kovove5116

Indeed

yep

yup

DH's younger brother and his sister in law were always in YH's corner. DH's older brother was in her corner even after he discovered her horrific betrayal (he shouldn't have been, I can only rationalize this as him trying to avoid a divorce, though I have to be in 100% agreement with DH's younger brother, who correctly and absolutely appropriately did a 180 where YH is concerned, and tell DH to just leave her and be done with it).

DH's mother helped raise YH's child, which allowed her to focus on her career. Not family? Okay. She is supposed to lick YH's shoes because of her filthy money? When YH merely did some favors transactionally, essentially love-bombing manipulation to get DH to leave her and his brothers, and his friends? I think not. YH does not have any genuine interest in them, it would be perfectly warranted for them to return the favor, the extraordinary thing is that they do not, and that them and DH's friends are so welcoming towards her (think of DH's party, or of the way they think of her when DH is beaten up, etc.), apart from his younger brother who, having defended her so strenuously in the past, obviously feels betrayed, as he should, and now couldn't think any lower of her. Frankly, even DH's trundere mother very obviously cared about YH visiting, and she was very happy when she did after YH went to meet DH's brothers to verify his alibi (after avoiding going to see them before, like in ep 7 and certainly in ep 1... well, her only care was to manipulate DH, after all).

Frankly, DH's mom, like YH's sister in law and DH' s brother, had every right to dislike YH for telling DH they are not his family (even after DH's mom helped raise her kids) and trying to get him to distance himself from them, and, for that matter, make excuses to skip important family meetings and force DH to justify her absence, and not even bother to call, like when she skipped *her own nieces*'s wedding to spend the day with her lover, and didn't even bother to call. This is the daughter of her sister in law, who treat YH's son as family.

Frankly, the astonishing thing is that YH is the one that claims to hate DH's friends, etc., while they don't reciprocate. And why does she hate them? Because DH loves them. And she is jealous. This is... messed up, to use an euphemism. It's insane to consider this reasonable.

Quite frankly, the most one can say is that DH's mom is old fashioned. But she was ready to mortage the house, rather than ask YH for money. And she, like everyone else, would have certainly done without any favors at all, if they knew how she betrayed DH. It might seem impossible to comprehend to YH and anyone that would be so flippant about, and normalize, her betrayal, but in life there are more important things than one's filthy money, and one of them is not betraying your family, which YH does, completely. Again, the question is not unhappiness: DH was much more unhappy. The question is why she felt it was okay to treat him that way, or at least didn't care enough not to do it. She knew he was suffering terribly and still trying to do his best, and she betrayed him completely, even joking about it with her lover. And did this while lying to his face for a year. To treat that as not only normal, but expected, as if this is something anyone would automatically do... what, if they were unhappy?... it's so self serving and self absorbed to be frankly sociopathic/psychopathic. I mean, the lowest of the low. And we have the counterexample in the drama: DH was much more unhappy, and she was not only betraying him and deceiving him, and doing so with someone he hated, and that was actively trying to ruin him, but never even considered doing anything even remotely close to YH's complete betrayal. I mean, we are talking about someone that was able to confront her lover about not wanting to marry her even while reeling from the mental images of them being together after finding her glove. This was someone that took care of her and fed her porridge when she recovered from the breakup, despite knowing of her affair. That proposed a compromise even after knowing of her betrayal, despite being at a point where he had to physically turn around and walk away when he saw her car parked downstairs, and more than deserving some space and time away from her to sort out his feelings.... and after she attacked him about his friends and his care, when she was the one that had been sleeping with his hated boss behind his back, and missing important family events without even a phone call, and when confronted admitted that yes, she was never there... but she wanted him to stand there alone in an empty house, because she was jealous he would lean on his support group, his other friends, his family? Insane. I mean, she admits that he was right, that she was absent and he never complained, but suffered in silence and then, for that reason, spent more time with his brothers, etc., but nitpicked and spurned his compromise without never offering a compromise of her own.

And no, "let's physically separate you from family and friends" is not a compromise.

And no, it' shouldn't have been only him the one to want to meet her half way, particularly given that he was not the one that raised the problem in the first place. I mean, he didn't complain, he put up with her absences. And yet, even after her betrayal, he would have compromised. She was not okay with anything else than unconditional surrender, and nitpicked/rejected/never came up with a counter offer.

This is not reasonable. He never complained, and he was the only one to offer to meet half way, even after her betrayal. And she rejected it and nitpicked, and never, never offered to meet him half way. She wanted him to change his core values, and to distance himself from family and friends because she was irrationally insecure. That's not a compromise.

Family, etc. were non negotiable for DH. And it was 100% right for them to be non negotiable, just like JA's grandma is a non negotiable for her. He never hid this from YH, she pretended to be okay with it, while wanting to manipulate him. Quite frankly, this was 100% YH's doing: she married DH without accepting his relationship with his family and friends and instead of working out a compromise with him (again, he never complained, she did, and given that it would have made absolute sense for her to be the one to think of and propose a compromise, yet he was the only one we see offering a compromise, even after being betrayed completely... let's be clear, telling him to distance himself from family and friend or insulting his core values and making him feel wrong is not a compromise, it's a non starter... this is not someone that wants to meet the other person half way... contrast this with DH trying to explain to him that love is not a competition and that it's possible to love one's mother and brothers without it taking away from the love for one's partner, something that, given YH was a mother, she shouldn't have needed him to explain), and made herself miserable, while piling the blame squarely on him -and that she had an affair, where she was, at one point, working to get her husband out of a job, while planning to divorce him as well.

This is basically a paraphrase of kfangirl's point in her review: YH brought all of her problems on herself and dragged DH down along with her. She couldn't accept him as he was, nor his relationship to family and friends, and thought she could be happy only if she could change him. If that was the case, she shouldn't have married him.She knew of his relationship with family and friends. She should have been ready to be a part of them too, like JA or DH's younger brother's gf (or his older brother's wife, but she was someone from the neighbour, while the other two are not, so maybe they are better examples of how welcoming they were if one genuinely wanted to fit in... or even if they didn't, given their warm welcome of YH at DH's party, etc, and even from DH's famliy, despite her ghosting them... even his mom was tsudere but clearly cared about her).

YH is short and impatient with DH, and I have to say that I kind of disagree with kfangirl because while she changed her tune after she knew he knew, she still had awful moments where she was attacking him, even despite that. As if she couldn't help herself, as if abusing him was a habit. The change was too little and too late, frankly. I don't know if I agree with the notion that her tears were always more about herself rather than about how she had hurt DH... but I do think that she was remarkably self serving and self absorbed... and I do wonder about the counterfactual where her lover merely tried to get DH fired, as she knew he did, but didn't lie to her about camping. I mean, we are at that level. I do think that JA being essentially hired to be DH's enemy and still being unable to betray him when she saw that he was so kind and he didn't deserve it and she couldn't bring herself to do it... I mean, when you claim to be someone's only family, and betray them completely, as someone that was supposed to be on his side, your partner and your child's father, and someone you have known for decades that you know would have never done to you anything comparable to what you did to him... and conversely, someone that had every reason to be DH's enemy stood in his corner and fought for him, at great personal expense... I mean, I don't know how shameless one would have to be for that not to hit home, even partially. And yes, YH was very shameless. To pretend otherwise and try to normalize and be flippant about her complete betrayal and awful behavior, says more about the character of the one making the statement, than about the reality of her character. And what it says is rather unflattering.


The show let the character's actions speak for themselves, and presented their perspective, letting the viewer make up their own mind. To me, all three of the above are low lives. I hear their arguments/perspective. They are still low lives, to me being able to do what they did is unthinkably revolting, utterly unnecessary and easily avoidable.

The show presents both YH's and DH's perspective, and makes it perfectly clear that it's not as if DH's perspective is "wrong": he has his values, and he stands by it, at no point is hi converted to the opinion that he should distance himself from his family and friends, in fact the last we hear about the topic is him trying, for the umpteenth time, to point out to her the self evident fact that love is not a competition and that his love for his family does not detract from his love for her.

Let's be perfectly clear: the simple fact that YH was unhappy does not mean that DH not choosing to adopt her view on family means he is mistreating her. They have different views on the matter, and frankly I consider his less crazy than hers by far (I mean, the notion that one's mother and brothers shouldn't be considered family, particularly if you have a background that explains perfectly well why you are close to them, as in this case, and as in JA's case with her grandma, seems crazy, as well as the notion that someone like DH's mom, who helped raise their kid, shouldn't be considered part of the family... or YH's own niece, for that matter).

It's not as if DH is not listening to her: he is listening, he disagrees, and is trying to convince her that he loves her, but telling her in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want to change his views on family, nor should he need to.

Worth noting that YH basically pretended to be okay with his views on family, which she knew of from the get go, and did him favors thinking that then she would be able to mold his perspective in what she wanted it to be, and got angry when she couldn't manipulate him as she wanted. "Love bombing" and "gaslighting" at its finest. She also wanted to distance him from family and friends not because she didn't like them -she had never been interested in getting to know them-, but because she didn't like that he liked them, because she was jealous of them due to irrational insecurities.

In other words, if the notion is that YH has "good reason" to consider herself "not treated well" on accounts of DH rejecting her manipulation, because of as bad a reason as her being convinced that having such strong attachments to his family and friends means he doesn't care about her, despite his perfectly reasonable protestations to the contrary, due to some irrational insecurities, then I would have to disagree. She was simply not owed that, and frankly more than with DH, she should talk with a therapist (she was displaying similar controlling tendencies with her lover as well in ep1).

If we are talking about them not spending time together and feeling lonely, I would have to point out that it's a two way street. DH was feeling lonely and abandoned as well, because he had to come back to an empty house, and when she was there she was always in her study and he just stood there and couldn't even raise the TV volume because he didn't want to disturb her. He obviously suffered because of that, but didn't want to bother her because he wanted to support her in her work, and so he put up with it in silence. So, instead of spending time alone, he leaned more onto his family and friends. She then attacked him (in a massively unfair way, given that she had been having an affair with his hated evil boss behind his back, so she should have been the last person to question anyone's love and commitment), and when he pushed back she backpedaled to "it's a vicious cycle"... how convenient.

Here, frankly, while I do think that they both could have done better in terms of communication (him by being more open about the way she was hurting him, and her by not attacking him and giving him the benefit of the doubt, and actually listening to him), I would have to say that this is really not the cone of their disagreement, that being the family issue described above. Also worth noting that the only one that actually proposed a compromise was DH, and he even did so after she had an affair (and when he was so hurt that he at one point had to physically turn away from the apartment when he saw her car parked below). He would have clearly been willing to compromise. She had the gall to nitpick his offer, without proposing a counteroffer of her own, despite the whole context of her having an affair behind his back. She never proposed an actual compromise, her "solution" would have been to physically separate him from family and friends by moving somewhere else (away from his elderly mother, who they had moved closer explicitly in order to take care of her, might I add). Obviously this wouldn't have fixed the problem, because as can be seen from the relationship with his coworkers, DH was someone that needed to be part of a larger community, while YH wanted to monopolize his attention in order to feel like she was his top priority at all times (again, the massive hypocrisy of pretending that he was her top priority after manipulating him, betraying and deceiving him in the worst way possible, and never even attempting to genuinely accept his view on family and friends as she merely pretended to do... at least DH was always honest about the fact that he wouldn't budge on the issue, while she pretended to be okay, and then tried to do him some transactional favors thinking she could then manipulate him into giving up his core values).

Frankly, while DH was not perfect, from the above imho it's clear that YH was much more guilty of whatever she accused him of: they were both lonely, but she was the only one lashing out at him because of it, and unless one was insane, they would have to agree that she had given him much more reasons to doubt her love and commitment that the other way around. I also would have to say that it's rather appalling that she would actually want him to stand there in an empty apartment rather than be with his friends, just because if he is alone she wouldn't have to deal with her irrational feelings of jealousy. So, instead of actually dealing with her possessiveness, she would like him to be miserable? That's not love.

The rest was frankly a bunch of things where she either accused him without listening to his perfectly good explanations, or had done much worse herself, or just really appallingly petty stuff.

Frankly, it was atrocious to see her nitpick his actions and question his care and commitment, when she was having an affair with his evil boss behind his back, and therefore it should have been exactly the other way around: him questioning her love and commitment.

And, as another example, he was honest when he said that he didn’t disclose the job thing because he was worried about what would happen (in particular the boss’ reaction, he was afraid that he would do something crazy). He had only mentioned it to his brothers because he wanted to reassure them about the work issue, and then the others heard it through the gravepine, and since she never bothered to actually get to know his friends, she was late to learn about it through the gravepine (but heard about it exactly like everyone else). Honestly, what right does she have to question him when she was hiding much more pertinent facts, from her affair to the fact that the boss tried/was trying to frame him, to JA? Not to mention that, quite frankly, DH had made sure to ask the boss during their confrontation and he therefore knows that his wife knew the truth about the bribe stuff, so basically when he went to ask her for help, she told him she couldn’t do anything, and then went to rat him off to her lover, and tried to “probe” DH for info about the money. This is just to say that he has more than enough reason, in terms of his worries over the boss doing something crazy/unexpected, to fear that telling YH might not be the smartest idea: she has not exactly proven herself to be loyal and trustworthy, and she hasn’t given him many reasons to trust her with anything. Plus she was hiding much more massive and consequential information.

As an aside, in term of her consprining to get him out of a job, he was also clued in by the fact that she had tried to get him out of a job, and then very strangely stopped when her relationship with her lover turned sour… he is not an idiot, he knows that she is self servingly attempting to convince him to take on a big risk and mortage his house in order to get him out of a job, because him being at the company would have been inconvenient for the two lovers and she wanted to make herself feel better, though changing the optics wouldn’t change the fact that he would be out of a job, in debt, at a time where he had to support his family and was therefore pressured by the circumstances to stay at the company, without the money and experience and confidence and contacts and reputation he would later acquire working at a higher level at his current company, in a context where he is being suppressed and the CEO’s lackeys certainly weren’t looking forward to give him got references (if they didn’t want to outright mess with him), and when he was almost suicidally depressed… add to that discovering the relationship between his wife and evil boss right at the critical start up time: this was a disaster waiting to happen, and a disaster that he not only had very good reasons to worry about (he had seen plenty of failed businesses, many of the neighbours were previously competent and employed in the relevant sectors, his own brother had more experience in terms of business and failed as well… plus if the job market was such that one could get a job at a comparable company without issues, nobody of their team woudl be staying there letting themselves get abused. And he was worried about his employees as well, which YH didn’t consider. Plus the notion of taking out a loan and a mortgage on the house… he had more than enough reasons to be hesitant.

