Muscovites Irina Zhivova and Ksenia Kalaberda filed for divorce from their spouses, having been married for more than ten years. The reason, according to them, was the betrayal of their husbands, regular insults, and in one case - even assault. Having abandoned the claims to the property acquired in marriage, Irina, nevertheless, was left with her ex-husband's mortgage debt. Ksenia through the court is trying to regain the right to see the children, and her ex-husband, in turn, wants to keep the children for herself and force her ex-wife to pay alimony. RT learned the details of the family stories of both women.
"They don't leave me"
Ksenia Kalaberda came to work in Moscow from Mogilev. With a diploma as a teacher of English and German, the girl got a job as an assistant-translator in a company that was engaged in metro equipment. She was trained, she was quickly promoted, but then the girl met and began to meet with Sergei. Two years later, the couple decided to get married.
After the birth of her eldest daughter Ira in 2009, the young mother went on maternity leave. Then the three-year-old girl had a younger sister, Anya. Ksenia had to quit her job to take care of children. In the meantime, the husband was promoted, he moved to the investment firm "ATON" as a leading lawyer. A third child appeared in the family - the son of Vova.
Ksenia recovered for a long time after each pregnancy - she gave birth to all children through the "cesarean".
“In a little over five years, I gave birth to three children. She spent ten years of marriage on maternity leave, - the mother of many children calculated. - No wonder they didn't want to hire me anywhere. And Seryozha kept saying, they say, why do you need to work, you have everything."
Kalaberda recalls that with the birth of his son, relations in the family completely went wrong - the husband no longer hid his betrayal from his wife and, according to Xenia, repeated that he needed a woman who would appreciate him more.
“He told me in plain text“They don’t leave me!”. And when I did file for divorce, he simply "disconnected" me from all accounts and cards, - added Kalaberda. - The real nightmare began when he took the children to his mother in Krasnoyarsk, and left me alone with an empty refrigerator and without a penny. Financial and psychological abuse ".
The spouses managed to sign a prenuptial agreement, according to which Xenia, after the divorce, would have received 25% of the property acquired over almost 14 years of marriage. During this time, Sergey Kalaberda managed to buy three apartments, including the one in which the whole family lived until recently, and a new one-room apartment, where Ksenia's maternal capital was invested. But in court, it turned out that the contract was invalid until the couple divorced.
Every day the situation was getting more and more tense, continues Ksenia: “He began to kick me out of our apartment. When we were standing on the balcony, I asked to let me pass, and he replied, "Come out the window!"
The couple's visits to the family psychologist, according to the woman, gave Sergei a reason to declare in court that she had mental problems and to request a sanity examination.
The judge ordered an examination of all family members, the divorce procedure was suspended. Because of this, Ksenia could not file a claim for alimony - after all, nominally, she and her husband are still married.
The woman moved out of the apartment in which she lived with her husband and children, rented another apartment and got a job.
“Sergei is going to file a counterclaim against me: according to the logic of my husband, I should pay him alimony for the children from whom he separated me! He needs them because shares in one of the apartments are written on them. And not to pay me anything. But is there really no merit in my stepping into the shadows and raising our children while he was building a career and earning his millions? - Xenia is indignant.
The examination at the Serbsky National Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Narcology is scheduled for the end of December. Ksenia Kalaberda hopes that she will be recognized as sane, she will receive a divorce, and the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow will still allow her to see her daughters and her son.
Family manager
Irina Zhivova's story began almost in the same way as Ksenia's. She had known her future husband Eugene since her student days, they got married when both were just finishing their studies. The couple were involved in marketing and advertising. Before the birth of her eldest daughter Alisa, Irina managed to work in an international cosmetics company, from where she went on maternity leave.
“My daughter was a welcome and long-awaited child,” recalls Irina Zhivova. “Zhenya was in a hurry from work to personally bathe Alice and be with her.”
The young mother worked from home as an event organizer. But after the birth of Varya's youngest daughter, there was no time left for that either. In addition to raising children, Irina organized all family trips, holidays, and shopping. At the same time, only the husband was in charge of finances in their family. According to the woman, the more money they got, the more vigilant Eugene watched what his wife spends her earnings on.
“I began to receive remarks even for buying clothes for my daughters: why are you buying again, why is it so expensive?” - she wonders.
