one that rattled loudly enough for the whole building to hear. Then they bought a decent sofa instead of the sagging Soviet-era one. They also saved some money for a vacation—their first in three years that wasn’t a trip to an aunt’s village, but an actual trip to the seaside.
Andrey was genuinely happy about the changes and made no attempt to hide it. They ate out more often now and went to the movies on Saturdays.
And, of course, he told his mother about it. How could he not, when their lives had clearly become easier?
“Mom, can you imagine? Anya rented out her grandmother’s apartment, and now it feels like we can finally breathe,” he said on the phone while Anna washed the dishes and listened with half an ear. “We bought new appliances, and we even went to the seaside…”
Valentina Petrovna listened attentively.
A little too attentively, if anyone had bothered to notice.
But who notices things like that at the time?
The first warning sign appeared a couple of weeks later, during Sunday lunch at Andrey’s parents’ home.
“Thirty-five thousand, you said?” Valentina Petrovna remarked casually as she spooned potatoes onto her plate. “That’s good money. Where did you say that apartment was again?”
“On Severnaya Street,” Anna replied. “It’s very small, just a one-bedroom.”
“Small, but it brings in as much money as a two-bedroom,” her mother-in-law snorted, putting a piece of cutlet into her mouth while staring off to the side.
Anna didn’t think much of it.
People said all kinds of things over lunch.
But Valentina Petrovna’s visits became increasingly frequent.
Previously, she had stopped by once a month and always called in advance. Now she started appearing without warning, carrying a bag of homemade pies nobody had asked for, while her sharp eyes examined everything in the apartment: the new kettle in the kitchen, the fresh towels in the bathroom, the TV box that had not yet been thrown away.
“Oh, what kind of appliance is this?” she would ask about the coffee machine, picking it up and examining it from every angle as though it were evidence in a criminal investigation. “It must have been expensive…”
“Not really,” Anna would reply, trying to keep her tone casual. “We bought it on sale.”
“On sale,” Valentina Petrovna would repeat in an odd tone, setting the coffee machine back down a little harder than necessary.
Every conversation like that ended the same way—with some comment about family unity.
“We’re one family, after all. What’s the point of dividing things?”
“In a family, everything should be shared.”
“People used to be much closer in the old days.”
The words sounded innocent enough, but Anna began noticing how something tightened inside her whenever she heard them. It felt like the anticipation of an unpleasant conversation that was bound to happen sooner or later. She simply didn’t know when.
Andrey asked her not to argue.
“Just ignore it,” he would say in the evenings, hugging his wife from behind in the kitchen. “Mom is Mom. She’ll grumble for a while and then stop.”
Anna nodded, though a nagging doubt had already settled somewhere inside her and refused to go away.
Her father-in-law stayed out of the conversations. Gennady Ilyich generally preferred to keep quiet and stare at the television as if nothing happening in his son’s family had anything to do with him.
But Andrey’s brother, Roman, quickly got involved.
Roman and his wife Inna were struggling financially. He worked as a driver for a logistics company, and his salary fluctuated depending on the number of trips he made. Inna was on maternity leave with their second child, and her allowance was laughably small. They were constantly short of money—first for their older child’s kindergarten expenses, then for a new stroller.
Compared with their budget, thirty-five thousand rubles sounded like manna from heaven.
“Listen,” Roman said to his brother one day when the two men stepped onto the balcony for a cigarette, “is it really fair that Anya gets to pocket all that money by herself? Inna and I can barely make ends meet, and we’re all supposed to be one family…”
“Well, it’s her inheritance,” Andrey objected uncertainly.
“An inheritance is one thing, but the money should go into the family budget, shouldn’t it? You are her husband, after all.”
Andrey said nothing.
But the words stuck with him.
When Valentina Petrovna learned about the conversation between her sons—and she found out quickly, because Roman himself told her—she became more assertive.
There were no more hints. Now she asked direct questions.
“Anyuta, haven’t you ever thought that, properly speaking, this money should be spent on the whole family?” she asked one day after once again showing up without warning and settling herself in the kitchen like someone prepared to wait as long as necessary.