This is not the same situation as in the future, where his brothers are back on their feet, and he has the money, confidence, skills and contacts to succeed, and you cannot use the future to predict an outcome in the past. In any case, the point is that 1) it should have been his decision about a key part of his life, and it should have been an informed decision, she was pressuring to take on risk and debt for self serving reasons, when she didn’t have the right to make that decision for him or manipulate him into making that decision with incomplete information… she just wanted to improve the optics of the situation while still, at the end of the day, getting him out of a job at his own risk, because it would have been more convenient for her and her lover, and 2) if we are talking about fairness, obviously there is no universe in which his boss has an affair with his wife behind his back, and he is the one that on top of being horrifically betrayed and deceived has to lose his job for the two lovers’ self serving reasons, because it would be more convenient for him to be out of the company. Of course, she later even told JA that she didn’t even care if DH was framed because she wasn’t there, and fired, because now that she was not involved with his boss it was not her problem anymore and she didn’t care if DH even managed to keep his job (what about his reputation?). And we could go on, and touch on how she was willing to stay with someone that she knew was willing to frame DH, apparently not considering that a deal breaker, while him lying to her about camping was such a deal breaker… that’s what decades of knowing each other, years of marriage and a kid together were worth to her: less than a lie about camping… and she has the gall to question “his” care and commitment. How is any of this credible in any universe?

Plus, she never told him anything that she didn’t already know he knew. I mean, even after her “apology” scene, she didn’t reveal the truth about JA (I have to agree with her lover: I think it’s because she didn’t want DH to realize how far involve she was with the whole conspiracy stuff and the fact that she had not told him anything: let’s recall that she had been tasked by her lover to look up JA, knew what she was doing, the thing with the framing of the other guy at the beginning, etc., but she only revealed that once DH signaled to her that he knew or suspected).

This is all to say that DH had, again, every reason in the world to not be exactly eager to trust YH with anything. And, again, she was hiding much bigger and important information.

On the pettiness, well, I mean, really, the fact that he wanted to buy a big car so they could have enough space for his brothers as well? Interestingly, in the end he is seen driving some kind of spacious vehicle, not sure if this was an underscoring of the fact that he is vindicated in his choice. I have to say that I struggle to understand the mindset of someone that could be so appallingly self centered as to bring up kimchi or the car you said you were going to buy in the context of discussing their horrific betrayal with your evil boss that was trying to get you fired. I mean, next time don’t make kimchi and don’t sleep around with my evil boss behind my back, please, I would prefer it. I mean, priorities. Actually, in terms of priorities, it’s pretty clear that not only her priority, but really her sole preoccupation has always been herself, in truth. I mean, the framing of pretty much every issue or situation essentially always somehow comes back to her. Even her apology she managed, incredibly, to turn into something that was about herself, completely ignoring the fact that DH had just heart wrenchingly confessed to have been made to feel worthless, and that this was pretty much telling him that he deserved to be treated this way, to have his trust so completely and thoroughly violated, and what did she do? She gaslighted him and unfairly accused him of the pettiest things, when she had given him more than enough reasons to question her care and commitment, so it should have been the exact opposite way around. I mean, who was the one that nursed the other back to health, despite knowing of her betrayal? And who was the one that left him to nurse his own wounds when he came home all beaten up, and whose sole focus was checking whether he knew about her affair or not?

And I do think that YH being willing to betray and deceive DH in such a profound, complete and revolting fashion “does” say something about her as a person, 100%. I mean, DH never suspected this at first because he trusted her completely, and because he fundamentally didn’t believe her to be the kind of lowlife that would be capable of something like this. He had not even considered it a possibility, when his brothers raised the question, because he himself would never have actually betrayed a loyal spouse in such a profound manner. So, it was really due to him having a higher opinion of YH than what she actually deserved. Turns out that she was, indeed, against DH’s belief, the lowest of the low, a liar and a cheater and a toxic manipulator that could sleep under the same roof of someone she had known for decades, been with for years, and that is the father of her child, and betray and deceive him for a year, and go on doing so, violating his trust in the most complete and thorough way possible. Knowing he was struggling and suffering, but that while being deeply unhappy and, really, I would say almost suicidally depressed (the snow scene, the bridge scene… I did fear a little), he was still trying to do the best he could for his family. And she knew all that, and that he would have never done what she did to a loyal spouse, and still not only betrayed him, but laughed and joked with her lover about betraying him. Even after saying all that. I would have to say that that strikes me as not just low, but sociopathically indifferent. And she did all this for self serving reasons. And it was not only cruel, but entirely unnecessary: even had she fallen out of love with DH and fallen for someone else, she could have honestly broken up with him (as her own sister in law did) and pursued a new relationship.

And just because you are unhappy it does not automatically follow that you would be inclined/ready to treat your loyal partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect, in the same way that if you are angry and frustrated it does not automatically follow that you would be inclined/ready to beat up your spouse. The former does not automatically turn a loyal person into a liar and a cheater just like the latter does not turn a regular person into a wife beating drunk, and therefore cannot be used as an explanation for why you turned out to be a disloyal and untrustworthy liar and cheater, any more than the latter can be used as an explanation for why you turned out to be a violent wife beating drunk. Plenty of people are unhappy, and might even decide to split up, and don't turn out to be disloyal and untrustworthy. Unhappiness is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. She chose to betray and deceive her loyal partner for entirely self serving reasons. And she also had clear alternatives of an honest breakup. Compare this to JA being pushed/forced -she certainly wouldn't have been committing crimes if she was not under coercion by the moneylender to get that money fast, otherwise her and her only living relative would be in danger- into crime in order to protect her family from a violent, physically abusive loan shark. JA and DH shared the same opinion on family (which also included her grandma and his mom/brothers, obviously).

The question should therefore not be “why were you unhappy?”, but rather "why, when push came to shove, you didn't care enough not to betray and deceive your loyal partner, and turned out to be a liar and a cheater?". The explanation for the former cannot be used to explain (let alone explain away) the latter. Okay, you were unhappy. And? You still have all your work ahead of you to explain why you turned out to be disloyal and untrustworthy. Note the caveat "loyal partner", because I don't think that one owes loyalty to someone that wasn't loyal to them: loyalty is a two way street, and one is not obliged to hold up their end of a deal that the other party broke, nor would they be entitled to loyalty and honesty if they had not been willing to offer them in return.

Also note that feeling attracted to someone else is similarly not an explanation: it does not automatically make a loyal person turn into a disloyal and untrustworthy one ready to sleep around behind their spouse’s back, though it might make them want to have a honest break up if the don’t love the latter anymore and/or they fell for someone else. For that matter, I do want to draw a distinction between being tempted to do something, and actually falling into temptation: they are very much not the same thing, in the same way that feeling a craving for sweets and not indulging such a craving is not the same as actually deciding to wolf down that doughnut, as both one’s weight scale and cardiologist might attest.

Most people don’t feel that anyone else in the world is completely unattractive after entering a relationship, but attraction and fantasies are one thing (perfectly natural), and random thoughts and emotions are not a choice. Their actions, however, are a choice. One cannot promise to never crave the doughnut, but one can very well promise not to eat the doughnut. If when push came to shove you were unable to cross certain boundaries and sleep with someone you were attracted to behind your loyal partner’s back, or in any case chose not to, it’s quite a different situation than if you did.

I find the notion that a loyal spouse would have to "earn" the right not to be horrifically betrayed and have their trust completely, deeply violated, to be a total moral inversion (also, an example of gaslighting and victim blaming the victim of the betrayal). On the contrary, if you are loyal, you have every right to expect your partner to reciprocate, it’s not something that you should struggle to “earn” by making sure they are always happy, but a non-negotiable minimum standard. They might very well wish to break up with you if they are unhappy in the relationship, and that’s perfectly fine of course, but you are still owed basic loyalty, honesty and respect if you are willing to treat them the same way. People have honest, respectful breakups all the time. Of course, loyalty is a two way street, and if you slept around behind your partner’s back you can hardly complain about them doing the same in return.

To take a very extreme example to illustrate the concept, a battered housewife shouldn't have to make sure that her wife beating drunk of a husband never felt angry/frustrated to avoid getting hit. Now, obviously I don’t think that the bar should be set as low as merely "don't be a wife beating drunk". Toxic manipulators betraying and deceiving loyal spouses without a shred of guilt, the complete, deep violation of trust, the deceived having to live a lie, the emotional trauma, etc. are all unacceptable as well.

Again, one could talk to their partner, or they could even argue and fight, but the behaviors described above should be non-starters. Assuming you didn’t sleep around, your trust completely, deeply violated, shouldn’t depend on you being anywhere close to perfect, or on your partner not being unhappy. Frankly, one has every right to expect that from one’s partner (let alone from someone that they have known for decades, have been married to for years and the mother of their child, we are talking about her having the bare minimum consideration for him and the child, and to have the decency of an honest breakup, rather than the toxic deception and manipulation and months and months of lies… in other words, the bare minimum standards of decency… again, it’s not as if he was happy either, and he was not sleeping around behind her back -if he was, she would have had every right to do this, but he was not, so he definitely deserved the same courtesy in return... and, of course, she did much worse than simply sleeping behind his back, her betrayal couldn't have been more complete, though that alone would have already been more than enough to be a deal breaker... JA, who was meant to be his enemy and who was explicitly paid to betray him, couldn't even go through with it and switched sides, becoming loyal to him, while his own wife and the mother of his child, who he had known for decades, could hardly have betrayed him more completely-).

Note that getting a divorce if you have incompatible values, as was the case with ML and his wife, would be perfectly compatible with treating one's partner with loyalty, honesty and respect, so one doesn't simply have to put up with stuff they don't like if they are unhappy in the relationship. But they do have a responsibility to treat their loyal partner with the same honesty, loyalty and respect. If their partner is not loyal, on the other hand... Well, to paraphrase JA's words to ML's wife, even if they had slept together she would have no right to complain, in fact the very notion is laughable because she had done much worse.

I mean, really, we could cut through all this noise by simply imagining a scenario where one has to be with either DH or YH. Obviously, between a choice where you have a kind, considerate person that is nonetheless unhappy, but would still treat you with loyalty, honesty and respect, and one that would betray you in the most complete -and, I would say, humiliating- way possible, unless one is insane or a masochist, nobody would hesitate to choose the first. There is simply no comparison in the way they treated each other: YH’s actions are incomparably worse (and they are also deliberate and self serving). DH’s actions are essentially aimed at protecting his family, only his family does include his brothers and mother as well. He never did anything close to YH completely betraying him for entirely self serving reasons. Again, unhappiness and loneliness are not explanations, divorce was an option, and in any case DH was lonely and unhappy as well, if anything he was more unhappy than YH, and never did anything close to what she had done to him.

In short, no, I think that if we were to talk about people that were not treated well and had good reasons to be unhappy, there is simply no comparison between DH and YH in terms of what they did to each other. Supposedly there was some growth in her character from someone entirely self absorbed, who would have been okay with JA being on the run forever, to someone that was sufficiently ashamed by seeing that the very person that was hired to betray her husband turned out to be loyal to him when she saw he was a good person that didn't deserve such treatment, and would have been ready to sacrifice anything to spare him pain and humiliation, and this despite her taking on the job in the first place in order to protect her family, while she, as his wife, had completely betrayed him and did so for entirely self serving reasons.

Let's put it this way: never in a million years would I want to be the partner of someone that would trivialize and minimize such complete betrayal, nor a family member of someone that would be flippant about protecting their only remaining relative... Nothing much, simple self preservation: they are essentially announcing they would be more than willing to throw me under the bus, which I would very much like to avoid.

And such a casual and indifferent attitude towards complete betrayal and its consequences is fundamentally immature and unserious. I mean, to blame you πartner for this massive betrayal, when you knew they would have never done anything similar to him, and that they were unhappy as well, and much more than you, at that? This is not taking responsibility in any mature sense of the word.

A young girl, an orphan who is routinely abused by a violent thug and pushed into crime in order to protect her only surviving relative, her disabled grandmother, or a honest and kind person, and a competent worker, who is horribly depressed but still trying to do the best he could for his family, while his wife, who hypocritically claims to be his only family, while his mother and brothers are not, betrays him completely, and chooses to do so exactly with the evil boss who, together with his lackeys, are oppressing him at work and kneecapping his career, and generally are trash that fawns on the powerful while suppressing the weak. I think that for the non-sociopathic portion of the population, it would be pretty easy to empathize with the former. Frankly, it's up there with Bambi or an toddler cancer patient.

I find the evasion and equivocation in the language used here pretty disgusting, to be honest.

"seek emotional solace somewhere else"... she didn't "seek emotional solace", she had an affair with his boss behind his back, a boss he very clearly despised and that was suppressing him at work. Tough, of course, her having an affair with his boss would have made his work life impossible regardless. She also conspired with the latter to get him out of a job, encouraging him to take on debt, mortaging his house, and risk. And did so for self serving reasons, to make herself feel better. So, let me get this straight: his boss sleeps with his wife, and he should be the one to lose his job? In what universe would this be considered fair? And all that because it was more convenient for the two lovers to have DH out of the company. And then, she would have been willing to "remove" JA for her own self serving reasons, and told her she didn't care if DH was framed and fired, because it was no longer her problem.

"then he felt bad"... he was basically suicidally depressed even before that (the scene at the bridge, the scene in the snow, him saying he wished he was never born, and his wife being perfectly clear that he was suffering tremendously and still trying to do his best, and yet joking about betraying him with her lover), and had more than enough reason to be unhappy with being suppressed at work... add to that the fact that he would have done anything to protect his family, and someone that he had known for decades and had a kid with, factually speaking, not only betrayed him completely, and of course verbally and emotionally abused him, and gaslighted him, in the most disgusting way imaginable, but also didn't consider her lover framing him to get him fired to be a deal breaker, and was willing to continue standing besides him and even planning to get DH out of a job with better optics, again to make herself feel better, and because it was convenient for the two lovers for him to not be employed at the company, while planning to divorce him. By contrast, she considered a deal breaker him lying to her about camping. That's what decades and a kid together were worth to her.

