I had heard the word “saint” so often that it had started to make me nauseous. “Saintly Mom said,” “Saintly Mom thinks,” “Saintly Mom is upset”—every day, ten times a day. Maxim said it with such reverence, as if he were talking not about his mother, Lyudmila Nikolaevna, but about some heavenly patroness.
And it all began a year ago, when I still had no idea what I was getting myself into.
This apartment had been left to me by Aunt Vera—a two-room apartment in a good neighborhood, renovated and comfortable. She had died suddenly of a heart attack, and according to her will, everything went to me. I was her favorite niece, the only one who visited her every week, helped her with groceries, and simply talked to her. When the notary handed me the keys, I could not believe it. My own apartment. At twenty-six.
I met Maxim six months after that. He was tall, courteous, and worked as an engineer at a construction company. He courted me beautifully—flowers, restaurants, attention. Four months later, he proposed. I said yes without hesitation.
The wedding was modest. Maxim moved in with me—his rented one-room apartment on the outskirts could not compare with my place. I was happy. We were setting up our home, planning the future, talking about children.
And then, three months after the wedding, he brought his mother.
“Not for long,” he said, carrying suitcases into the guest room. “Mom just needs to help us settle in. She’s so caring, you’ll see.”
Lyudmila Nikolaevna entered the apartment, looked around the hallway, and nodded.
“Not bad. Livable.”
I smiled and held out my hand.
“Hello. Come in, make yourself at home.”
She shook my hand weakly, as if she were doing me a favor.
“Not for long” turned into a week, then a month, then six months. Lyudmila Nikolaevna settled into the second room—hung up icons, put out her photographs, brought her own curtains.
“Yours are somehow faded,” she said. “These are beautiful. I sewed them myself.”
Every morning, she got up before me, made breakfast, and greeted me in the kitchen with a critical look.
“You were on your phone all night again? Look at the circles under your eyes. Maxim deserves a wife who takes care of herself.”
I said nothing and poured coffee. Arguing with her was pointless—she always found a way to twist the conversation so that I ended up guilty.
The first serious scandal happened a month after she moved in. I came home from work and discovered that my favorite dress—the very one I had been wearing when Maxim and I met—had disappeared from the closet.
“Where is my blue dress?” I asked, trying to speak calmly.
Lyudmila Nikolaevna did not even look up from her knitting.
“Oh, that old thing? I gave it to Marina from the third floor. She needed one. And it didn’t suit you anyway. You looked fat in it.”
I froze, feeling everything tighten inside me.
“That was my dress. Mine. You had no right to give it away.”
Only then did she finally raise her eyes, surprised.
“You’re not a child. Why keep junk? I’m doing this for your own good, by the way.”
Maxim came home from work an hour later. I met him in the hallway.
“Your mother gave my dress to the neighbor. Without my permission.”
He took off his jacket, hung it on the rack, and sighed.
“Alisa, don’t turn this into a tragedy. Mom knows better what suits you. She’s a saintly woman; she raised me alone all her life. She wants what’s best for you.”
A saintly woman. I heard it for the first time, but not the last.
With every passing day, my mother-in-law felt more and more like the mistress of the apartment. She rearranged the furniture “because it’s more convenient,” changed the layout in the kitchen “because how did you even live like this,” and criticized my cooking—“too salty,” “undercooked,” “wrong bay leaf.” She invited her friends over for tea without warning and without asking me. I would come home from work and find five unfamiliar women in the kitchen, discussing the neighbors and staring at me with curiosity.
Every time I tried to object, Maxim took his mother’s side.
“Don’t you dare talk that way about a saintly woman! She is teaching you, helping you! And you are ungrateful!”
Saintly, saintly, saintly. That word followed me everywhere.
“Saintly Mom said the curtains need to be changed.”
“Saintly Mom thinks you should take sewing classes.”
“Saintly Mom was upset by your tone.”
Lyudmila Nikolaevna made full use of it. The moment I objected, she pressed her hand to her heart, and Maxim rushed to defend her. I felt like a stranger in my own apartment.
The breaking point came six months later. I was coming home early—work had let us go because of a power-grid accident. I opened the door quietly and heard voices in the kitchen. Lyudmila Nikolaevna was talking on the phone.
“No, Tamara, I’m living just fine. The apartment isn’t bad, even if the daughter-in-law is a nasty piece of work. But it’s all right, Maxim is mine; he won’t abandon me. Formally, it’s her apartment, but my son is the man of the house here. I’ve taught him since childhood: wives come and go, but a mother is one of a kind.”
I froze in the hallway, clenching my fists. So she understood everything. She knew the apartment was mine. But she believed that through her son, she could rule here.
That evening, I said nothing. I went to bed, but I could not fall asleep until morning. I kept replaying everything that had happened that year—the humiliation, the criticism, the constant pressure. And that word: “saintly.” As if they were brainwashing me, forcing me to believe that I was bad and Lyudmila Nikolaevna was the model of perfection.