“What do you mean, the whole family?” Anna asked, although she understood perfectly well what her mother-in-law meant.
“Well, Roman and Inna are struggling. They have a little child, and now a second one too. Meanwhile, you’ve got extra money coming in from that apartment. You should share with your relatives. That’s what family does.”
Anna put down her cup.
“Valentina Petrovna, this was my grandmother’s apartment. I inherited it personally. I’m saving that money for the future. Besides, we still haven’t paid off our mortgage.”
“You’ll pay off the mortgage without that money,” her mother-in-law dismissed her with a wave of the hand. “But your relatives are struggling right now. Inna cries at night because they don’t have enough money for diapers.”
Inna, incidentally, had not cried once the last time Anna saw her. On the contrary, she had cheerfully shown off her new phone, which she had bought, in her own words, “on an installment plan, but it’s so pretty.”
Valentina Petrovna preferred not to mention that.
The conversations repeated themselves week after week, like a broken record.
Valentina Petrovna would come over, inspect their latest purchases, ask about the amount of rent they were receiving—without the slightest embarrassment by that point—and inevitably return to the subject of family unity.
Anna answered calmly and tried not to be rude, but each conversation became increasingly tense.
“I need the rental income for my own future,” Anna finally said directly one day, tired of the hints. “I’m not going to divide it among all your relatives.”
Valentina Petrovna pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.
“Your future, is it? So your husband’s future is separate from yours?”
“What does my husband have to do with this?” Anna sighed. “I’m talking about relatives who have absolutely nothing to do with this money.”
Her mother-in-law left without another word that day, slamming the door slightly harder than usual.
That evening, Andrey was unusually quiet. He poked at the food on his plate with his fork without looking at his wife.
“Mom is upset,” he finally said.
“Andryusha, what was I supposed to say? Agree to give half the rent to your brother?”
“Nobody is asking for half,” her husband muttered, although by then they both understood that this was exactly where things were heading.
The tension grew slowly but inevitably, like water rising behind a dam.
Another month passed.
Then another.
At the next family dinner, held for her father-in-law’s birthday, everyone was there: Roman and Inna, who had left their children with a neighbor, and Valentina Petrovna, sitting at the head of the table with the solemn expression of someone preparing to deliver an important speech.
As usual, the conversation revolved around ordinary things—work, grocery prices, plans for the summer house—until Valentina Petrovna put down her fork and looked directly at Anna.
“Listen, Anyuta, I’ve been thinking,” she began in a tone that promised nothing good. “We’re one family, after all. And somehow, this situation just doesn’t seem fair.”
The table fell silent.
Roman stopped chewing.
Inna put down her glass of compote and prepared to listen.
“I don’t understand why we can’t rent out your second apartment and split the income fifty-fifty?” her mother-in-law demanded indignantly.
Anna slowly lowered her fork to the edge of her plate.
A strange calm spread through her—the kind that comes when you have been waiting a long time for something inevitable, and it finally happens.
“Valentina Petrovna,” she said evenly, “that apartment belongs to me. To me alone. I am not going to split the income.”
Her mother-in-law flared up instantly, as though she had been waiting for precisely that answer so she would have an excuse to explode.
“Who do you think you are to dictate terms to us?!” Her voice rose an octave. “After marriage, all property should work for the family instead of lining one daughter-in-law’s pockets! You’re greedy, that’s what you are!”
“Mom, that’s enough,” Andrey tried to interrupt, though without much conviction.
“You keep quiet!” his mother snapped. “Or are you taking her side too, against your own family?”
Roman set his glass down on the table with a dull thud.
“Come on, Anya, seriously,” he said, leaning forward. “Stop being so selfish. Think about everything Mom and Dad did for Andrey back in the day. They helped him choose an apartment, contributed money toward the wedding. And now that you’ve got money, suddenly it’s all ‘mine, mine, I’m not giving anyone anything’?”
“A real family shares,” Inna added, shaking her head with an expression of deep disappointment. “We’d give each other our last penny, while some people just grab everything for themselves.”