Frankly, this flippant tone really makes me wish that the speaker would be put through a similar experience, just to see what tune they would sing... I would suppose quite a different one, unless they were insane. I guess the same would hold if it happened to someone they cared about, but then again, given 1) the normalization of the utter betrayal of one's family, and 2) the admission that they would be unwilling to protect their family like JA did if they were in the same situation, does make one wonder whether they even have someone else they would be capable of caring about to a level where it would matter to them. So I guess the safest bet for a change of tune would still be if they were on the receiving end. And, of course, one wouldn't wish anything bad towards someone associated to them, given that in any case to be close to such a person would be its own punishment.

Other stuff is simply absurd. DH's mom doesn't resent YH (and it would have zero to do with him it she did, by the way), she appreciates her help and feels sorry that she has to work. I find that a misunderstanding and old fashioned thinking... no wonder, given her age... but for anyone else? No excuse... YH is richer than DH. Okay, and? To have a husband whose income is lower is not an offense or a slight, nor something that YH should be commended over.

YH is not exploited, DH's brothers and sister in law stand in her corner (before the affair, the older one even after, which I found disgusting and tried to rationalize as him not wanting her to divorce DH). They work, as do DH, and they get money from DH (who tells them it's from YH). Quite frankly, if YH is going to see favors in a transactional manner, and expect to manipulate DH in return, or even worse betray him like she does, obviously his family would have been more than happy to forego such favors. Compare this with DH's brother paying for JA's grandma's funeral with his whole life possessions without expecting anything in return. To be clear: YH can keep her filthy money (to the extend she contributed there, compared to DH, etc... we know that comparatively she had enough dough to pay JA to live on the run, while DH's bank account was pretty much emptied out trying to get the money to support his brothers, as per ep1), in any case she is under no economic pressure, it's DH the one that is getting money out of his rather poor account and giving them to his brothers while telling them it's from YH (as in ep 1), while his mom plans to mortage her house. So the economic pressure is on DH, not on YH. It's pretty clear nobody was exploiting her, nor asking her for money.

His wife didn't "try" a d**n thing. She pretended to be okay with his values, but was deceiving him and planning to manipulate him based on some favors and spending time with his brothers. She was never interested in really fitting in in the first place, and avoided family engagements with excuses, even if it was her own niece's wedding, when her sister in law was so supportive of her. To be clear, DH's mother helped raise her kid while she was busy with her career as a lawyer. "Not family". Insane.

"His wife tried to establish their family away from the extended family but he wouldn't hear of it. "... I don't know how one could say this with a straight face... I mean, it's disgusting. An elderly parent, who they relocated in order to be able to take care of her better. Someone that raised him alone after their father's death. And she was planning to separate him from them because... she felt jealous and irrationally insecure. Repulsive doesn't even begin to cover it. This is not "love" in any sense of the word. It's awful. It's possessive. It's what one would expect from someone so self serving that would treat the other person like an object.

"Should have seen that coming."... The reason he didn't was because he didn't think of his wife as scum low enough that would be capable of even thinking of doing something even remotely similar to what she actually did. On the contrary, he trusted her completely, and even defended her against his brother's suspicions when they questioned her excuse for avoiding the niece's wedding. I guess he expected this from scum like his boss. But he didn't think that YH would be even lower scum, scum capable of treating someone that would never have done anything like that to her, someone she had known for decades and had a kid with, in such a manner. He was mistaken: she was exactly that kind of repellent lowlife. In other words, since he was no a sociopath lowlife that would consider doing this to his family a viable option, and he didn't think that his wife was such a lowlife either, he shouldn't have seen this coming. If he had thought she was such a lowlife, he should have. So his real issue is that he didn't think she was such a lowlife, but he was mistaken : she was.


I do think there is a lot of self serving cynicism in pretending to normalize absolutely appalling, sociopathic betrayal and deception for entirely self serving reasons. Cruel and needless. By the same token, I could easily see a morally normal person being pushed into a corner and forced into crime if it came down to a choice of protecting their family or not, assuming that they cared about their families in the slightest. I guess that, big picture, I do think that one being flippant and normalizing/trivializing massive betrayal such as YH's, cruel, self serving and easily avoidable, really is something that one should be happy to know in advance if one was the trivializer/euphemizer/apologist's partner: good to know that the attitude is fundamentally immature and unserious, thinking in principle that this is something one should not take responsibility for in any adult way (which means acknowledging the undeniable fact that people are personally and solely responsible for their actions). At the same time, also knowing that one thinks nothing of betraying one's family for entirely self serving reasons (or "unhappiness") while also stating that if push came to shove, they wouldn't be willing to protect their families, like JA does, would also raise more than one question if one was a relative of the person making such a claim.

Now, in reality, I guess that most people would be singing quite a different tune in that circumstance. Namely: if they were young girls being physically abused by a violent thug that threatened their family and pushed them into crime in order to get the money to protect their only living family member, I think most people would chose to protect their family, and if they (to be clear, if someone showed such a shallow, flippant attitude towards the prospect of betraying their partner or family and throwing them under the bus, they shouldn't expect any loyalty in return, and imho if they were hoisted by their own petard or put in a situation where their hypocrisy was tested, some schadenfreude wouldn't be inappropriate... if it was just masochism and insanity, rather than mere hypocrisy, it would be even worse) or someone they cared about was subjected to a betrayal even close to what DH was put through, they would also be singing quite a different tune. A good thing, as well, given that the opposite would be just masochistic.

It all comes down to a very simple question: would any one sane prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray their trust.

DH's younger brother and his sister in law were always in YH's corner. DH's older brother was in her corner even after he discovered her horrific betrayal (he shouldn't have been, I can only rationalize this as him trying to avoid a divorce, though I have to be in 100% agreement with DH's younger brother, who correctly and absolutely appropriately did a 180 where YH is concerned, and tell DH to just leave her and be done with it).

DH's mother helped raise YH's child, which allowed her to focus on her career. Not family? Okay. She is supposed to lick YH's shoes because of her filthy money? When YH merely did some favors transactionally, essentially love-bombing manipulation to get DH to leave her and his brothers, and his friends? I think not. YH does not have any genuine interest in them, it would be perfectly warranted for them to return the favor, the extraordinary thing is that they do not, and that them and DH's friends are so welcoming towards her (think of DH's party, or of the way they think of her when DH is beaten up, etc.), apart from his younger brother who, having defended her so strenuously in the past, obviously feels betrayed, as he should, and now couldn't think any lower of her. Frankly, even DH's trundere mother very obviously cared about YH visiting, and she was very happy when she did after YH went to meet DH's brothers to verify his alibi (after avoiding going to see them before, like in ep 7 and certainly in ep 1... well, her only care was to manipulate DH, after all).

Frankly, DH's mom, like YH's sister in law and DH' s brother, had every right to dislike YH for telling DH they are not his family (even after DH's mom helped raise her kids) and trying to get him to distance himself from them, and, for that matter, make excuses to skip important family meetings and force DH to justify her absence, and not even bother to call, like when she skipped *her own nieces*'s wedding to spend the day with her lover, and didn't even bother to call. This is the daughter of her sister in law, who treat YH's son as family.

Frankly, the astonishing thing is that YH is the one that claims to hate DH's friends, etc., while they don't reciprocate. And why does she hate them? Because DH loves them. And she is jealous. This is... messed up, to use an euphemism. It's insane to consider this reasonable.

Quite frankly, the most one can say is that DH's mom is old fashioned. But she was ready to mortage the house, rather than ask YH for money. And she, like everyone else, would have certainly done without any favors at all, if they knew how she betrayed DH. It might seem impossible to comprehend to YH and anyone that would be so flippant about, and normalize, her betrayal, but in life there are more important things than one's filthy money, and one of them is not betraying your family, which YH does, completely. Again, the question is not unhappiness: DH was much more unhappy. The question is why she felt it was okay to treat him that way, or at least didn't care enough not to do it. She knew he was suffering terribly and still trying to do his best, and she betrayed him completely, even joking about it with her lover. And did this while lying to his face for a year. To treat that as not only normal, but expected, as if this is something anyone would automatically do... what, if they were unhappy?... it's so self serving and self absorbed to be frankly sociopathic/psychopathic. I mean, the lowest of the low. And we have the counterexample in the drama: DH was much more unhappy, and she was not only betraying him and deceiving him, and doing so with someone he hated, and that was actively trying to ruin him, but never even considered doing anything even remotely close to YH's complete betrayal. I mean, we are talking about someone that was able to confront her lover about not wanting to marry her even while reeling from the mental images of them being together after finding her glove. This was someone that took care of her and fed her porridge when she recovered from the breakup, despite knowing of her affair. That proposed a compromise even after knowing of her betrayal, despite being at a point where he had to physically turn around and walk away when he saw her car parked downstairs, and more than deserving some space and time away from her to sort out his feelings.... and after she attacked him about his friends and his care, when she was the one that had been sleeping with his hated boss behind his back, and missing important family events without even a phone call, and when confronted admitted that yes, she was never there... but she wanted him to stand there alone in an empty house, because she was jealous he would lean on his support group, his other friends, his family? Insane. I mean, she admits that he was right, that she was absent and he never complained, but suffered in silence and then, for that reason, spent more time with his brothers, etc., but nitpicked and spurned his compromise without never offering a compromise of her own.

And no, "let's physically separate you from family and friends" is not a compromise.

And no, it' shouldn't have been only him the one to want to meet her half way, particularly given that he was not the one that raised the problem in the first place. I mean, he didn't complain, he put up with her absences. And yet, even after her betrayal, he would have compromised. She was not okay with anything else than unconditional surrender, and nitpicked/rejected/never came up with a counter offer.

This is not reasonable. He never complained, and he was the only one to offer to meet half way, even after her betrayal. And she rejected it and nitpicked, and never, never offered to meet him half way. She wanted him to change his core values, and to distance himself from family and friends because she was irrationally insecure. That's not a compromise.

Family, etc. were non negotiable for DH. And it was 100% right for them to be non negotiable, just like JA's grandma is a non negotiable for her. He never hid this from YH, she pretended to be okay with it, while wanting to manipulate him. Quite frankly, this was 100% YH's doing: she married DH without accepting his relationship with his family and friends and instead of working out a compromise with him (again, he never complained, she did, and given that it would have made absolute sense for her to be the one to think of and propose a compromise, yet he was the only one we see offering a compromise, even after being betrayed completely... let's be clear, telling him to distance himself from family and friend or insulting his core values and making him feel wrong is not a compromise, it's a non starter... this is not someone that wants to meet the other person half way... contrast this with DH trying to explain to him that love is not a competition and that it's possible to love one's mother and brothers without it taking away from the love for one's partner, something that, given YH was a mother, she shouldn't have needed him to explain), and made herself miserable, while piling the blame squarely on him -and that she had an affair, where she was, at one point, working to get her husband out of a job, while planning to divorce him as well.

This is basically a paraphrase of kfangirl's point in her review: YH brought all of her problems on herself and dragged DH down along with her. She couldn't accept him as he was, nor his relationship to family and friends, and thought she could be happy only if she could change him. If that was the case, she shouldn't have married him.She knew of his relationship with family and friends. She should have been ready to be a part of them too, like JA or DH's younger brother's gf (or his older brother's wife, but she was someone from the neighbour, while the other two are not, so maybe they are better examples of how welcoming they were if one genuinely wanted to fit in... or even if they didn't, given their warm welcome of YH at DH's party, etc, and even from DH's famliy, despite her ghosting them... even his mom was tsudere but clearly cared about her).

YH is short and impatient with DH, and I have to say that I kind of disagree with kfangirl because while she changed her tune after she knew he knew, she still had awful moments where she was attacking him, even despite that. As if she couldn't help herself, as if abusing him was a habit. The change was too little and too late, frankly. I don't know if I agree with the notion that her tears were always more about herself rather than about how she had hurt DH... but I do think that she was remarkably self serving and self absorbed... and I do wonder about the counterfactual where her lover merely tried to get DH fired, as she knew he did, but didn't lie to her about camping. I mean, we are at that level. I do think that JA being essentially hired to be DH's enemy and still being unable to betray him when she saw that he was so kind and he didn't deserve it and she couldn't bring herself to do it... I mean, when you claim to be someone's only family, and betray them completely, as someone that was supposed to be on his side, your partner and your child's father, and someone you have known for decades that you know would have never done to you anything comparable to what you did to him... and conversely, someone that had every reason to be DH's enemy stood in his corner and fought for him, at great personal expense... I mean, I don't know how shameless one would have to be for that not to hit home, even partially. And yes, YH was very shameless. To pretend otherwise and try to normalize and be flippant about her complete betrayal and awful behavior, says more about the character of the one making the statement, than about the reality of her character. And what it says is rather unflattering.


The show let the character's actions speak for themselves, and presented their perspective, letting the viewer make up their own mind. To me, all three of the above are low lives. I hear their arguments/perspective. They are still low lives, to me being able to do what they did is unthinkably revolting, utterly unnecessary and easily avoidable.

The show presents both YH's and DH's perspective, and makes it perfectly clear that it's not as if DH's perspective is "wrong": he has his values, and he stands by it, at no point is hi converted to the opinion that he should distance himself from his family and friends, in fact the last we hear about the topic is him trying, for the umpteenth time, to point out to her the self evident fact that love is not a competition and that his love for his family does not detract from his love for her.

Let's be perfectly clear: the simple fact that YH was unhappy does not mean that DH not choosing to adopt her view on family means he is mistreating her. They have different views on the matter, and frankly I consider his less crazy than hers by far (I mean, the notion that one's mother and brothers shouldn't be considered family, particularly if you have a background that explains perfectly well why you are close to them, as in this case, and as in JA's case with her grandma, seems crazy, as well as the notion that someone like DH's mom, who helped raise their kid, shouldn't be considered part of the family... or YH's own niece, for that matter).

It's not as if DH is not listening to her: he is listening, he disagrees, and is trying to convince her that he loves her, but telling her in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want to change his views on family, nor should he need to.

Worth noting that YH basically pretended to be okay with his views on family, which she knew of from the get go, and did him favors thinking that then she would be able to mold his perspective in what she wanted it to be, and got angry when she couldn't manipulate him as she wanted. "Love bombing" and "gaslighting" at its finest. She also wanted to distance him from family and friends not because she didn't like them -she had never been interested in getting to know them-, but because she didn't like that he liked them, because she was jealous of them due to irrational insecurities.

