fotoboh889

Indeed, in the scenario above I would also choose the "strong relationships" option as well, at least even if you ended up breaking up with them you could expect them to treat you with basic loyalty, honesty and respect. I mean, even JA, who was supposed to be DH's enemy and to deceive and frame him, treated him with more loyalty and respect than his own wife, even revealing the affair against her own interest because she couldn't tolerate to see him continue being deceived and treated like a fool. And this was someone that was essentially a paid spy doing what she was doing because she wanted to protect her own family. In fact, JA was loyal to him, despite it coming at great personal cost. Compare that with YH, spitting decades and a child together, deceiving and betraying him, plus everything else she did, when she could have very easily broken up with him like her own sister in law did with his brother, and as DH fully expected her to do, as he had every right to. Again, wanting to split up in no way implies one would or should feel inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect, that's a complete non sequitur. The choice is a no-brainer.

Agreed, it would be a complete no-brainer.

A no brainer, really ;)

Yes, it definitely was ;)

Quite frankly, I think that Liberation Notes, from the same writer, also depicted a similar situation very realistically, and in the latter's case there was not even a full blown conspiracy against FL, as is the case in MM's case with ML.

Wouldn't want to be in DH's shoes in that situation ;)

She wasn't really "discussing" with her spouse, she was attacking him and pretending he change his entire outlook on family and friends, which he had always been open about. DH tried to explain that his love for the rest of his family didn't mean he loved her any less, a trivially simple point that one was fully entitled to expect her to grasp, given that, being a mother, she ought to know that filial love does not detract from romantic love. But very clearly, he could have repeated that until he was blue in the face without making it any dent. Quite frankly, YH's pattern of wanting to monopolize her partner's attention was evident even in the relationship she had with her lover, where she attacked him in very similar ways she did DH and actually, where it seemed like she was going for a speed run of her own relationship with DH and was evident to me that they would have ended up in the same place (had he been willing to go ahead and marry her, which he was not). So, really, more than a partner she needed a therapist. Because very clearly, to quote Astrid from Crazy, Rich Asians, it was not DH's job to change himself to pander to her irrational insecurities. It's not as if he had cheated on her and she was now insecure and mistrustful due to some rational reason. She felt petty jealousy at the fact that he had family and friends with whom he had a very deep bond, and more importantly, wanted him to distance himself from them for her own irrational insecurities. But this was not someone that DH had cheated on her with, where one could understand her not wanting him to see them any more, hating them or feeling jealous or insecure. Or an ex boyfriend that had hurt her or cheated on her, and so DH wanting to spend time with them led her to questioning his character and care for her (as if he wanted to spend time with the money lender that hurt JA, for example). Or someone which she despised because of their character and that she didn't consider trustworthy, and didn't want DH to spend time with. But the only reason she hated them was because DH loved them. And they are his family and friends. Frankly, if one closed their eyes and removed the context, listening to her one would think that it was DH the one that was having a full blown affair.

Indeed, he met him while cleaning.

I do think that trying to consider the opposite perspective is illuminating.

Yes, it was a very clear distinction.

Agreed

It's clear from the context, but these are two distinct money lenders, namely the father and the son.

I frankly couldn't sympathize at all with YH: in part because I find anyone that wouldn't feel instinctively repulsed at the very idea of even considering deceiving their partner for a year while betraying them with their boss (who she knew he hated with a passion, and who was willing to fire him, not that she was willing to leave him over that fact, but then again if she was able to have such a normal reaction she wouldn't have been having an affair with him in the first place), let alone everything else YH did, to be essentially garbage. And in part because I think that that she essentially was the cause of her own unhappiness (and, more importantly given that he was the victim of her betrayal, DH's): DH had never hidden what he thought about friends and family, and she pretended to accept that, and his family and friends, while biding her time and trying to manipulate him into adopting her outlook.

Then she blamed him because he wouldn't let him change him. This is something that she explicitly stated, with no apparent awareness of how appalling and self absorbed/self entitled it sounded. Obviously, he was under no obligation to change his core values because she wanted him to. No, not because she did him favors (and the fact that they were not done out of genuine care for him, without expecting anything in return, but with an ulterior motive, as a way to get on his good side so he would let her manipulate and influence him, is if possible even more appalling). DH never asked her or wanted her to change for him, he didn't even complain when he was made to feel abandoned, because he knew that her career was important to her and he wanted to support her in any way he could. And it is absolutely right that he did not, though it would have probably been good for him to at least express his feelings and maybe propose a middle ground (after all, as far as he knew she was missing her own niece's wedding and didn't even bother to make a phone call, though of course she was not really on a business trip, but was meeting with her lover... point being that, despite being disappointed in that -when he checked the phone and didn't see her call, it was rather evident-, he swallowed his pain in silence -there was also some embarrassment about his brothers' behavior and he didn't want to humiliate them-... compare this with her attacking her lover in the first episode over motives that closely mirrored her own arguments with DH, questioning his care and love for her because she couldn't monopolize his attention at all times), but relying more on his friends was imho an acceptable solutions given that she was not at home, and in the end he was not the one complaining and raising the issue.

