Iris's partner abandoned her with their children, leaving only $20 for three days while he went to a wedding by himself. Angry and desperate, she decided to teach him a lesson. His reaction when he came back shocked everyone.
Hello! I'm Iris. My life looks perfect from the outside, but it really isn't. I stay home with my eight-year-old son Ollie and my six-year-old daughter Sophie.
My husband Paul has a steady job and pays our bills. He loves our children, buys them presents, and makes sure we have what we need. But after Sophie was born, everything changed. Paul started caring more about work and less about our family. We stopped having movie nights together. We stopped going out for dinner. Every time I suggested something fun, Paul would say he felt stressed from work or needed time alone. At first, I didn't worry about it. Now it bothers me every day.
Something happened last week that made our problems worse. Paul came home early from work, smiling and excited. He told me he got a half-day off because his friend Alex was getting married. Paul said he would be away for three days. I felt so happy! I thought we could finally take a trip together. I imagined getting away from cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the kids all day.
But my happiness disappeared quickly. Paul told me only he could go to the wedding.
"Why can't I come?" I asked sadly. Paul said Alex was "weird" and only wanted close friends there without their wives or girlfriends. This seemed strange to me. "Will there be single women at this wedding?" I asked while biting my nails. I always bite my nails when I feel nervous.
Paul's face changed from happy to angry. "Iris, stop it," he said. I could tell he was getting mad, so I tried to joke. "I'm just playing! Don't talk to any single women, okay?"
That was a big mistake. Paul thought I was accusing him of something bad. We started fighting. Paul said I didn't trust him. He said I tried to control everything he did. He even gave me a lecture about how to have a good marriage. He made me feel crazy and controlling.
But maybe I wasn't completely wrong about my concerns.
I lost my temper and reminded him how he always chose his friends over us. He would leave me alone with the children while he went out. "I want to have fun too, Paul!" I shouted with tears in my eyes. "Why do we earn money if you never spend time with us?"
Paul's expression became frightening. He stared at me with pure anger. Then he did something that shocked me completely. He took out a twenty-dollar bill.
"Take this," he said in a mean voice. "If you don't want my money, then manage the house with this for three days while I'm away!" He threw the money at me and left the house before I could say anything.
I stood there with my mouth open. I felt angry and confused at the same time. Did he really believe I could feed three people for three days with only twenty dollars? I couldn't believe how unreasonable he was being.
I felt like crying as I ran to check our refrigerator. I hoped we had enough food to last three days. But when I opened the door, my heart dropped. The refrigerator was almost empty. I saw only Ollie's colorful juice boxes, one pickle, and fewer than twelve eggs. This would never be enough.
We needed to buy groceries, but twenty dollars wouldn't cover what we needed. I felt completely stuck.
My anger grew stronger. Paul knew exactly how much money we had. I didn't have any secret savings hidden anywhere. He wanted to prove a point to me, but his plan was going to fail. Now I wanted to get back at him. I wanted to show him how hard my daily life really was. But I needed a plan.
I looked around our living room and noticed the glass display case. Paul kept his valuable old coins inside it. These coins meant everything to him. Each coin had a special story. Some belonged to his great-grandfather many years ago.
A sneaky idea came to me. Maybe I could use these coins to buy groceries and teach my husband an important lesson at the same time.
My heart beat faster as I walked to the glass case. I felt guilty about what I was planning, but I remembered our empty refrigerator and Paul's cruel challenge. My hands shook as I collected the coins. They felt cold and smooth in my hands. Every sound they made as I moved them reminded me that I was doing something wrong.
I pushed away my guilty feelings and hurried to the local antique store. I had always looked at this shop from outside but never went in before.
The shop owner was a thin man with a gray beard. He looked at the coins through a special glass that made them appear larger. I held my breath. Would he want to buy these coins? Then he spoke in a rough but friendly voice. "Seven hundred dollars," he said with bright eyes.
I felt so relieved I could finally breathe normally again. "I'll take it!" I said quickly, almost throwing the coins into his hands. But then I felt guilty again as I held the money. This wasn't just about getting revenge anymore. I was breaking Paul's trust. Still, I thought about my hungry children and kept going.
I felt excited as I went to the grocery store. I filled my cart with lots of fresh vegetables, enough meat for a whole week, and many snacks for the kids. Part of me enjoyed not worrying about prices, but another part felt sad about breaking Paul's trust.
When I got home, I put away all the groceries while listening to music. But I felt worried too. How would Paul react when he discovered his precious coins were gone?
I tried not to think about it and focused on the wonderful smell of chicken casserole cooking in the oven. Tonight we would eat like royalty!
Three days passed very slowly. Every minute felt like an hour. The house was too quiet without Paul's usual complaints or the children's constant questions. Just when I started feeling hopeless, I heard a car in our driveway.
I ran to the window and looked through the curtains. I saw Paul standing there, but something seemed very strange. He had a big, crazy smile on his face that didn't look normal for him. He carried two grocery bags filled with fresh vegetables and what appeared to be enough fruit for many people.
This wasn't what I expected to see. Something felt very odd. My heart beat fast as Paul almost danced to our front door while making happy sounds.