In other words, if the notion is that YH has "good reason" to consider herself "not treated well" on accounts of DH rejecting her manipulation, because of as bad a reason as her being convinced that having such strong attachments to his family and friends means he doesn't care about her, despite his perfectly reasonable protestations to the contrary, due to some irrational insecurities, then I would have to disagree. She was simply not owed that, and frankly more than with DH, she should talk with a therapist (she was displaying similar controlling tendencies with her lover as well in ep1).

If we are talking about them not spending time together and feeling lonely, I would have to point out that it's a two way street. DH was feeling lonely and abandoned as well, because he had to come back to an empty house, and when she was there she was always in her study and he just stood there and couldn't even raise the TV volume because he didn't want to disturb her. He obviously suffered because of that, but didn't want to bother her because he wanted to support her in her work, and so he put up with it in silence. So, instead of spending time alone, he leaned more onto his family and friends. She then attacked him (in a massively unfair way, given that she had been having an affair with his hated evil boss behind his back, so she should have been the last person to question anyone's love and commitment), and when he pushed back she backpedaled to "it's a vicious cycle"... how convenient.

Here, frankly, while I do think that they both could have done better in terms of communication (him by being more open about the way she was hurting him, and her by not attacking him and giving him the benefit of the doubt, and actually listening to him), I would have to say that this is really not the cone of their disagreement, that being the family issue described above. Also worth noting that the only one that actually proposed a compromise was DH, and he even did so after she had an affair (and when he was so hurt that he at one point had to physically turn away from the apartment when he saw her car parked below). He would have clearly been willing to compromise. She had the gall to nitpick his offer, without proposing a counteroffer of her own, despite the whole context of her having an affair behind his back. She never proposed an actual compromise, her "solution" would have been to physically separate him from family and friends by moving somewhere else (away from his elderly mother, who they had moved closer explicitly in order to take care of her, might I add). Obviously this wouldn't have fixed the problem, because as can be seen from the relationship with his coworkers, DH was someone that needed to be part of a larger community, while YH wanted to monopolize his attention in order to feel like she was his top priority at all times (again, the massive hypocrisy of pretending that he was her top priority after manipulating him, betraying and deceiving him in the worst way possible, and never even attempting to genuinely accept his view on family and friends as she merely pretended to do... at least DH was always honest about the fact that he wouldn't budge on the issue, while she pretended to be okay, and then tried to do him some transactional favors thinking she could then manipulate him into giving up his core values).

Frankly, while DH was not perfect, from the above imho it's clear that YH was much more guilty of whatever she accused him of: they were both lonely, but she was the only one lashing out at him because of it, and unless one was insane, they would have to agree that she had given him much more reasons to doubt her love and commitment that the other way around. I also would have to say that it's rather appalling that she would actually want him to stand there in an empty apartment rather than be with his friends, just because if he is alone she wouldn't have to deal with her irrational feelings of jealousy. So, instead of actually dealing with her possessiveness, she would like him to be miserable? That's not love.

The rest was frankly a bunch of things where she either accused him without listening to his perfectly good explanations, or had done much worse herself, or just really appallingly petty stuff.

Frankly, it was atrocious to see her nitpick his actions and question his care and commitment, when she was having an affair with his evil boss behind his back, and therefore it should have been exactly the other way around: him questioning her love and commitment.

And, as another example, he was honest when he said that he didn’t disclose the job thing because he was worried about what would happen (in particular the boss’ reaction, he was afraid that he would do something crazy). He had only mentioned it to his brothers because he wanted to reassure them about the work issue, and then the others heard it through the gravepine, and since she never bothered to actually get to know his friends, she was late to learn about it through the gravepine (but heard about it exactly like everyone else). Honestly, what right does she have to question him when she was hiding much more pertinent facts, from her affair to the fact that the boss tried/was trying to frame him, to JA? Not to mention that, quite frankly, DH had made sure to ask the boss during their confrontation and he therefore knows that his wife knew the truth about the bribe stuff, so basically when he went to ask her for help, she told him she couldn’t do anything, and then went to rat him off to her lover, and tried to “probe” DH for info about the money. This is just to say that he has more than enough reason, in terms of his worries over the boss doing something crazy/unexpected, to fear that telling YH might not be the smartest idea: she has not exactly proven herself to be loyal and trustworthy, and she hasn’t given him many reasons to trust her with anything. Plus she was hiding much more massive and consequential information.

As an aside, in term of her consprining to get him out of a job, he was also clued in by the fact that she had tried to get him out of a job, and then very strangely stopped when her relationship with her lover turned sour… he is not an idiot, he knows that she is self servingly attempting to convince him to take on a big risk and mortage his house in order to get him out of a job, because him being at the company would have been inconvenient for the two lovers and she wanted to make herself feel better, though changing the optics wouldn’t change the fact that he would be out of a job, in debt, at a time where he had to support his family and was therefore pressured by the circumstances to stay at the company, without the money and experience and confidence and contacts and reputation he would later acquire working at a higher level at his current company, in a context where he is being suppressed and the CEO’s lackeys certainly weren’t looking forward to give him got references (if they didn’t want to outright mess with him), and when he was almost suicidally depressed… add to that discovering the relationship between his wife and evil boss right at the critical start up time: this was a disaster waiting to happen, and a disaster that he not only had very good reasons to worry about (he had seen plenty of failed businesses, many of the neighbours were previously competent and employed in the relevant sectors, his own brother had more experience in terms of business and failed as well… plus if the job market was such that one could get a job at a comparable company without issues, nobody of their team woudl be staying there letting themselves get abused. And he was worried about his employees as well, which YH didn’t consider. Plus the notion of taking out a loan and a mortgage on the house… he had more than enough reasons to be hesitant.

This is not the same situation as in the future, where his brothers are back on their feet, and he has the money, confidence, skills and contacts to succeed, and you cannot use the future to predict an outcome in the past. In any case, the point is that 1) it should have been his decision about a key part of his life, and it should have been an informed decision, she was pressuring to take on risk and debt for self serving reasons, when she didn’t have the right to make that decision for him or manipulate him into making that decision with incomplete information… she just wanted to improve the optics of the situation while still, at the end of the day, getting him out of a job at his own risk, because it would have been more convenient for her and her lover, and 2) if we are talking about fairness, obviously there is no universe in which his boss has an affair with his wife behind his back, and he is the one that on top of being horrifically betrayed and deceived has to lose his job for the two lovers’ self serving reasons, because it would be more convenient for him to be out of the company. Of course, she later even told JA that she didn’t even care if DH was framed because she wasn’t there, and fired, because now that she was not involved with his boss it was not her problem anymore and she didn’t care if DH even managed to keep his job (what about his reputation?). And we could go on, and touch on how she was willing to stay with someone that she knew was willing to frame DH, apparently not considering that a deal breaker, while him lying to her about camping was such a deal breaker… that’s what decades of knowing each other, years of marriage and a kid together were worth to her: less than a lie about camping… and she has the gall to question “his” care and commitment. How is any of this credible in any universe?

Plus, she never told him anything that she didn’t already know he knew. I mean, even after her “apology” scene, she didn’t reveal the truth about JA (I have to agree with her lover: I think it’s because she didn’t want DH to realize how far involve she was with the whole conspiracy stuff and the fact that she had not told him anything: let’s recall that she had been tasked by her lover to look up JA, knew what she was doing, the thing with the framing of the other guy at the beginning, etc., but she only revealed that once DH signaled to her that he knew or suspected).

This is all to say that DH had, again, every reason in the world to not be exactly eager to trust YH with anything. And, again, she was hiding much bigger and important information.

On the pettiness, well, I mean, really, the fact that he wanted to buy a big car so they could have enough space for his brothers as well? Interestingly, in the end he is seen driving some kind of spacious vehicle, not sure if this was an underscoring of the fact that he is vindicated in his choice. I have to say that I struggle to understand the mindset of someone that could be so appallingly self centered as to bring up kimchi or the car you said you were going to buy in the context of discussing their horrific betrayal with your evil boss that was trying to get you fired. I mean, next time don’t make kimchi and don’t sleep around with my evil boss behind my back, please, I would prefer it. I mean, priorities. Actually, in terms of priorities, it’s pretty clear that not only her priority, but really her sole preoccupation has always been herself, in truth. I mean, the framing of pretty much every issue or situation essentially always somehow comes back to her. Even her apology she managed, incredibly, to turn into something that was about herself, completely ignoring the fact that DH had just heart wrenchingly confessed to have been made to feel worthless, and that this was pretty much telling him that he deserved to be treated this way, to have his trust so completely and thoroughly violated, and what did she do? She gaslighted him and unfairly accused him of the pettiest things, when she had given him more than enough reasons to question her care and commitment, so it should have been the exact opposite way around. I mean, who was the one that nursed the other back to health, despite knowing of her betrayal? And who was the one that left him to nurse his own wounds when he came home all beaten up, and whose sole focus was checking whether he knew about her affair or not?

And I do think that YH being willing to betray and deceive DH in such a profound, complete and revolting fashion “does” say something about her as a person, 100%. I mean, DH never suspected this at first because he trusted her completely, and because he fundamentally didn’t believe her to be the kind of lowlife that would be capable of something like this. He had not even considered it a possibility, when his brothers raised the question, because he himself would never have actually betrayed a loyal spouse in such a profound manner. So, it was really due to him having a higher opinion of YH than what she actually deserved. Turns out that she was, indeed, against DH’s belief, the lowest of the low, a liar and a cheater and a toxic manipulator that could sleep under the same roof of someone she had known for decades, been with for years, and that is the father of her child, and betray and deceive him for a year, and go on doing so, violating his trust in the most complete and thorough way possible. Knowing he was struggling and suffering, but that while being deeply unhappy and, really, I would say almost suicidally depressed (the snow scene, the bridge scene… I did fear a little), he was still trying to do the best he could for his family. And she knew all that, and that he would have never done what she did to a loyal spouse, and still not only betrayed him, but laughed and joked with her lover about betraying him. Even after saying all that. I would have to say that that strikes me as not just low, but sociopathically indifferent. And she did all this for self serving reasons. And it was not only cruel, but entirely unnecessary: even had she fallen out of love with DH and fallen for someone else, she could have honestly broken up with him (as her own sister in law did) and pursued a new relationship.

And just because you are unhappy it does not automatically follow that you would be inclined/ready to treat your loyal partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect, in the same way that if you are angry and frustrated it does not automatically follow that you would be inclined/ready to beat up your spouse. The former does not automatically turn a loyal person into a liar and a cheater just like the latter does not turn a regular person into a wife beating drunk, and therefore cannot be used as an explanation for why you turned out to be a disloyal and untrustworthy liar and cheater, any more than the latter can be used as an explanation for why you turned out to be a violent wife beating drunk. Plenty of people are unhappy, and might even decide to split up, and don't turn out to be disloyal and untrustworthy. Unhappiness is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. She chose to betray and deceive her loyal partner for entirely self serving reasons. And she also had clear alternatives of an honest breakup. Compare this to JA being pushed/forced -she certainly wouldn't have been committing crimes if she was not under coercion by the moneylender to get that money fast, otherwise her and her only living relative would be in danger- into crime in order to protect her family from a violent, physically abusive loan shark. JA and DH shared the same opinion on family (which also included her grandma and his mom/brothers, obviously).

The question should therefore not be “why were you unhappy?”, but rather "why, when push came to shove, you didn't care enough not to betray and deceive your loyal partner, and turned out to be a liar and a cheater?". The explanation for the former cannot be used to explain (let alone explain away) the latter. Okay, you were unhappy. And? You still have all your work ahead of you to explain why you turned out to be disloyal and untrustworthy. Note the caveat "loyal partner", because I don't think that one owes loyalty to someone that wasn't loyal to them: loyalty is a two way street, and one is not obliged to hold up their end of a deal that the other party broke, nor would they be entitled to loyalty and honesty if they had not been willing to offer them in return.

Also note that feeling attracted to someone else is similarly not an explanation: it does not automatically make a loyal person turn into a disloyal and untrustworthy one ready to sleep around behind their spouse’s back, though it might make them want to have a honest break up if the don’t love the latter anymore and/or they fell for someone else. For that matter, I do want to draw a distinction between being tempted to do something, and actually falling into temptation: they are very much not the same thing, in the same way that feeling a craving for sweets and not indulging such a craving is not the same as actually deciding to wolf down that doughnut, as both one’s weight scale and cardiologist might attest.

Most people don’t feel that anyone else in the world is completely unattractive after entering a relationship, but attraction and fantasies are one thing (perfectly natural), and random thoughts and emotions are not a choice. Their actions, however, are a choice. One cannot promise to never crave the doughnut, but one can very well promise not to eat the doughnut. If when push came to shove you were unable to cross certain boundaries and sleep with someone you were attracted to behind your loyal partner’s back, or in any case chose not to, it’s quite a different situation than if you did.

I find the notion that a loyal spouse would have to "earn" the right not to be horrifically betrayed and have their trust completely, deeply violated, to be a total moral inversion (also, an example of gaslighting and victim blaming the victim of the betrayal). On the contrary, if you are loyal, you have every right to expect your partner to reciprocate, it’s not something that you should struggle to “earn” by making sure they are always happy, but a non-negotiable minimum standard. They might very well wish to break up with you if they are unhappy in the relationship, and that’s perfectly fine of course, but you are still owed basic loyalty, honesty and respect if you are willing to treat them the same way. People have honest, respectful breakups all the time. Of course, loyalty is a two way street, and if you slept around behind your partner’s back you can hardly complain about them doing the same in return.

To take a very extreme example to illustrate the concept, a battered housewife shouldn't have to make sure that her wife beating drunk of a husband never felt angry/frustrated to avoid getting hit. Now, obviously I don’t think that the bar should be set as low as merely "don't be a wife beating drunk". Toxic manipulators betraying and deceiving loyal spouses without a shred of guilt, the complete, deep violation of trust, the deceived having to live a lie, the emotional trauma, etc. are all unacceptable as well.