When Irina was hospitalized for a month with an intervertebral hernia, then, as the woman recalls, instead of words of sympathy, she received only a reprimand from her husband, who had to pay for the expensive treatment and rehabilitation of his wife.
“I could not even walk, even get out of bed,” Zhivova says. - Almost paralyzed, crying with fear, and he declares to me that he already looks after the children, pays the bills. And I can leave my "shusi-pusi" for someone else."
Health problems continued. Irina suffered a miscarriage, and while on vacation in Austria she suffered a complex leg fracture and walked on crutches for almost six months.
“By that time, I was already a being who considers himself helpless and useless. My holy, reliable husband took me under his wing, and without him life will simply crush me, - the woman recalls her thoughts at that moment, - And all the time, I, ungrateful, do not appreciate him and what he does for me."
While Irina was recovering from operations, Eugene began to cheat on her. When Zhivova found out about this, she decided to file for divorce. The couple signed a prenuptial agreement, according to which the woman gave up her half of the property. She admitted that she agreed to such conditions only so as not to pay the almost five million dollar debt for one of the apartments that Zhivov bought while they were married. However, the document did not help her: her ex-husband had all the real estate and the car, and she had a huge mortgage debt.
Irina offered the ex-spouse, with whom they have not lived together for more than three years, to conclude an amicable agreement: the woman refuses any claims, but the husband pays alimony, which is spent only and exclusively on the children, and the remainder goes to their account. The children, as Irina suggested, could live with their mother for a week, and another week with their father.
Instead of trying to come to an agreement, Eugene, according to Irina, unexpectedly came to their house and made a scandal. During a quarrel, the man took away the woman's phone and tried to prevent the eldest daughter from calling the police.
“He practically threw me into the wall so that I could let him pass. I grabbed my daughter and started shaking,”Zhivova recalls.
Irina posted photos of the bruises received on social networks, she also recorded them in the emergency room.
"Both are hurting each other"
Ksenia's husband Sergei Kalaberda did not answer calls from an RT correspondent. In turn, the ATON company stated that they are aware of the situation in the family.
“We are aware of the situation in the family of Sergei Kalaberda, but we do not consider ourselves entitled to give any assessment before an official decision is made. At the moment, the divorce proceedings are ongoing. This is a lot of stress, especially for children. We believe that ensuring their well-being and safety is most important in this situation, the press service of the ATON investment company told RT.
Irina's ex-husband Yevgeny Zhivov also did not respond to calls and messages from the correspondent. But in the press center of Alfa-Capital, where the man was listed, RT was told that board member Yevgeny Zhivov had been fired.
"The management company Alfa-Capital shares family values and considers violence unacceptable in any of its manifestations," the organization added.
According to family psychologist Yevgeny Korchmarek, the situation when the husband is in control of the finances, and the wife is at home with the children, does not necessarily end in the same way as for Ksenia or Irina. Women make the decision to become housewives with a successful spouse for various reasons, he said.
“Some are happy to be out of work. This is a "golden cage", but it is comfortable in it. An adult and psychologically mature woman will not initially agree to this. But if the husband prevents his wife from going to work, this is already a wake-up call,”the expert says in an interview with RT.
Cases when fathers use children to influence their wives are rather an exception: more often mothers behave this way, notes Korchmarek. But this does not depend on gender: purely statistically, the court often leaves children with their mother.
“There is no such thing that, on average, in a hospital, one sex behaves worse than the other. The methods are a little different, but both of them hurt each other,”added the psychologist.
Concluding a prenuptial agreement in such conflict situations can help, but only partially, experts say.
“The document has legal force, it is practically impossible to challenge it in court. As you have agreed with each other, so live. Moreover, amendments to the Family Code will soon be adopted, according to which it will not be possible to dispute even the fact that one of the spouses was in deliberately losing conditions under the contract, '' Irina Zhivovoy's lawyer, a specialist in family law, Victoria Dergunova, explained to RT. - But due to discrepancies in some points, problems may arise: the position of one of the spouses may in fact turn out to be worse than it might seem on paper. For example, if, as in the case of Irina, we are talking about financial debt. In addition, the marriage contract does not prescribe with whom and how the children will live. This is a document that concerns only the property relations between husband and wife."