Anna felt heat flood her cheeks—not from shame, but from rage that she was forcing herself to control.
Her hands clenched into fists on her lap.
“I work as an accountant,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “That apartment is the only thing my grandmother left me. I am not obligated to support able-bodied adults who, by the way, have two hands and perfectly functioning brains of their own.”
Then something happened that Anna had not expected at all.
Andrey, who until then had remained silent, suddenly straightened in his chair and looked at his wife—not with sympathy, but with cold irritation, as though she were responsible for the entire scene.
“You know what?” he said slowly. “I think Mom is right. Half of the rental income should be given to her every month. That would be fair.”
Anna could not immediately find the words to respond.
She stared at her husband as though she were seeing him for the first time.
“Are you serious?” she asked quietly.
“Absolutely,” Andrey nodded, sounding more confident now. “We’re a family. Our relatives are struggling while you’re sitting on a pile of money.”
“I am not going to support able-bodied adults,” Anna repeated, slightly louder this time.
Valentina Petrovna immediately seized on those words as though she had been waiting for an excuse to make things personal.
“Wives like you are the ones who destroy families! Calculating, cold, thinking only about yourselves!” she shouted, pointing a finger at her daughter-in-law. “Andrey, do something! Make her agree! Are you a man or not?!”
Andrey exhaled heavily and looked at his wife without any warmth left in his eyes.
“Anya,” he said firmly, “if you don’t start transferring half of the rent to Mom every month, I no longer consider us a real family.”
Silence fell over the room, thick and almost tangible.
Anna looked at her husband for several long seconds, feeling something inside her slam shut for good, like a door that would never open again.
He had made his choice.
Here, at this table, in front of his mother and brother, he had chosen which side he was on.
And it wasn’t hers.
“Well then,” she finally said as she rose from the table, “you’ve just shown me who you really consider your family. Thank you for making that clear.”
She did not say another word that evening.
She silently put on her coat, called a taxi, and went home alone, leaving her husband at the table with his mother and brother—the people he had chosen.
After that dinner, Anna refused to discuss the apartment at all.
Whenever Andrey tried to return to the subject, she answered briefly:
“The decision has been made. There’s nothing to discuss.”
She completely separated the rental income from their joint finances, opening a separate bank account that her husband could not access. From then on, not a single ruble of that money went toward their shared expenses.
“You need to think carefully about who you want to live with from now on,” she told her husband a few days later when he once again tried to start a conversation about “family fairness.” “With me—or with your mother, who tells you how to live.”
Andrey stared at her as though he could not believe she was serious.
“Are you seriously giving me an ultimatum?”
“I’m simply asking you to decide,” Anna shrugged. “You’re the one who said that a ‘real family’ is made up of people who demand a share of someone else’s inheritance.”
A week later, Andrey packed a bag and moved in with his mother.
“Just for a little while, so I can figure things out,” as he put it, slamming the door with the confidence of someone convinced that his wife would call him in a couple of days, apologize, and beg him to come back.
Anna never called.
Not after a week.
Not after a month.
At first, Andrey’s messages were confident. Then they became increasingly confused—short texts that received no reply and phone calls that Anna rejected after the third ring.
A couple of months later, they filed for divorce.
The process went surprisingly quickly because there was very little to divide. They sold the mortgaged apartment and split the remaining debt equally. Anna’s inheritance was never included in the division of marital property because it was her personal property.
Valentina Petrovna never got her hands on someone else’s money—not a single ruble of the rental income.
And Andrey, wandering around his mother’s apartment with a cup of tea growing cold in his hands, gradually began to understand that he had lost more than just his wife.
He had lost the stable, peaceful life he himself had once valued so much—the life he had destroyed for the sake of his mother’s approval.
Meanwhile, Anna calmly continued renting out her grandmother’s apartment to the same tenants for the same thirty-five thousand rubles a month.
She moved back in with her parents, into her old room.
But at least there were no prying eyes there, and no conversations about “fairness.”
And from then on, she never again allowed anyone to treat her inheritance as communal family property.