Again, one could talk to their partner, or they could even argue and fight, but the behaviors described above should be non-starters. Assuming you didn’t sleep around, your trust completely, deeply violated, shouldn’t depend on you being anywhere close to perfect, or on your partner not being unhappy. Frankly, one has every right to expect that from one’s partner (let alone from someone that they have known for decades, have been married to for years and the mother of their child, we are talking about her having the bare minimum consideration for him and the child, and to have the decency of an honest breakup, rather than the toxic deception and manipulation and months and months of lies… in other words, the bare minimum standards of decency… again, it’s not as if he was happy either, and he was not sleeping around behind her back -if he was, she would have had every right to do this, but he was not, so he definitely deserved the same courtesy in return... and, of course, she did much worse than simply sleeping behind his back, her betrayal couldn't have been more complete, though that alone would have already been more than enough to be a deal breaker... JA, who was meant to be his enemy and who was explicitly paid to betray him, couldn't even go through with it and switched sides, becoming loyal to him, while his own wife and the mother of his child, who he had known for decades, could hardly have betrayed him more completely-).

Note that getting a divorce if you have incompatible values, as was the case with ML and his wife, would be perfectly compatible with treating one's partner with loyalty, honesty and respect, so one doesn't simply have to put up with stuff they don't like if they are unhappy in the relationship. But they do have a responsibility to treat their loyal partner with the same honesty, loyalty and respect. If their partner is not loyal, on the other hand... Well, to paraphrase JA's words to ML's wife, even if they had slept together she would have no right to complain, in fact the very notion is laughable because she had done much worse.

I mean, really, we could cut through all this noise by simply imagining a scenario where one has to be with either DH or YH. Obviously, between a choice where you have a kind, considerate person that is nonetheless unhappy, but would still treat you with loyalty, honesty and respect, and one that would betray you in the most complete -and, I would say, humiliating- way possible, unless one is insane or a masochist, nobody would hesitate to choose the first. There is simply no comparison in the way they treated each other: YH’s actions are incomparably worse (and they are also deliberate and self serving). DH’s actions are essentially aimed at protecting his family, only his family does include his brothers and mother as well. He never did anything close to YH completely betraying him for entirely self serving reasons. Again, unhappiness and loneliness are not explanations, divorce was an option, and in any case DH was lonely and unhappy as well, if anything he was more unhappy than YH, and never did anything close to what she had done to him.

In short, no, I think that if we were to talk about people that were not treated well and had good reasons to be unhappy, there is simply no comparison between DH and YH in terms of what they did to each other. Supposedly there was some growth in her character from someone entirely self absorbed, who would have been okay with JA being on the run forever, to someone that was sufficiently ashamed by seeing that the very person that was hired to betray her husband turned out to be loyal to him when she saw he was a good person that didn't deserve such treatment, and would have been ready to sacrifice anything to spare him pain and humiliation, and this despite her taking on the job in the first place in order to protect her family, while she, as his wife, had completely betrayed him and did so for entirely self serving reasons.

Let's put it this way: never in a million years would I want to be the partner of someone that would trivialize and minimize such complete betrayal, nor a family member of someone that would be flippant about protecting their only remaining relative... Nothing much, simple self preservation: they are essentially announcing they would be more than willing to throw me under the bus, which I would very much like to avoid.

And such a casual and indifferent attitude towards complete betrayal and its consequences is fundamentally immature and unserious. I mean, to blame you πartner for this massive betrayal, when you knew they would have never done anything similar to him, and that they were unhappy as well, and much more than you, at that? This is not taking responsibility in any mature sense of the word.

A young girl, an orphan who is routinely abused by a violent thug and pushed into crime in order to protect her only surviving relative, her disabled grandmother, or a honest and kind person, and a competent worker, who is horribly depressed but still trying to do the best he could for his family, while his wife, who hypocritically claims to be his only family, while his mother and brothers are not, betrays him completely, and chooses to do so exactly with the evil boss who, together with his lackeys, are oppressing him at work and kneecapping his career, and generally are trash that fawns on the powerful while suppressing the weak. I think that for the non-sociopathic portion of the population, it would be pretty easy to empathize with the former. Frankly, it's up there with Bambi or an toddler cancer patient.

I find the evasion and equivocation in the language used here pretty disgusting, to be honest.

"seek emotional solace somewhere else"... she didn't "seek emotional solace", she had an affair with his boss behind his back, a boss he very clearly despised and that was suppressing him at work. Tough, of course, her having an affair with his boss would have made his work life impossible regardless. She also conspired with the latter to get him out of a job, encouraging him to take on debt, mortaging his house, and risk. And did so for self serving reasons, to make herself feel better. So, let me get this straight: his boss sleeps with his wife, and he should be the one to lose his job? In what universe would this be considered fair? And all that because it was more convenient for the two lovers to have DH out of the company. And then, she would have been willing to "remove" JA for her own self serving reasons, and told her she didn't care if DH was framed and fired, because it was no longer her problem.

"then he felt bad"... he was basically suicidally depressed even before that (the scene at the bridge, the scene in the snow, him saying he wished he was never born, and his wife being perfectly clear that he was suffering tremendously and still trying to do his best, and yet joking about betraying him with her lover), and had more than enough reason to be unhappy with being suppressed at work... add to that the fact that he would have done anything to protect his family, and someone that he had known for decades and had a kid with, factually speaking, not only betrayed him completely, and of course verbally and emotionally abused him, and gaslighted him, in the most disgusting way imaginable, but also didn't consider her lover framing him to get him fired to be a deal breaker, and was willing to continue standing besides him and even planning to get DH out of a job with better optics, again to make herself feel better, and because it was convenient for the two lovers for him to not be employed at the company, while planning to divorce him. By contrast, she considered a deal breaker him lying to her about camping. That's what decades and a kid together were worth to her.

Frankly, this flippant tone really makes me wish that the speaker would be put through a similar experience, just to see what tune they would sing... I would suppose quite a different one, unless they were insane. I guess the same would hold if it happened to someone they cared about, but then again, given 1) the normalization of the utter betrayal of one's family, and 2) the admission that they would be unwilling to protect their family like JA did if they were in the same situation, does make one wonder whether they even have someone else they would be capable of caring about to a level where it would matter to them. So I guess the safest bet for a change of tune would still be if they were on the receiving end. And, of course, one wouldn't wish anything bad towards someone associated to them, given that in any case to be close to such a person would be its own punishment.

Other stuff is simply absurd. DH's mom doesn't resent YH (and it would have zero to do with him it she did, by the way), she appreciates her help and feels sorry that she has to work. I find that a misunderstanding and old fashioned thinking... no wonder, given her age... but for anyone else? No excuse... YH is richer than DH. Okay, and? To have a husband whose income is lower is not an offense or a slight, nor something that YH should be commended over.

YH is not exploited, DH's brothers and sister in law stand in her corner (before the affair, the older one even after, which I found disgusting and tried to rationalize as him not wanting her to divorce DH). They work, as do DH, and they get money from DH (who tells them it's from YH). Quite frankly, if YH is going to see favors in a transactional manner, and expect to manipulate DH in return, or even worse betray him like she does, obviously his family would have been more than happy to forego such favors. Compare this with DH's brother paying for JA's grandma's funeral with his whole life possessions without expecting anything in return. To be clear: YH can keep her filthy money (to the extend she contributed there, compared to DH, etc... we know that comparatively she had enough dough to pay JA to live on the run, while DH's bank account was pretty much emptied out trying to get the money to support his brothers, as per ep1), in any case she is under no economic pressure, it's DH the one that is getting money out of his rather poor account and giving them to his brothers while telling them it's from YH (as in ep 1), while his mom plans to mortage her house. So the economic pressure is on DH, not on YH. It's pretty clear nobody was exploiting her, nor asking her for money.

His wife didn't "try" a d**n thing. She pretended to be okay with his values, but was deceiving him and planning to manipulate him based on some favors and spending time with his brothers. She was never interested in really fitting in in the first place, and avoided family engagements with excuses, even if it was her own niece's wedding, when her sister in law was so supportive of her. To be clear, DH's mother helped raise her kid while she was busy with her career as a lawyer. "Not family". Insane.

"His wife tried to establish their family away from the extended family but he wouldn't hear of it. "... I don't know how one could say this with a straight face... I mean, it's disgusting. An elderly parent, who they relocated in order to be able to take care of her better. Someone that raised him alone after their father's death. And she was planning to separate him from them because... she felt jealous and irrationally insecure. Repulsive doesn't even begin to cover it. This is not "love" in any sense of the word. It's awful. It's possessive. It's what one would expect from someone so self serving that would treat the other person like an object.

"Should have seen that coming."... The reason he didn't was because he didn't think of his wife as scum low enough that would be capable of even thinking of doing something even remotely similar to what she actually did. On the contrary, he trusted her completely, and even defended her against his brother's suspicions when they questioned her excuse for avoiding the niece's wedding. I guess he expected this from scum like his boss. But he didn't think that YH would be even lower scum, scum capable of treating someone that would never have done anything like that to her, someone she had known for decades and had a kid with, in such a manner. He was mistaken: she was exactly that kind of repellent lowlife. In other words, since he was no a sociopath lowlife that would consider doing this to his family a viable option, and he didn't think that his wife was such a lowlife either, he shouldn't have seen this coming. If he had thought she was such a lowlife, he should have. So his real issue is that he didn't think she was such a lowlife, but he was mistaken : she was.


I do think there is a lot of self serving cynicism in pretending to normalize absolutely appalling, sociopathic betrayal and deception for entirely self serving reasons. Cruel and needless. By the same token, I could easily see a morally normal person being pushed into a corner and forced into crime if it came down to a choice of protecting their family or not, assuming that they cared about their families in the slightest. I guess that, big picture, I do think that one being flippant and normalizing/trivializing massive betrayal such as YH's, cruel, self serving and easily avoidable, really is something that one should be happy to know in advance if one was the trivializer/euphemizer/apologist's partner: good to know that the attitude is fundamentally immature and unserious, thinking in principle that this is something one should not take responsibility for in any adult way (which means acknowledging the undeniable fact that people are personally and solely responsible for their actions). At the same time, also knowing that one thinks nothing of betraying one's family for entirely self serving reasons (or "unhappiness") while also stating that if push came to shove, they wouldn't be willing to protect their families, like JA does, would also raise more than one question if one was a relative of the person making such a claim.

Now, in reality, I guess that most people would be singing quite a different tune in that circumstance. Namely: if they were young girls being physically abused by a violent thug that threatened their family and pushed them into crime in order to get the money to protect their only living family member, I think most people would chose to protect their family, and if they (to be clear, if someone showed such a shallow, flippant attitude towards the prospect of betraying their partner or family and throwing them under the bus, they shouldn't expect any loyalty in return, and imho if they were hoisted by their own petard or put in a situation where their hypocrisy was tested, some schadenfreude wouldn't be inappropriate... if it was just masochism and insanity, rather than mere hypocrisy, it would be even worse) or someone they cared about was subjected to a betrayal even close to what DH was put through, they would also be singing quite a different tune. A good thing, as well, given that the opposite would be just masochistic.

It all comes down to a very simple question: would any one sane prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray their trust.

DH's younger brother and his sister in law were always in YH's corner. DH's older brother was in her corner even after he discovered her horrific betrayal (he shouldn't have been, I can only rationalize this as him trying to avoid a divorce, though I have to be in 100% agreement with DH's younger brother, who correctly and absolutely appropriately did a 180 where YH is concerned, and tell DH to just leave her and be done with it).

DH's mother helped raise YH's child, which allowed her to focus on her career. Not family? Okay. She is supposed to lick YH's shoes because of her filthy money? When YH merely did some favors transactionally, essentially love-bombing manipulation to get DH to leave her and his brothers, and his friends? I think not. YH does not have any genuine interest in them, it would be perfectly warranted for them to return the favor, the extraordinary thing is that they do not, and that them and DH's friends are so welcoming towards her (think of DH's party, or of the way they think of her when DH is beaten up, etc.), apart from his younger brother who, having defended her so strenuously in the past, obviously feels betrayed, as he should, and now couldn't think any lower of her. Frankly, even DH's trundere mother very obviously cared about YH visiting, and she was very happy when she did after YH went to meet DH's brothers to verify his alibi (after avoiding going to see them before, like in ep 7 and certainly in ep 1... well, her only care was to manipulate DH, after all).

Frankly, DH's mom, like YH's sister in law and DH' s brother, had every right to dislike YH for telling DH they are not his family (even after DH's mom helped raise her kids) and trying to get him to distance himself from them, and, for that matter, make excuses to skip important family meetings and force DH to justify her absence, and not even bother to call, like when she skipped *her own nieces*'s wedding to spend the day with her lover, and didn't even bother to call. This is the daughter of her sister in law, who treat YH's son as family.

Frankly, the astonishing thing is that YH is the one that claims to hate DH's friends, etc., while they don't reciprocate. And why does she hate them? Because DH loves them. And she is jealous. This is... messed up, to use an euphemism. It's insane to consider this reasonable.

Quite frankly, the most one can say is that DH's mom is old fashioned. But she was ready to mortage the house, rather than ask YH for money. And she, like everyone else, would have certainly done without any favors at all, if they knew how she betrayed DH. It might seem impossible to comprehend to YH and anyone that would be so flippant about, and normalize, her betrayal, but in life there are more important things than one's filthy money, and one of them is not betraying your family, which YH does, completely. Again, the question is not unhappiness: DH was much more unhappy. The question is why she felt it was okay to treat him that way, or at least didn't care enough not to do it. She knew he was suffering terribly and still trying to do his best, and she betrayed him completely, even joking about it with her lover. And did this while lying to his face for a year. To treat that as not only normal, but expected, as if this is something anyone would automatically do... what, if they were unhappy?... it's so self serving and self absorbed to be frankly sociopathic/psychopathic. I mean, the lowest of the low. And we have the counterexample in the drama: DH was much more unhappy, and she was not only betraying him and deceiving him, and doing so with someone he hated, and that was actively trying to ruin him, but never even considered doing anything even remotely close to YH's complete betrayal. I mean, we are talking about someone that was able to confront her lover about not wanting to marry her even while reeling from the mental images of them being together after finding her glove. This was someone that took care of her and fed her porridge when she recovered from the breakup, despite knowing of her affair. That proposed a compromise even after knowing of her betrayal, despite being at a point where he had to physically turn around and walk away when he saw her car parked downstairs, and more than deserving some space and time away from her to sort out his feelings.... and after she attacked him about his friends and his care, when she was the one that had been sleeping with his hated boss behind his back, and missing important family events without even a phone call, and when confronted admitted that yes, she was never there... but she wanted him to stand there alone in an empty house, because she was jealous he would lean on his support group, his other friends, his family? Insane. I mean, she admits that he was right, that she was absent and he never complained, but suffered in silence and then, for that reason, spent more time with his brothers, etc., but nitpicked and spurned his compromise without never offering a compromise of her own.

