Tchaikovsky tells us as much in a letter he wrote his sister Alexandra Davydova during his honeymoon: After three days with them in the country, I begin to see that everything I can't stand in my wife derives from her belonging to a completely weird family, where the mother was always arguing with the father—and now, after his death, does not hesitate to malign his memory in every way possible.

[2]Antonina first met Tchaikovsky in 1865 at the Moscow home of a common friend, Anastasia Khvostova, a well-known singer.

By June 1877, Tchaikovsky proposed marriage, in order (according to one theory) to please his family and put to rest any social rumors regarding his sexual orientation.

She wrote, "I would look at him surreptitiously, so he didn't notice, and admire him enormously, especially during morning tea.

Now he is my husband, no one can take him away from me ...'"[7] Antonina reacted negatively to her separation from Tchaikovsky, which his brother Anatoly confirmed to her would be permanent.

He did so with a bluntness and "cruel precision of expression," Anatoly later recalled to Nikolay Kashkin, that "made me go hot and cold.

He headed back to St. Petersburg and made arrangements to take his brother on a prolonged tour of Western Europe.

Kashkin, in his retelling of the incident, characterized Antonina's behavior as indicative of mental imbalance.

[citation needed] Antonina believed she was the victim of a family conspiracy to end the marriage.

She wrote, "We were separated by constant whispering to Pyotr Ilyich that family life would kill his talent.

She also believed that Tchaikovsky's collapse, which immediately preceded their separation, was caused by stress from his obligations to her and his music.

I accompanied him to the mail train; his eyes were wandering, he was nervous, but I was so far in my thoughts from any trouble already hanging over my head.

Before the first bell he had a spasm in his throat and went alone with jerky irregular steps to the station to drink some water.

He then traveled to Moscow, accompanied by Nikolai Rubinstein, to ask Antonina to consent to a divorce.

After finding Tchaikovsky verging on a nervous breakdown, Anatoly summoned a mental specialist.

Due to laws regarding divorce in Imperial Russia, the two remained legally married until Tchaikovsky's death.

[citation needed] Antonina may have helped fuel Tchaikovsky's fear of public exposure by her unpredictable behavior.

[citation needed] Tchaikovsky himself insisted to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, "My wife, whatever she may be, is not to be blamed for my having driven the situation to the point where marriage became necessary.

For the most part, these were generals, nephews of prominent bankers, well-known artists, even members of the imperial family.

"[13] "Next," he continued to von Meck, "she would no less frequently, and with a sort of inexplicable passion, describe to me the vices, the cruel and base actions and detestable behavior of all her relatives, with every of whom, it turned out, she is in enmity.

[citation needed] He also said that her memoirs revealed a woman devoted to the memory of her husband, an appreciation of his greatness, and the vague feeling of an enormous misunderstanding having taken place between them.

On the contrary, the genuineness of the intonation, the idiosyncratic style, and the wealth of detail all attest its authenticity.