Anyway, the point being that he would have had no right to just expect her to change something central about her, her core values, such as her desire to have a career, just like DH would have had no right to expect JA to change her outlook regarding her grandma, or how, by the same token, YH had no right to expect him to change his whole outlook on friends and family... but she, not him, was the one complaining, and, again, it would be one thing to split up over it, but it wouldn't in any way imply that it would or should make them inclined to treat their partners with no loyalty, honesty and respect... but anyway, obviously marrying someone while not accepting them and planning to change something as central to them as the role of family and friends is a recipe for disaster... if she couldn't accept what his family and friends meant to him, she shouldn't have married him, or should have divorced him over the difference in values, though personally I think that she could have benefited from working on fixing her irrational insecurities and become emotionally independent, maybe even get a friend group of her own and not expect to just monopolize her lover's attention at all times... that was really controlling and possessive, and imho she did it both to DH and to her lover, and her affair would have morphed into something similar to what she had with DH in record time).

On the contrary, I found it absolutely natural to sympathize with the victims of betrayal and horrific abuse, rather than victim blame or engage in some kind of moral inversion, let alone sympathize for the ones deliberately betraying and abusing them. Plus it's simply natural to side with the underdog, rather than those deceiving, betraying or hurting them for self serving reasons. So, DH being betrayed and deceived while trying to do his best to support his family, and JA being threatened and pushed into crime in order to protect her grandma. I feel no sympathy for the money lender, despite him losing his father: to me his sob story didn't work and I didn't find him any more acceptable after his last minute turn around. Useful? Yes. Also too little and too late: there is nothing he could do to undo what he had done to JA and her family. A last minute change does not make up for years of vicious physical abuse and all the rest. And he had no right to hurt JA for defending her own family from his horrific father. He could have easily chosen another option and in fact one had every right to expect him to. Plus he was a genuine criminal. JA though? She was pushed into crime by the money lender, because he was threatening her family. YH too could have easily chosen another option. Her own sister in law was separated from DH's brother, and YH was a lawyer. DH would have been more than ready to divorce her and had every right to expect her to be upfront with him and honestly break up with him.

I simply won't conflate a deliberate betrayal and deception, like YH's, with DH being unwilling to change something core about his values such as the role of family and friends in his life, or to simply stand alone in an empty house because she was irrationally jealous of his other family and friends, and somehow she didn't consider a woman that helped raise her own kid, DH's mother, to be part of their family. That would be, to me, like DH pretending that JA stopped considering her grandma family and distanced herself from her for the sake of his own irrational insecurities. It would be a non starter.

I also won't conflate those easily avoidable deliberate acts, for self serving reasons to boot (the money lender could have simply not abused JA, rather than routinely beaten her and threatened her family, YH could have simply been honest with DH and separated from him like her own sister in law did with his brother, rather than deceived him for a year and counting, and betrayed him with his own worst enemy, plus everything else she did) with JA being pushed into a corner and forced into crime because she was threatened by the money lender and she wanted to protect her family.

As for DH being asked to distance himself from family and friends, I saw that, again, as analogous as JA being asked to distance herself from family. Which they valued for some very similar reasons: DH's mom raised him and his brothers after their father's death, and JA's grandma was her only family after her parent's death. Seeing how central they were to their lives and trying to separate them over petty, irrational jealousy would in both cases be appalling in my eyes, for self evident reasons. And, notably, neither JA (who shared DH's outlook on family) to his younger brother's girlfriend, despite not being part of the neighborhood group originally, had any problem with them, showcasing how welcoming the group was (imho they were very much welcoming towards YH as well at DH's party). So YH's petty jealousy and irrational insecurities, and inability to appreciate that there was something precious in such relationships, was not a given. And imho there definitely was something precious, and it was made very clear both to JA, etc. and to the viewer. They would have gone through thick and thin for DH, and were ready to get in trouble with the police to cover for him after the fight with the moneylender.

Regarding the hope that YH went to the US because it's what DH wanted, and not an example of YH being self serving again and vanishing at the one moment where YH needed all the help he could get going through this, I agree on the point, including the part that it would be more coherent with the character arcs.

Note that this does not mean that they should still be together: if he wanted her to, she could be there for him non romantically (again, if he wanted her to; of course, what I am saying is that he shouldn't want her to, and she should respect his wishes in that case, rather than overstep her boundaries and force her presence on him.

I mean, it's not as if there is no precedent of the latter: she didn't give him space (and time) to process and deal with his emotions away from her, leaning on his friends, after her betrayal, which she knew he had learned about, gaslighting him for it when he was the one that proposed a compromise that she spurned, and she had already acknowledged his loneliness at her absence: this came at a time when he had to turn around when he saw her car downstairs because he needed space and couldn't cope with her presence.

But yes, if he had needed her, as someone that he had known for decades and the mother of his child, to be there for him, in a non romantic fashion. I won't say "as a friend", because I don't think she should be his friend for the same reasons she shouldn't be his wife or partner: because she had shown herself to be completely unworthy of his trust and loyalty, by breaking his trust and being utterly disloyal. Compare this to the behavior of literally everyone else of his friends and family, who have always been completely loyal and would have gone through thick and thin with him, and did. Even risking to get in trouble with the police to cover for him after the fight with the money lender. Which really shows that DH had made the right choice when he refused to distance himself from them for YH's irrational insecurities, as he would thrown aside their utmost loyalty for someone that would be willing to treat him with no loyalty, honesty and respect.