And no, "let's physically separate you from family and friends" is not a compromise.

And no, it' shouldn't have been only him the one to want to meet her half way, particularly given that he was not the one that raised the problem in the first place. I mean, he didn't complain, he put up with her absences. And yet, even after her betrayal, he would have compromised. She was not okay with anything else than unconditional surrender, and nitpicked/rejected/never came up with a counter offer.

This is not reasonable. He never complained, and he was the only one to offer to meet half way, even after her betrayal. And she rejected it and nitpicked, and never, never offered to meet him half way. She wanted him to change his core values, and to distance himself from family and friends because she was irrationally insecure. That's not a compromise.

Family, etc. were non negotiable for DH. And it was 100% right for them to be non negotiable, just like JA's grandma is a non negotiable for her. He never hid this from YH, she pretended to be okay with it, while wanting to manipulate him. Quite frankly, this was 100% YH's doing: she married DH without accepting his relationship with his family and friends and instead of working out a compromise with him (again, he never complained, she did, and given that it would have made absolute sense for her to be the one to think of and propose a compromise, yet he was the only one we see offering a compromise, even after being betrayed completely... let's be clear, telling him to distance himself from family and friend or insulting his core values and making him feel wrong is not a compromise, it's a non starter... this is not someone that wants to meet the other person half way... contrast this with DH trying to explain to him that love is not a competition and that it's possible to love one's mother and brothers without it taking away from the love for one's partner, something that, given YH was a mother, she shouldn't have needed him to explain), and made herself miserable, while piling the blame squarely on him -and that she had an affair, where she was, at one point, working to get her husband out of a job, while planning to divorce him as well.

This is basically a paraphrase of kfangirl's point in her review: YH brought all of her problems on herself and dragged DH down along with her. She couldn't accept him as he was, nor his relationship to family and friends, and thought she could be happy only if she could change him. If that was the case, she shouldn't have married him.She knew of his relationship with family and friends. She should have been ready to be a part of them too, like JA or DH's younger brother's gf (or his older brother's wife, but she was someone from the neighbour, while the other two are not, so maybe they are better examples of how welcoming they were if one genuinely wanted to fit in... or even if they didn't, given their warm welcome of YH at DH's party, etc, and even from DH's famliy, despite her ghosting them... even his mom was tsudere but clearly cared about her).

YH is short and impatient with DH, and I have to say that I kind of disagree with kfangirl because while she changed her tune after she knew he knew, she still had awful moments where she was attacking him, even despite that. As if she couldn't help herself, as if abusing him was a habit. The change was too little and too late, frankly. I don't know if I agree with the notion that her tears were always more about herself rather than about how she had hurt DH... but I do think that she was remarkably self serving and self absorbed... and I do wonder about the counterfactual where her lover merely tried to get DH fired, as she knew he did, but didn't lie to her about camping. I mean, we are at that level. I do think that JA being essentially hired to be DH's enemy and still being unable to betray him when she saw that he was so kind and he didn't deserve it and she couldn't bring herself to do it... I mean, when you claim to be someone's only family, and betray them completely, as someone that was supposed to be on his side, your partner and your child's father, and someone you have known for decades that you know would have never done to you anything comparable to what you did to him... and conversely, someone that had every reason to be DH's enemy stood in his corner and fought for him, at great personal expense... I mean, I don't know how shameless one would have to be for that not to hit home, even partially. And yes, YH was very shameless. To pretend otherwise and try to normalize and be flippant about her complete betrayal and awful behavior, says more about the character of the one making the statement, than about the reality of her character. And what it says is rather unflattering.


The show let the character's actions speak for themselves, and presented their perspective, letting the viewer make up their own mind. To me, all three of the above are low lives. I hear their arguments/perspective. They are still low lives, to me being able to do what they did is unthinkably revolting, utterly unnecessary and easily avoidable.

The show presents both YH's and DH's perspective, and makes it perfectly clear that it's not as if DH's perspective is "wrong": he has his values, and he stands by it, at no point is hi converted to the opinion that he should distance himself from his family and friends, in fact the last we hear about the topic is him trying, for the umpteenth time, to point out to her the self evident fact that love is not a competition and that his love for his family does not detract from his love for her.

Let's be perfectly clear: the simple fact that YH was unhappy does not mean that DH not choosing to adopt her view on family means he is mistreating her. They have different views on the matter, and frankly I consider his less crazy than hers by far (I mean, the notion that one's mother and brothers shouldn't be considered family, particularly if you have a background that explains perfectly well why you are close to them, as in this case, and as in JA's case with her grandma, seems crazy, as well as the notion that someone like DH's mom, who helped raise their kid, shouldn't be considered part of the family... or YH's own niece, for that matter).

It's not as if DH is not listening to her: he is listening, he disagrees, and is trying to convince her that he loves her, but telling her in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want to change his views on family, nor should he need to.

Worth noting that YH basically pretended to be okay with his views on family, which she knew of from the get go, and did him favors thinking that then she would be able to mold his perspective in what she wanted it to be, and got angry when she couldn't manipulate him as she wanted. "Love bombing" and "gaslighting" at its finest. She also wanted to distance him from family and friends not because she didn't like them -she had never been interested in getting to know them-, but because she didn't like that he liked them, because she was jealous of them due to irrational insecurities.

In other words, if the notion is that YH has "good reason" to consider herself "not treated well" on accounts of DH rejecting her manipulation, because of as bad a reason as her being convinced that having such strong attachments to his family and friends means he doesn't care about her, despite his perfectly reasonable protestations to the contrary, due to some irrational insecurities, then I would have to disagree. She was simply not owed that, and frankly more than with DH, she should talk with a therapist (she was displaying similar controlling tendencies with her lover as well in ep1).

If we are talking about them not spending time together and feeling lonely, I would have to point out that it's a two way street. DH was feeling lonely and abandoned as well, because he had to come back to an empty house, and when she was there she was always in her study and he just stood there and couldn't even raise the TV volume because he didn't want to disturb her. He obviously suffered because of that, but didn't want to bother her because he wanted to support her in her work, and so he put up with it in silence. So, instead of spending time alone, he leaned more onto his family and friends. She then attacked him (in a massively unfair way, given that she had been having an affair with his hated evil boss behind his back, so she should have been the last person to question anyone's love and commitment), and when he pushed back she backpedaled to "it's a vicious cycle"... how convenient.

Here, frankly, while I do think that they both could have done better in terms of communication (him by being more open about the way she was hurting him, and her by not attacking him and giving him the benefit of the doubt, and actually listening to him), I would have to say that this is really not the cone of their disagreement, that being the family issue described above. Also worth noting that the only one that actually proposed a compromise was DH, and he even did so after she had an affair (and when he was so hurt that he at one point had to physically turn away from the apartment when he saw her car parked below). He would have clearly been willing to compromise. She had the gall to nitpick his offer, without proposing a counteroffer of her own, despite the whole context of her having an affair behind his back. She never proposed an actual compromise, her "solution" would have been to physically separate him from family and friends by moving somewhere else (away from his elderly mother, who they had moved closer explicitly in order to take care of her, might I add). Obviously this wouldn't have fixed the problem, because as can be seen from the relationship with his coworkers, DH was someone that needed to be part of a larger community, while YH wanted to monopolize his attention in order to feel like she was his top priority at all times (again, the massive hypocrisy of pretending that he was her top priority after manipulating him, betraying and deceiving him in the worst way possible, and never even attempting to genuinely accept his view on family and friends as she merely pretended to do... at least DH was always honest about the fact that he wouldn't budge on the issue, while she pretended to be okay, and then tried to do him some transactional favors thinking she could then manipulate him into giving up his core values).

Frankly, while DH was not perfect, from the above imho it's clear that YH was much more guilty of whatever she accused him of: they were both lonely, but she was the only one lashing out at him because of it, and unless one was insane, they would have to agree that she had given him much more reasons to doubt her love and commitment that the other way around. I also would have to say that it's rather appalling that she would actually want him to stand there in an empty apartment rather than be with his friends, just because if he is alone she wouldn't have to deal with her irrational feelings of jealousy. So, instead of actually dealing with her possessiveness, she would like him to be miserable? That's not love.

The rest was frankly a bunch of things where she either accused him without listening to his perfectly good explanations, or had done much worse herself, or just really appallingly petty stuff.

Frankly, it was atrocious to see her nitpick his actions and question his care and commitment, when she was having an affair with his evil boss behind his back, and therefore it should have been exactly the other way around: him questioning her love and commitment.

And, as another example, he was honest when he said that he didn’t disclose the job thing because he was worried about what would happen (in particular the boss’ reaction, he was afraid that he would do something crazy). He had only mentioned it to his brothers because he wanted to reassure them about the work issue, and then the others heard it through the gravepine, and since she never bothered to actually get to know his friends, she was late to learn about it through the gravepine (but heard about it exactly like everyone else). Honestly, what right does she have to question him when she was hiding much more pertinent facts, from her affair to the fact that the boss tried/was trying to frame him, to JA? Not to mention that, quite frankly, DH had made sure to ask the boss during their confrontation and he therefore knows that his wife knew the truth about the bribe stuff, so basically when he went to ask her for help, she told him she couldn’t do anything, and then went to rat him off to her lover, and tried to “probe” DH for info about the money. This is just to say that he has more than enough reason, in terms of his worries over the boss doing something crazy/unexpected, to fear that telling YH might not be the smartest idea: she has not exactly proven herself to be loyal and trustworthy, and she hasn’t given him many reasons to trust her with anything. Plus she was hiding much more massive and consequential information.

As an aside, in term of her consprining to get him out of a job, he was also clued in by the fact that she had tried to get him out of a job, and then very strangely stopped when her relationship with her lover turned sour… he is not an idiot, he knows that she is self servingly attempting to convince him to take on a big risk and mortage his house in order to get him out of a job, because him being at the company would have been inconvenient for the two lovers and she wanted to make herself feel better, though changing the optics wouldn’t change the fact that he would be out of a job, in debt, at a time where he had to support his family and was therefore pressured by the circumstances to stay at the company, without the money and experience and confidence and contacts and reputation he would later acquire working at a higher level at his current company, in a context where he is being suppressed and the CEO’s lackeys certainly weren’t looking forward to give him got references (if they didn’t want to outright mess with him), and when he was almost suicidally depressed… add to that discovering the relationship between his wife and evil boss right at the critical start up time: this was a disaster waiting to happen, and a disaster that he not only had very good reasons to worry about (he had seen plenty of failed businesses, many of the neighbours were previously competent and employed in the relevant sectors, his own brother had more experience in terms of business and failed as well… plus if the job market was such that one could get a job at a comparable company without issues, nobody of their team woudl be staying there letting themselves get abused. And he was worried about his employees as well, which YH didn’t consider. Plus the notion of taking out a loan and a mortgage on the house… he had more than enough reasons to be hesitant.

This is not the same situation as in the future, where his brothers are back on their feet, and he has the money, confidence, skills and contacts to succeed, and you cannot use the future to predict an outcome in the past. In any case, the point is that 1) it should have been his decision about a key part of his life, and it should have been an informed decision, she was pressuring to take on risk and debt for self serving reasons, when she didn’t have the right to make that decision for him or manipulate him into making that decision with incomplete information… she just wanted to improve the optics of the situation while still, at the end of the day, getting him out of a job at his own risk, because it would have been more convenient for her and her lover, and 2) if we are talking about fairness, obviously there is no universe in which his boss has an affair with his wife behind his back, and he is the one that on top of being horrifically betrayed and deceived has to lose his job for the two lovers’ self serving reasons, because it would be more convenient for him to be out of the company. Of course, she later even told JA that she didn’t even care if DH was framed because she wasn’t there, and fired, because now that she was not involved with his boss it was not her problem anymore and she didn’t care if DH even managed to keep his job (what about his reputation?). And we could go on, and touch on how she was willing to stay with someone that she knew was willing to frame DH, apparently not considering that a deal breaker, while him lying to her about camping was such a deal breaker… that’s what decades of knowing each other, years of marriage and a kid together were worth to her: less than a lie about camping… and she has the gall to question “his” care and commitment. How is any of this credible in any universe?

Plus, she never told him anything that she didn’t already know he knew. I mean, even after her “apology” scene, she didn’t reveal the truth about JA (I have to agree with her lover: I think it’s because she didn’t want DH to realize how far involve she was with the whole conspiracy stuff and the fact that she had not told him anything: let’s recall that she had been tasked by her lover to look up JA, knew what she was doing, the thing with the framing of the other guy at the beginning, etc., but she only revealed that once DH signaled to her that he knew or suspected).

This is all to say that DH had, again, every reason in the world to not be exactly eager to trust YH with anything. And, again, she was hiding much bigger and important information.

On the pettiness, well, I mean, really, the fact that he wanted to buy a big car so they could have enough space for his brothers as well? Interestingly, in the end he is seen driving some kind of spacious vehicle, not sure if this was an underscoring of the fact that he is vindicated in his choice. I have to say that I struggle to understand the mindset of someone that could be so appallingly self centered as to bring up kimchi or the car you said you were going to buy in the context of discussing their horrific betrayal with your evil boss that was trying to get you fired. I mean, next time don’t make kimchi and don’t sleep around with my evil boss behind my back, please, I would prefer it. I mean, priorities. Actually, in terms of priorities, it’s pretty clear that not only her priority, but really her sole preoccupation has always been herself, in truth. I mean, the framing of pretty much every issue or situation essentially always somehow comes back to her. Even her apology she managed, incredibly, to turn into something that was about herself, completely ignoring the fact that DH had just heart wrenchingly confessed to have been made to feel worthless, and that this was pretty much telling him that he deserved to be treated this way, to have his trust so completely and thoroughly violated, and what did she do? She gaslighted him and unfairly accused him of the pettiest things, when she had given him more than enough reasons to question her care and commitment, so it should have been the exact opposite way around. I mean, who was the one that nursed the other back to health, despite knowing of her betrayal? And who was the one that left him to nurse his own wounds when he came home all beaten up, and whose sole focus was checking whether he knew about her affair or not?