The door opened quickly and he rushed inside. "Iris, my dear!" he said very loudly, which wasn't like him at all. "You can't imagine the great prices I found! Fresh strawberries cost half the normal price, and look at these sweet mangoes!" He pushed the bags at me with wild, excited eyes.
I couldn't move. The grocery bags felt very heavy in my arms that had gone numb. "Paul..." I said with difficulty. He didn't listen to me. He started saying sorry over and over again, but his excitement seemed strange and worrying. He admitted he was wrong and cheap. He promised never to leave me without money again.
Then his eyes moved to the display case. His smile disappeared and fear appeared on his face instead. He walked slowly to the glass cabinet, taking one careful step at a time. I couldn't breathe properly. The quiet was terrifying. The sound of his shoes on the wooden floor was like a warning of something terrible about to happen. He reached out his hand and held it over the empty spot where his special coin collection used to be.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion. My eyes filled with tears and I couldn't see clearly. I felt ashamed, guilty, and very scared. Paul's happiness was completely gone. A cold stillness replaced it. He didn't shout or scream. He just fell to his knees and started crying while saying, "WHERE ARE MY COINS??"
This sound broke the terrible silence. I started apologizing many times, trying desperately to fix what I had broken. But Paul stayed quiet. His face showed deep pain that hurt my heart. He stood up without saying anything. His eyes looked empty and sad as he walked past me. When he reached the door, he turned around one final time and looked directly at me. His expression showed complete betrayal. It was like a silent scream that said everything.
Then he left quietly, closing the door with a soft click. Tears ran down my face. Each tear showed how much I regretted what I did. I had created this problem completely by myself, and now I had to solve it.
I rushed to the closest pawn shop. Under the bright white lights, I gave them my dead grandmother's ring. She had given me this special family treasure on my wedding day. The money I got for it was enough to buy back all the coins.
I ran back to the antique shop with the money held tightly in my wet hands. The bell above the door made a sound when I rushed inside. Luckily, the owner remembered me. "Do you need help again?" he asked while raising his thick eyebrows in surprise. My face turned red as I began to speak.
"I want to purchase those coins again."
The shop owner looked at me carefully with a smart expression in his eyes. "Purchase them again? You sold them to me just three days ago."
"Yes, I remember," I admitted while feeling embarrassed. "It's a complicated situation, but I made a stupid error." My voice broke. "I simply... I must have them back. Please."
The rough man became a little kinder. He looked at me for a long time, then made a tired sound. "Fine, here's what I'll do," he said. "Since you were the person who sold them originally, I'll reduce the price. But it won't cost the same amount you received for them."
I felt relief like a huge wave washing over me. "I accept that," I said with difficulty, as tears formed in my eyes again. "Whatever amount you want, I'll give it to you."
The sale happened quickly. Soon after, I held the familiar heaviness of the coins in my bag. My heart beat faster. Would this be sufficient to repair the damaged trust?
Walking home felt like a dream. Each second that passed seemed endless. When I arrived at our driveway, my stomach felt sick with worried feelings. The house was strangely quiet.
I approached the glass display case and placed the coins back where they belonged. After I completed this task, I smiled a little. "I succeeded!" I said out loud.
Paul came home and I faced him with my heart beating hard. "Look," I said quietly while pointing at the display case. "I brought them back!"
Nobody spoke for a long, uncomfortable time. Then one tear fell down Paul's face.
"Iris," he said at last with a rough voice. "We must have a conversation."
The worried feeling in my stomach got worse. "Yes," I said with difficulty while tears formed in my eyes once more. "We must."
We spent many hours talking that evening. We discussed our angry feelings, our hidden wants, and the large gap that had developed between us over time. The discussion was honest, hurtful, and finally, needed.
There were no simple solutions. Trust, once damaged, requires time and work to fix. But as we sat together, holding each other, a weak calmness came between us. The trouble with the coins had started something important. It was a warning that made us face the problems in our marriage. We discovered a difficult truth — talking openly, not getting revenge, is what makes a marriage strong.
That day taught me that disagreements and fights will always happen, but solving them matters more than making them worse. All families experience difficulties that challenge their bond and ultimately make them stronger. I discovered how important trust is in a relationship. I promised myself never to question my husband's faithfulness again, even as a joke.
People often say "a happy wife makes a happy life," but both people in a relationship deserve to feel joy. In a good partnership, happiness should be something both people share, not something only one person wins.
The days after our talk were spent rebuilding our marriage piece by piece. This work was slow and difficult, but we both wanted to make our relationship succeed. We understood that a successful marriage isn't a place you reach, but a path you walk - a path we decided to take together, holding each other's hands.
Here's another story: Josephine discovered a simple bottle of men's hair product in her bathroom. She didn't expect this small item would expose a surprising secret about her hairless husband and destroy their marriage of twenty years.
This story comes from real experiences and actual people, but details have been changed for storytelling reasons. Names, people, and events have been altered to keep privacy and make the story better. Any similarity to real people, alive or dead, or real events is completely accidental and not meant by the writer.
The writer and publisher do not guarantee the truth of events or how people are shown and cannot be blamed for any wrong understanding. This story comes "as it is," and any views shared belong to the characters and do not show what the writer or publisher believes.