The next day, I did not go to work. I went to the bank. I took the apartment ownership certificate out of the safe-deposit box—a green folder with stamps. Name: Alisa Igorevna Sokolova. Basis: inheritance under the will of Vera Petrovna Sokolova. Date: March 12, 2023. A year before the wedding.
I gripped the folder in my hands and went home.
That evening, Maxim and his mother were sitting in the kitchen drinking tea. I heard their conversation before I even entered.
“I’m telling you, Maxim, you need to keep her on a tight leash. She’s become completely spoiled. Staying late at work, chatting on the phone. A wife should know her place.”
“Mom, but she works…”
“Works! And who’s supposed to keep the house in order? When I was your age, I worked three jobs and kept the home spotless. But this one…”
“You’re right, Mom. You’re always right.”
I entered the kitchen. They fell silent and stared at me. Without a word, I took out the folder and placed it on the table.
“What’s this?” Maxim picked it up and opened it.
“The certificate proving ownership of this apartment. In my name. Received as an inheritance before marriage. This is my personal property, not marital property.”
Lyudmila Nikolaevna snorted.
“So what? Once you’re married, everything is shared. That’s the law.”
“No,” I said, looking her in the eye. “That is not the law. By law, inheritance and gifts are personal property and are not divided in a divorce.”
Maxim set the document down and frowned.
“Alisa, what does divorce have to do with this? Mom is right, we’re a family. What is there to divide?”
“Family?” I felt something snap inside me. “For a year, I’ve listened to how saintly your mother is. How she knows better. How I’m supposed to obey her. In MY apartment. The one Aunt Vera left to me. Not to you. To me.”
Lyudmila Nikolaevna stood up, drawing herself to her full height.
“How dare you! Maxim, do you hear what she’s saying?! I do so much for you, and she—”
Maxim jumped up too.
“Alisa, don’t yell at my saintly mother! She raised me all her life! She sacrificed everything!”
And then something inside me broke. All those months of patience, humiliation, and silence came pouring out.
“Shut up right now! The owner here is ME, not your saintly mommy!”
I slammed the folder with the documents onto the table so hard that the cups jumped, tipped over, and fell to the floor. The crash of shards, tea spreading across the linoleum.
Silence fell. Lyudmila Nikolaevna turned pale and pressed a hand to her chest.
“Maxim… she raised her hand against me…”
“She didn’t,” I said in an icy voice, surprised by my own calm. “But I will if you don’t get out of MY apartment. You have two hours to pack your things and leave. Both of you.”
Maxim opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at his mother, then at me, then back at his mother.
“You’re… serious?”
“Absolutely. You lived here for free for a year. For a year you commanded, criticized, and humiliated me. You called your mother a saint and me an ungrateful bitch. In my apartment, which I received from someone who loved me. Enough.”
Lyudmila Nikolaevna grabbed the back of a chair.
“Son, you won’t allow this… Say something to her!”
But Maxim was silent. He was looking at the document lying in a puddle of tea. There, in black and white, it said: owner, Alisa Igorevna Sokolova.
“Two hours,” I repeated. “Or I call the police and have you removed by force. Legally, I have that right.”
I turned and left the kitchen. I locked myself in the bedroom and sat down on the bed. My hands were shaking, my heart pounding. I had just kicked out my husband and mother-in-law. From my own apartment.
And you know what? It felt good. For the first time in a year, it felt good.
An hour and a half later, I heard the sound of the door closing. I went into the hallway—their things were gone. In the kitchen, only broken cup fragments and a wet spot remained on the floor.
I cleaned up the shards, wiped the floor, and put the kettle on. I sat by the window with a cup of tea and simply looked out at the city. The apartment was quiet. My quiet.
Maxim called for a week. At first he was angry: “You acted like the ultimate selfish woman!” Then he pleaded: “Come on, let’s talk, we’ll sort everything out.” Then he promised: “I’ll change everything, Mom won’t interfere anymore.”
I answered only once.
“Maxim, for a year you made a choice between me and your mother. Every day, you chose her. You said she was saintly and I was ungrateful. If you are truly ready to change, come. But know this: your mother will never move back in here. Never. This is my apartment, my rules.”
He did not come.
Two weeks later, I filed for divorce. Maxim did not object; he signed all the papers silently. The apartment remained mine—by law, it was my personal property.
Three months have passed now. I re-wallpapered the guest room and removed every trace of Lyudmila Nikolaevna’s presence. I took down her curtains and hung mine—the very “faded” ones. I put my furniture back. I invited a friend over, and we sat talking all night, laughing and drinking wine.
I live alone in my apartment. The one Aunt Vera left me. The one I fought for. And you know what is strangest of all? I do not feel lonely. I feel free.
Sometimes I remember that word—“saintly.” And I understand: true saintliness is not manipulation and control. It is respect, care, love. Lyudmila Nikolaevna had none of that. She had only the fear of losing power over her son.
Maxim made his choice. He chose his “saintly mommy” and her one-room apartment on the outskirts. I chose myself. My life. My space.
And for the first time in a long while, I can breathe deeply. In the silence of my own home. Where no one tells me what I must do. Where no one calls me ungrateful. Where I am the mistress. The real one. The only one.
