My Husband Invited 75 Guests To Stay In Our 2-bedroom Apartment For A Month. He Expected Me To Pay $12,000 For His Mother’s Birthday. So I Drained The Joint Account And Caught A Flight Out Of His Life.

The Morning of the Silent Departure

My mother-in-law is celebrating her 60th birthday, and 75 guests are coming. They are all staying at our house for a month.

My husband told me this, thinking I would be delighted, but I calmly finished my breakfast. I grabbed my suitcase and walked out of the house.

An hour later, I received a hysterical call from my husband. “Your mother can’t pay at the restaurant. Why did you block the card?” he said.

Faced with my firm response, my husband had no choice but to lean against the wall, slump down, and cover his face with his hands. I would appreciate it if you would like the story I am about to tell you and subscribe to the channel.

Make yourselves comfortable and listen. Hannah’s alarm was set for seven, but she woke up at 6:00 in the morning.

Through the gap in the curtains, only the first light of dawn filtered in. She lay there for a few minutes, listening to the steady breathing of her husband who was sleeping beside her.

Then she got up without making a sound and went to the kitchen. She switched on the light and started the coffee machine.

While the water was heating, she took a yogurt from the fridge and sliced a kiwi fruit, arranging it neatly on a plate. These were her usual morning movements, ingrained over eight years of marriage.

Her husband, Liam, was still asleep, and she liked that. Lately, she had begun to appreciate this time alone in the early morning to be able to think without interruption.

Hannah worked as a project manager at an advertising agency. Her salary was good, about $6,000 a month after tax, and bonuses from large clients could sometimes reach $2,000 or $3,000.

She had always managed her finances meticulously. She had an emergency savings account into which she deposited a portion of her income each month, at least $800 and up to $1,500 when she had a good project.

Liam knew about the account but not the exact amount. She felt no need to inform him.

That money was the result of her work, her stress, her sleepless nights in front of the computer modifying presentations for demanding clients. In the last three years, nearly $25,000 had accumulated in that account.

Hannah did not touch this money lightly. It was her safety net, her independence, the possibility of leaving at any moment if something went wrong.

And now, sitting in the kitchen with a hot cup of tea, she realized her premonition had been correct. The tea had steeped well.

Hannah sat by the window and watched as the sky brightened. The city was slowly waking up.

A few cars passed on the street and the lights in the neighbors’ windows came on one by one. The screen of her phone on the table was dark.

The previous night, her mother had sent her a message. “Darling, are you all right? You haven’t called in a while,” it said.

Hannah had replied briefly. “I’m fine, just busy with work,” she said.

Her mother lived in Wellington, an hour’s flight away. When Hannah was 15, her parents divorced.

Her father left with another woman and her mother raised and educated her alone. She was a strong woman who never complained or sought pity.

“You have to learn to stand up for yourself,” her mother told her when a teenage Hannah came home crying after a fight with some classmates.

“No one will do it for you. Remember that it’s more important to respect yourself than for others to like you,” she said.

Hannah remembered those words. She did not stay silent when classmates called her a nerd for getting good grades.

Once, the class leader publicly humiliated her for her old backpack. Hannah silently stood up, walked over to her, and said, “My brain works. You’re just jealous because only your mouth works.”

The whole class held its breath. After that, the girl never bothered her again.

The same thing happened at university when an economics professor gave her an unfairly low grade on an exam. He gave her a pass instead of an A.

Despite her answering all the questions correctly, she did not hesitate to go to the head of the department’s office. She brought her notes and the textbook and submitted a written request for a review with her reasoned answers.

The committee sided with her. The professor looked at her with suspicion from then on, but he never tried to bother her again.

It also happened at work when Mr. Robertson, her boss, tried to blame her for someone else’s mistake. A designer had failed to deliver the mock-ups on time and the project was cancelled.

But he tried to place all the responsibility on Hannah. Unfazed, she collected all the emails she had sent to the designer, the messages reminding him of the deadlines he had missed, and presented them to the management.

The documents spoke for themselves. The responsible party was quickly identified, and it was not her.

Her colleagues respected her for this very reason, for her ability to not back down and to defend her rights. She did not tolerate any kind of disrespect.

She met Liam five years ago at the advertising agency’s Christmas party. Their companies collaborated.

Hannah’s agency handled the advertising for the software products developed by Liam’s company. He was a programmer and led a small team.

At the party, he seemed attractive, tall, well-built, and well-dressed. He had a sense of humor and held interesting conversations without being crass.

He approached her first, offered her a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and they started talking. His courtship was flawless.

He gave her flowers every week, not the typical roses, but lilies or irises, her favorites. He took her to great restaurants with good food, not cheap places.

He gave her sincere compliments, not cliché phrases. Six months later, he proposed and Hannah accepted.

She thought he was the man she was looking for: reliable, with a good job and common sense. They married a year later.

The wedding was simple: 30 guests in a small restaurant, a simple white dress. Hannah disliked ostentation.

A year later, they got a mortgage for a new build apartment on Auckland’s North Shore. It was a quiet residential area with a park nearby.

Liam contributed $70,000 for the deposit, money he had saved over years of work. Hannah agreed to pay half of the monthly mortgage payment, $1,400.

Everything was fair and agreed upon. They even signed a relationship property agreement.

As Liam had paid the deposit, the apartment would be his property, but the rest of their assets would be divided equally. The first year in the apartment was good.

They bought furniture and decorated it together. While Liam hung wallpaper, she painted.

They chose the sofa together and assembled a modular wardrobe. They seemed like a team, but gradually, subtle problems began to emerge.

The Selective Team and Early Cracks

The truth was that Liam followed their agreements selectively. They agreed to share household chores equally: cooking, cleaning, laundry, everything 50/50.

But after six months, all of this had become Hannah’s responsibility. Liam’s excuses were always the same.

“I just don’t cook as well as you do. My food turns out like some tasteless mash,” he said.

“And I’m terrible at cleaning. I never see the dust. Honestly, I’d rather take out the rubbish or do the grocery shopping,” he added.

The supermarket was in the next building, a three-minute walk, and the rubbish was taken out once every three days. In short, his contribution to household chores was about ten minutes a week.

Hannah didn’t argue. She just did her work in silence, thinking, “Well, it’s still bearable. It’s not a big deal.”

In the end, she would come home from work at 7:00 p.m., prepare dinner, clean, and do the laundry on weekends. Liam would arrive at 8:00, sit in front of the television, or get lost in his phone.

Sometimes he would help with the dishes or vacuuming, but that was the exception, not the rule. However, there was one thing she absolutely could not tolerate.

It was Liam’s attempts to make decisions that affected them both without consulting her. And that was something Hannah nipped in the bud immediately and decisively.

The first incident occurred a year ago on a Friday afternoon. Liam had invited his friends over for the weekend without telling her.

Hannah arrived home around 7:00, exhausted after a difficult week. She had been working late to close a big project.

She dreamed of only one thing: taking a bath, lying on the sofa with a book, and thinking about nothing. But when she opened the apartment door, three men with beers and pizzas were already settled in.

The table was covered in bottles and the air was a mix of food and smoke. Someone was smoking on the balcony.

“You’re here!” Liam exclaimed excitedly.

“My mates have come over. We’re going to watch the rugby. This is Ben, Dave, and Mike, mates from uni,” he said.