And I do think that YH being willing to betray and deceive DH in such a profound, complete and revolting fashion “does” say something about her as a person, 100%. I mean, DH never suspected this at first because he trusted her completely, and because he fundamentally didn’t believe her to be the kind of lowlife that would be capable of something like this. He had not even considered it a possibility, when his brothers raised the question, because he himself would never have actually betrayed a loyal spouse in such a profound manner. So, it was really due to him having a higher opinion of YH than what she actually deserved. Turns out that she was, indeed, against DH’s belief, the lowest of the low, a liar and a cheater and a toxic manipulator that could sleep under the same roof of someone she had known for decades, been with for years, and that is the father of her child, and betray and deceive him for a year, and go on doing so, violating his trust in the most complete and thorough way possible. Knowing he was struggling and suffering, but that while being deeply unhappy and, really, I would say almost suicidally depressed (the snow scene, the bridge scene… I did fear a little), he was still trying to do the best he could for his family. And she knew all that, and that he would have never done what she did to a loyal spouse, and still not only betrayed him, but laughed and joked with her lover about betraying him. Even after saying all that. I would have to say that that strikes me as not just low, but sociopathically indifferent. And she did all this for self serving reasons. And it was not only cruel, but entirely unnecessary: even had she fallen out of love with DH and fallen for someone else, she could have honestly broken up with him (as her own sister in law did) and pursued a new relationship.

And just because you are unhappy it does not automatically follow that you would be inclined/ready to treat your loyal partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect, in the same way that if you are angry and frustrated it does not automatically follow that you would be inclined/ready to beat up your spouse. The former does not automatically turn a loyal person into a liar and a cheater just like the latter does not turn a regular person into a wife beating drunk, and therefore cannot be used as an explanation for why you turned out to be a disloyal and untrustworthy liar and cheater, any more than the latter can be used as an explanation for why you turned out to be a violent wife beating drunk. Plenty of people are unhappy, and might even decide to split up, and don't turn out to be disloyal and untrustworthy. Unhappiness is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. She chose to betray and deceive her loyal partner for entirely self serving reasons. And she also had clear alternatives of an honest breakup. Compare this to JA being pushed/forced -she certainly wouldn't have been committing crimes if she was not under coercion by the moneylender to get that money fast, otherwise her and her only living relative would be in danger- into crime in order to protect her family from a violent, physically abusive loan shark. JA and DH shared the same opinion on family (which also included her grandma and his mom/brothers, obviously).

The question should therefore not be “why were you unhappy?”, but rather "why, when push came to shove, you didn't care enough not to betray and deceive your loyal partner, and turned out to be a liar and a cheater?". The explanation for the former cannot be used to explain (let alone explain away) the latter. Okay, you were unhappy. And? You still have all your work ahead of you to explain why you turned out to be disloyal and untrustworthy. Note the caveat "loyal partner", because I don't think that one owes loyalty to someone that wasn't loyal to them: loyalty is a two way street, and one is not obliged to hold up their end of a deal that the other party broke, nor would they be entitled to loyalty and honesty if they had not been willing to offer them in return.

Also note that feeling attracted to someone else is similarly not an explanation: it does not automatically make a loyal person turn into a disloyal and untrustworthy one ready to sleep around behind their spouse’s back, though it might make them want to have a honest break up if the don’t love the latter anymore and/or they fell for someone else. For that matter, I do want to draw a distinction between being tempted to do something, and actually falling into temptation: they are very much not the same thing, in the same way that feeling a craving for sweets and not indulging such a craving is not the same as actually deciding to wolf down that doughnut, as both one’s weight scale and cardiologist might attest.

Most people don’t feel that anyone else in the world is completely unattractive after entering a relationship, but attraction and fantasies are one thing (perfectly natural), and random thoughts and emotions are not a choice. Their actions, however, are a choice. One cannot promise to never crave the doughnut, but one can very well promise not to eat the doughnut. If when push came to shove you were unable to cross certain boundaries and sleep with someone you were attracted to behind your loyal partner’s back, or in any case chose not to, it’s quite a different situation than if you did.

I find the notion that a loyal spouse would have to "earn" the right not to be horrifically betrayed and have their trust completely, deeply violated, to be a total moral inversion (also, an example of gaslighting and victim blaming the victim of the betrayal). On the contrary, if you are loyal, you have every right to expect your partner to reciprocate, it’s not something that you should struggle to “earn” by making sure they are always happy, but a non-negotiable minimum standard. They might very well wish to break up with you if they are unhappy in the relationship, and that’s perfectly fine of course, but you are still owed basic loyalty, honesty and respect if you are willing to treat them the same way. People have honest, respectful breakups all the time. Of course, loyalty is a two way street, and if you slept around behind your partner’s back you can hardly complain about them doing the same in return.

To take a very extreme example to illustrate the concept, a battered housewife shouldn't have to make sure that her wife beating drunk of a husband never felt angry/frustrated to avoid getting hit. Now, obviously I don’t think that the bar should be set as low as merely "don't be a wife beating drunk". Toxic manipulators betraying and deceiving loyal spouses without a shred of guilt, the complete, deep violation of trust, the deceived having to live a lie, the emotional trauma, etc. are all unacceptable as well.

Again, one could talk to their partner, or they could even argue and fight, but the behaviors described above should be non-starters. Assuming you didn’t sleep around, your trust completely, deeply violated, shouldn’t depend on you being anywhere close to perfect, or on your partner not being unhappy. Frankly, one has every right to expect that from one’s partner (let alone from someone that they have known for decades, have been married to for years and the mother of their child, we are talking about her having the bare minimum consideration for him and the child, and to have the decency of an honest breakup, rather than the toxic deception and manipulation and months and months of lies… in other words, the bare minimum standards of decency… again, it’s not as if he was happy either, and he was not sleeping around behind her back -if he was, she would have had every right to do this, but he was not, so he definitely deserved the same courtesy in return... and, of course, she did much worse than simply sleeping behind his back, her betrayal couldn't have been more complete, though that alone would have already been more than enough to be a deal breaker... JA, who was meant to be his enemy and who was explicitly paid to betray him, couldn't even go through with it and switched sides, becoming loyal to him, while his own wife and the mother of his child, who he had known for decades, could hardly have betrayed him more completely-).

Note that getting a divorce if you have incompatible values, as was the case with ML and his wife, would be perfectly compatible with treating one's partner with loyalty, honesty and respect, so one doesn't simply have to put up with stuff they don't like if they are unhappy in the relationship. But they do have a responsibility to treat their loyal partner with the same honesty, loyalty and respect. If their partner is not loyal, on the other hand... Well, to paraphrase JA's words to ML's wife, even if they had slept together she would have no right to complain, in fact the very notion is laughable because she had done much worse.

I mean, really, we could cut through all this noise by simply imagining a scenario where one has to be with either DH or YH. Obviously, between a choice where you have a kind, considerate person that is nonetheless unhappy, but would still treat you with loyalty, honesty and respect, and one that would betray you in the most complete -and, I would say, humiliating- way possible, unless one is insane or a masochist, nobody would hesitate to choose the first. There is simply no comparison in the way they treated each other: YH’s actions are incomparably worse (and they are also deliberate and self serving). DH’s actions are essentially aimed at protecting his family, only his family does include his brothers and mother as well. He never did anything close to YH completely betraying him for entirely self serving reasons. Again, unhappiness and loneliness are not explanations, divorce was an option, and in any case DH was lonely and unhappy as well, if anything he was more unhappy than YH, and never did anything close to what she had done to him.

In short, no, I think that if we were to talk about people that were not treated well and had good reasons to be unhappy, there is simply no comparison between DH and YH in terms of what they did to each other. Supposedly there was some growth in her character from someone entirely self absorbed, who would have been okay with JA being on the run forever, to someone that was sufficiently ashamed by seeing that the very person that was hired to betray her husband turned out to be loyal to him when she saw he was a good person that didn't deserve such treatment, and would have been ready to sacrifice anything to spare him pain and humiliation, and this despite her taking on the job in the first place in order to protect her family, while she, as his wife, had completely betrayed him and did so for entirely self serving reasons.

Let's put it this way: never in a million years would I want to be the partner of someone that would trivialize and minimize such complete betrayal, nor a family member of someone that would be flippant about protecting their only remaining relative... Nothing much, simple self preservation: they are essentially announcing they would be more than willing to throw me under the bus, which I would very much like to avoid.

And such a casual and indifferent attitude towards complete betrayal and its consequences is fundamentally immature and unserious. I mean, to blame you πartner for this massive betrayal, when you knew they would have never done anything similar to him, and that they were unhappy as well, and much more than you, at that? This is not taking responsibility in any mature sense of the word.

A young girl, an orphan who is routinely abused by a violent thug and pushed into crime in order to protect her only surviving relative, her disabled grandmother, or a honest and kind person, and a competent worker, who is horribly depressed but still trying to do the best he could for his family, while his wife, who hypocritically claims to be his only family, while his mother and brothers are not, betrays him completely, and chooses to do so exactly with the evil boss who, together with his lackeys, are oppressing him at work and kneecapping his career, and generally are trash that fawns on the powerful while suppressing the weak. I think that for the non-sociopathic portion of the population, it would be pretty easy to empathize with the former. Frankly, it's up there with Bambi or an toddler cancer patient.

I find the evasion and equivocation in the language used here pretty disgusting, to be honest.

"seek emotional solace somewhere else"... she didn't "seek emotional solace", she had an affair with his boss behind his back, a boss he very clearly despised and that was suppressing him at work. Tough, of course, her having an affair with his boss would have made his work life impossible regardless. She also conspired with the latter to get him out of a job, encouraging him to take on debt, mortaging his house, and risk. And did so for self serving reasons, to make herself feel better. So, let me get this straight: his boss sleeps with his wife, and he should be the one to lose his job? In what universe would this be considered fair? And all that because it was more convenient for the two lovers to have DH out of the company. And then, she would have been willing to "remove" JA for her own self serving reasons, and told her she didn't care if DH was framed and fired, because it was no longer her problem.

"then he felt bad"... he was basically suicidally depressed even before that (the scene at the bridge, the scene in the snow, him saying he wished he was never born, and his wife being perfectly clear that he was suffering tremendously and still trying to do his best, and yet joking about betraying him with her lover), and had more than enough reason to be unhappy with being suppressed at work... add to that the fact that he would have done anything to protect his family, and someone that he had known for decades and had a kid with, factually speaking, not only betrayed him completely, and of course verbally and emotionally abused him, and gaslighted him, in the most disgusting way imaginable, but also didn't consider her lover framing him to get him fired to be a deal breaker, and was willing to continue standing besides him and even planning to get DH out of a job with better optics, again to make herself feel better, and because it was convenient for the two lovers for him to not be employed at the company, while planning to divorce him. By contrast, she considered a deal breaker him lying to her about camping. That's what decades and a kid together were worth to her.

Frankly, this flippant tone really makes me wish that the speaker would be put through a similar experience, just to see what tune they would sing... I would suppose quite a different one, unless they were insane. I guess the same would hold if it happened to someone they cared about, but then again, given 1) the normalization of the utter betrayal of one's family, and 2) the admission that they would be unwilling to protect their family like JA did if they were in the same situation, does make one wonder whether they even have someone else they would be capable of caring about to a level where it would matter to them. So I guess the safest bet for a change of tune would still be if they were on the receiving end. And, of course, one wouldn't wish anything bad towards someone associated to them, given that in any case to be close to such a person would be its own punishment.

Other stuff is simply absurd. DH's mom doesn't resent YH (and it would have zero to do with him it she did, by the way), she appreciates her help and feels sorry that she has to work. I find that a misunderstanding and old fashioned thinking... no wonder, given her age... but for anyone else? No excuse... YH is richer than DH. Okay, and? To have a husband whose income is lower is not an offense or a slight, nor something that YH should be commended over.

YH is not exploited, DH's brothers and sister in law stand in her corner (before the affair, the older one even after, which I found disgusting and tried to rationalize as him not wanting her to divorce DH). They work, as do DH, and they get money from DH (who tells them it's from YH). Quite frankly, if YH is going to see favors in a transactional manner, and expect to manipulate DH in return, or even worse betray him like she does, obviously his family would have been more than happy to forego such favors. Compare this with DH's brother paying for JA's grandma's funeral with his whole life possessions without expecting anything in return. To be clear: YH can keep her filthy money (to the extend she contributed there, compared to DH, etc... we know that comparatively she had enough dough to pay JA to live on the run, while DH's bank account was pretty much emptied out trying to get the money to support his brothers, as per ep1), in any case she is under no economic pressure, it's DH the one that is getting money out of his rather poor account and giving them to his brothers while telling them it's from YH (as in ep 1), while his mom plans to mortage her house. So the economic pressure is on DH, not on YH. It's pretty clear nobody was exploiting her, nor asking her for money.

His wife didn't "try" a d**n thing. She pretended to be okay with his values, but was deceiving him and planning to manipulate him based on some favors and spending time with his brothers. She was never interested in really fitting in in the first place, and avoided family engagements with excuses, even if it was her own niece's wedding, when her sister in law was so supportive of her. To be clear, DH's mother helped raise her kid while she was busy with her career as a lawyer. "Not family". Insane.

"His wife tried to establish their family away from the extended family but he wouldn't hear of it. "... I don't know how one could say this with a straight face... I mean, it's disgusting. An elderly parent, who they relocated in order to be able to take care of her better. Someone that raised him alone after their father's death. And she was planning to separate him from them because... she felt jealous and irrationally insecure. Repulsive doesn't even begin to cover it. This is not "love" in any sense of the word. It's awful. It's possessive. It's what one would expect from someone so self serving that would treat the other person like an object.

"Should have seen that coming."... The reason he didn't was because he didn't think of his wife as scum low enough that would be capable of even thinking of doing something even remotely similar to what she actually did. On the contrary, he trusted her completely, and even defended her against his brother's suspicions when they questioned her excuse for avoiding the niece's wedding. I guess he expected this from scum like his boss. But he didn't think that YH would be even lower scum, scum capable of treating someone that would never have done anything like that to her, someone she had known for decades and had a kid with, in such a manner. He was mistaken: she was exactly that kind of repellent lowlife. In other words, since he was no a sociopath lowlife that would consider doing this to his family a viable option, and he didn't think that his wife was such a lowlife either, he shouldn't have seen this coming. If he had thought she was such a lowlife, he should have. So his real issue is that he didn't think she was such a lowlife, but he was mistaken : she was.


