If we had parted on good terms, I would have called Michael and fairly split every hidden stash of money we found. But given the circumstances, I believe I have every moral right to keep the remainder of our jointly acquired property. And now, I’ll try to explain to you why I feel this way (in fact, I’m absolutely certain of it!).
We were married for six years. We had a child, bought a car, and lent $700 to a family friend (another couple) from the money I had saved. I had planned to use those funds to make our apartment more comfortable. After our separation, the friend’s wife shrugged and said that since Michael was the one who lent them the money, they would repay him. And then, it was up to him to decide whether to share any of it with me or keep it all for himself. Naturally, my ex-husband chose the option that was more profitable for him.
I decided to divorce because I was fed up with enduring his monthly binges. My husband would get so drunk that he completely lost control. He’d pass out in the hallway on the floor or even sitting on the toilet. As our daughter grew older, she started to notice and ask questions:
— Mom, why did Dad fall and fall asleep right on the floor? Isn’t that uncomfortable? Why doesn’t he wake up? Why does he smell so bad?
I decided that my daughter shouldn’t have to see such an example. One day, I locked the door and didn’t let him in. After he passed out in the shared hallway, I gathered his things and left them outside for him. I wasn’t worried about their safety: we lived on the fifth floor, with a gated barrier between the fourth and fifth floors. Strangers didn’t come through, and our neighbors were decent people.
The next morning, Michael tried banging on the door and ringing the bell, but I didn’t open it. Through the locked door, I simply told him I was divorcing him. He backed off and left for good. He doesn’t want to see our daughter, pays the bare minimum in child support, and tells everyone a tragic tale about how he lived in his wife’s apartment, did a full renovation, and after it was done, I kicked him out like a dog onto the street.
Speaking of the renovation, that was a sore subject. My parents moved my grandmother to live with them, and they gave us the keys to her apartment, where the walls and ceilings were literally crumbling. Later, my grandmother signed the apartment over to me. We started the renovations as soon as we moved in, and they dragged on for all the years of our marriage (reminder: six years!). I only managed to bring the apartment to proper order on my own relatively recently.
At first, Michael probably held back from showing his true self, his real nature, so to speak. He brought home half his salary regularly. But when I found out I was pregnant, he let loose. Things went downhill from there. He started bringing home less and less money. He was paid in cash since he worked in construction.
When our daughter was born, you could forget about seeing him on payday. He’d come home after midnight with a bag clinking with bottles, stumble around the apartment, collapse, and fall asleep wherever he landed. In the morning, he’d claim he didn’t remember anything—not where he’d been, who he was drinking with, how he got home, or where he spent his entire paycheck. He’d turn out his pockets, count the leftover change, and proudly hand me $30–40 for groceries—sometimes less, never more!
I later discovered that when Michael was blackout drunk, he would sometimes hide his paycheck around the apartment. One night, I caught him in the act: I woke up to him making noise in the hallway but pretended to be asleep. He came into the bedroom, went around the bed, moved the nightstand, fumbled around, scratched his head, put everything back, and left the room.
When he passed out, I checked what he was looking for under the nightstand: there was a folded corner of the carpet, and naturally, I looked underneath. There was a stash of money. I should have realized right away that this wasn’t the first time. But, sadly, it didn’t click then. The next morning, he turned out his pockets again and gave me the leftover change from his paycheck. I concluded he didn’t remember the stash. I spent that money on our daughter’s needs.
How did we survive? On the measly leftovers from Michael’s paychecks, on the salary I earned (for years, I wrote daily horoscopes for some websites), and on help from my family. I even saved up money for materials, tools, and deliveries.
The amount we lent to our friends was meant for the renovation. Those were my savings, not Michael’s. But he was the one who handed the money to them. That’s why they assumed they should repay him.
We split up, and thank God for that! I finished the renovation on my own. I found the first stash in a roll of carpet. That jogged my memory of the money I’d found under the nightstand carpet. Then it hit me—there could be more stashes. I started searching.
I found most of the hiding spots right away: a jar with dried orange peels brought by Michael’s relative, a shoe polish sponge box, the computer tower, the linoleum (underneath it, to be precise) in the hallway without baseboards because we hadn’t gotten around to installing them. I even found some under the washing machine and on the balcony: he’d wrapped bills in a plastic bag and tucked them under the leg of an old chair.
It’s been two years since the divorce, and I’m still finding my ex-husband’s stashes. I bought a new wardrobe, and when we moved the old one to disassemble and take it out, there was a stash taped to the back. There was one under the fridge, another in an opened bag of plaster. I’d love to call him and thank him. At least he left something good behind, besides our child.
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