I do think there is a lot of self serving cynicism in pretending to normalize absolutely appalling, sociopathic betrayal and deception for entirely self serving reasons. Cruel and needless. By the same token, I could easily see a morally normal person being pushed into a corner and forced into crime if it came down to a choice of protecting their family or not, assuming that they cared about their families in the slightest. I guess that, big picture, I do think that one being flippant and normalizing/trivializing massive betrayal such as YH's, cruel, self serving and easily avoidable, really is something that one should be happy to know in advance if one was the trivializer/euphemizer/apologist's partner: good to know that the attitude is fundamentally immature and unserious, thinking in principle that this is something one should not take responsibility for in any adult way (which means acknowledging the undeniable fact that people are personally and solely responsible for their actions). At the same time, also knowing that one thinks nothing of betraying one's family for entirely self serving reasons (or "unhappiness") while also stating that if push came to shove, they wouldn't be willing to protect their families, like JA does, would also raise more than one question if one was a relative of the person making such a claim.

Now, in reality, I guess that most people would be singing quite a different tune in that circumstance. Namely: if they were young girls being physically abused by a violent thug that threatened their family and pushed them into crime in order to get the money to protect their only living family member, I think most people would chose to protect their family, and if they (to be clear, if someone showed such a shallow, flippant attitude towards the prospect of betraying their partner or family and throwing them under the bus, they shouldn't expect any loyalty in return, and imho if they were hoisted by their own petard or put in a situation where their hypocrisy was tested, some schadenfreude wouldn't be inappropriate... if it was just masochism and insanity, rather than mere hypocrisy, it would be even worse) or someone they cared about was subjected to a betrayal even close to what DH was put through, they would also be singing quite a different tune. A good thing, as well, given that the opposite would be just masochistic.

I kept wondering if she could get any more shameless. Crazy to think that had her lover not lied to her about camping there wouldn't have been this tearful apology scene and no guilt would have been forthcoming, just like there was none before. Or, frankly, even after, and even at the time of the apology she managed to make something that should have been focused on the person she was apologizing to, be about herself, even as DH was telling her she had made him feel completely worthless, unworthy of basic loyalty, honesty and respect and totally destroyed his emotional confidence. Thankfully JA was listening in and told him he was a good person.

It was kind of strange, because it came after the scene in the car where she recalled how she mistreated him, and how he responded with kindness and took care of her, nursing her in bed despite knowing of her affair, feeding her porridge, etc (incidentally, compare that with the way he had to take care of himself when he came home from the fight with the money lender, and YH was more preoccupied with contacting her lover and checking whether her deception had been exposed than about helping DH).

So, in terms of guilt, I would say definitely too little and too late, and, one gets the impression, because things didn't work out with her lover. But not even that, because she continued to gaslight him even after her affair ended, and frankly even after discovering he knew (the scene where they mention her not being home and the vicious cycle and she nitpicks and rejects his compromise, despite having raised the issue, came after the flashback in the car after she discovered he knew).

Again, I would put this even after her apology, the latter excluded: compare that to her apology when she was forced to admit that she knew of JA, where she didn't attack DH and make it about herself in the way she did with her previous apology. In that respect, I hope that her departure at the end was due to DH telling her he wanted to separate, rather than her abandoning him right when he needed all the support he could get, dealing with the public humiliation of her affair being known by everyone at the company... That would have been consistent with their character arcs, with YH not being so self serving anymore and DH realizing that he didn't need to sacrifice himself and stay with her for the sake of his child and family, because he wouldn't want his son to live that way, so he shouldn't either.

Incidentally, DH was fully aware, at the time of the apology scene, that when he had gone to ask YH for help with regards to the bribe, she chose instead to rat him out to his boss, and didn't leave the latter despite knowing he intended to fire him. Again, she would have married someone willing to do that to someone she had known for decades, as well as the father of her child: the fact that the guy would have been willing to fire DH was not a deal breaker for her (lying to her about camping was) was appalling. Twenty years and a kid together.

He was also aware that she was conspiring and attempting to manipulate him to get him out of a job, getting into debt and mortaging the house to boot. His boss was having an affair with his wife, and he should be the one having to leave his job? Because it would be more convenient for them not to have him around? A complete moral inversion. When DH was the one that was put into the position of having to work for someone he hated, whose lackeys suppressed him at work, and who was having an affair with his wife?

She could have treated him honestly, but when push came to shove, she did not. Then again, had she been willing to show him any loyalty, honesty and respect, she wouldn't be having an affair in the first place. So she tried to manipulate him into quitting his job. Thankfully, the victim of her deception and manipulation knew what she was doing, and did not comply. He also called out her behavior and didn't allow her to pretend that this was anything different from what it was.

Of course, she was later perfectly willing to take JA out of the picture, despite the latter pointing out to her that without her in the picture, DH would have been framed and fired. She told JA that since she was no longer with the boss, it was not her problem anymore, and that she essentially didn't care whether DH was framed and fired. An interesting perspective, not sure she would have liked it had DH shown her a similar lack of consideration. She would never have to wonder, because he never did. A picture is worth a thousand words: he cared for her while she was recovering from the breakup, feeding her porridge, despite knowing of her affair, while she left him to tend to his own wounds, entirely preoccupied that her deception had been discovered.

DH was under no obligation to leave his job for their convenience, let alone when he was being manipulated and deceived. In fact, it would have been completely unfair for him to be the one that had to leave. Not sure what to call it. Non apologetic apology? Shooting and crying? Crocodile tears? Still more honest and decent than the self serving cynicism ("everyone would have done it", often, but not always, coupled with moral inversion wrt JA or even DH), if not outright victim blaming ("what could he have expected", well, maybe to be honest with him and ask for a divorce, rather than deceiving him for a year, betraying him with his worst enemy, and trying to get him out of a job, among other things), of some other takes on the topic (thankfully, a negligible minority). Less sociopathically indifferent, and less of an utter moral inversion, too. I liked that the drama very much avoided such tropes and minimization/trivialization.

As a matter of fact, one thing I liked very much in the series was the fact that YH's betrayal and the horrific effects it had on DH and those around her were not whitewashed (they even "called out" the way this is usually depicted in dramas, which I found very on point and impressive in terms of "keeping it real"). In My Mister the consequences are presented clearly. And the difference between wanting to break up and betraying and deceiving your partner are made clear. They are different, distinct things and reasons to want a divorce don't imply that one should be any more inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

That's simply a non sequitur. This was made absolutely clear by JA asking YH why she betrayed DH (despite knowing why she was unhappy from listening to the apology scene). and YH replying that she could come up with 100, 1000 excuses, but no real reason. In other words, even she didn't know why she was willing to treat DH with no loyalty, honesty and respect, and didn't simply break up with him. A take that, to be honest, I appreciated much more than trying to come up with some weak excuse, or to pretend that one's reasons to break up would also imply that one would be inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

Now, the truth was that, when it came down to it, YH was self serving and self absorbed, and that was reflected even in the fact that she managed to make even her apology about herself. But I liked the way there was an acknowledgment of how horrific and hurtful her actions were. I would have preferred it didn't come with her gaslighting DH. Again, I couldn't help but think that there might have been some psychological defense mechanism at play, because it's unclear to me how she could question DH's affection, or talk about her own supposed priorities, after the flashback in the car, and considering their respective actions. But, again, I liked the distinctions, the fact that the show didn't pretend that being unhappy means one would be inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

Though I must admit that I did find some things rather strident, such as her lack of self awareness when she talked about her loving DH while questioning his affection and commitment (because he loved his family and friends)... I mean, who is having an affair with whose abusive boss? Plus all the rest YH did? I mean, some minimum sense of proportion or awareness of how delusional she sounded? The self serving, self absorbed nature of the character made it rather difficult to understand how much of it was about herself, because, again, we have her turning even the apology into something that is about her and gaslight DH while having the shamelessness to toot her own horn in terms of her conduct towards him... I mean, after what she did to him? After what she remembered him doing for her in the flashback in the car, responding with kindness to her verbal abuse, taking care of her and giving her porridge in bed, etc. while knowing of her betrayal, and so on? Plus, while I don't think that she should have waited around for the guy, with someone as loyal and devoted as the female bar owner around, to see YH toot her own horn for her past conduct, with the exception of the betrayal, which she correctly acknowledges as horrible and unforgivable, is frankly ridiculous... Again, not that I think she owed it to the monk, in fact I think that the female owner's behavior was counterproductive and inadvisable: the guy left, she was under no obligation to wait around for him when he was simply missing and could have been dead for all she knew. But the contrast did make YH's tooting her own horn in terms of her love and devotion to DH even more ridiculous than her total betrayal did... okay, maybe not more, but a close second.

To state the obvious, no, not "everyone" would have done what YH did. DH was unhappy, and never did anything remotely similar to what YH did. YH's sister in law was separated from DH's brother and asked for a divorce. Not to mention the female bar owner, who is someone that would have very much benefited from actually pursuing another relationship. For that matter, basically everyone around DH, besides his wife, is utterly loyal: his childhood friends would have been willing to risk getting in trouble with the police to cover with him, etc. In that sense, his decision to not distance himself from them as his wife demanded was 100% vindicated, because he would have turned his back on people that would have never betrayed him, for the sake of someone who turned out to be a liar and a cheater, someone disloyal and utterly untrustworthy, who betrayed him completely.

Most people are pretty decent, and would consider the notion of betraying and deceiving one's partner for a year, having an affair with their abusive boss, staying with said boss even when they turned out to be willing to frame one's partner, and trying to get one's partner out of a job, to be utterly repulsive. In fact, I think it would be pretty scummy to consider doing any or all the above, let alone trying to present it as a reasonable option. On the contrary, I am not sure that most morally normal people wouldn't be willing to commit a crime if a gun was held to their family's head and they were backed into a corner.

Not to mention, everything JA did was revertible (excluding getting rid of the money lender, which I consider a heroic act of self defense from a battered child that defended her family, and for which she should have gotten a medal and the appreciation of the community): the guy she framed then got his position back and then some. DH's public humiliation was due to YH's betrayal, JA would have been ready to live on the run forever to avoid it, DH correctly chose to sacrifice himself for her sake, and in any case it was thanks to her that DH avoided getting fired and the destruction of his life was contained to the degree it was possible given the position that YH had put him in. By contrast, YH's actions are not reversible: there is absolutely nothing she can do to undo what she has done. Incidentally, YH also knew that her lover had framed the guy they mistook DH for in the beginning, and kept mum about it. And for entirely self serving reason: she didn't have any grandmother to take care of.

YH's actions were cruel, utterly needless, entirely and easily avoidable, and self serving. She could have easily been honest with DH and divorced him. In fact, that was what one had every right to expect from her. By contrast, JA's actions were motivated by her and her family being threatened and pushed into a corner, with very little options, and wanting to protect her grandma: she was obviously no career criminal enjoying what she was doing or acting out of sheer greed, otherwise she would not be living in poverty, but rolling in dough.

It's clear to me that if there was any obvious path she could have chosen where she could have successfully protected those she cared about without committing crimes she would have gladly done that instead. Of course, she might be missing out on opportunities because of unknown unknowns: for example she didn't know of the help she could get for her grandma, due to the gaps in her education and nobody apparently ever bothering to tell her that it was a possibility (I have to say, in terms of services that one didn't have a great discoverability, probably something they need to fix as a matter of policy). That said, it's not at all self evident to me that she was wrong in her basic premise, because it's not as if someone without an education could easily put together the sums that the money lender was threatening her over in any useful amount of time for her situation.

So, on one hand, a cruel, meaningless, needless, utterly avoidable betrayal of DH, or her child, of her family in general, that YH freely chose to do out of her own free will, for self serving reasons. On the other hand, we have JA being threatened and coerced by the money lender, and needing to put together a lot of money in a short time, to protect her grandma. Pretty humongous difference, morally, on any level. And, as if that was not enough, there is also the fact that when push came to shove and JA actually got to know the person she was framing, she was unable to go through with it, and reversed course at a high personal cost. Contrast this with YH doing what she did to someone she had known for decades, and the father of her child.

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.

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.


Absolutely nothing wrong for YH to make more money than DH, not sure why he should have had a problem with that, in fact he didn't. By the way, she was very much not the sole breadwinner, DH had a job as well, and was very good at it (start of his previous team, would have been up for promotion), he was then kneecapped by the CEO's lackeys (the CEO being the guy that his wife was sleeping with behind his back for over a year, aka "sought emotional solace somewhere else"... well, she could have divorced and then "sought emotional solace" or whatever else she wanted with whomever she pleased. On the other hand, sleeping with his evil boss and then proceeding to betray DH more and more severely, until there was virtually no aspect where she could be said not to have betrayed him... that's not exactly what one might imagine with a phrasing as neutral (hypocritical, really) as "sought emotional solace somewhere else". Reminds me of George Carlin's standup on euphemistic words.


It all comes down to a very simple question: would any one sane prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray their trust.

YH was a liar and a cheater that was moved by entirely self serving reasons. She was also DH's wife. JA was technically supposed to be DH's enemy and was moved by the desire to protect her family. And yet, between the two, nothing could be more glaring than comparing YH's dishonesty and deception to JA's behavior, who, for example, couldn't help but give DH the suggestion about the phone booth despite it going completely against her interests, because he couldn't continue to look at him being deceived. This despite the fact that she was supposed to be on the side of those interested in working against him, and doing all this in order to protect her family, and being in an atrocious situation where she was beaten and lived in poverty, while YH's actions were entirely self serving. Plus, she was a stranger who was paid to be his enemy, while YH was his wife and lived with him every day, she had known him for decades, and DH was her child's father. And yet JA showed him more loyalty, starting out as his enemy, than his own wife.

Some of the premises of the original review contain some factual errors. In some cases the drama was subtle about certain points, in others they were spelled out quite explicitly.

DH was not depressed because someone he hated became CEO, this was explicitly stated in the drama. Though certainly being abused and suppressed at work didn't help. Depression has multiple causes (in some cases, independent from one's life's material conditions). Before that, DH was the star of his department and was up for promotion.

DH did not have an issue making less money than YH (nor shouldn't he), though it's simply untrue to say that she was the only breadwinner: DH had a job, he was not just a househusband (not that there would have been anything wrong with that, and he was certainly more than willing to take care of the groceries and the housework, so YH could come back to a tidy house and she could focus on her career, because he wanted to support her).

As for the work, it's worth noting that the whole team was a target, and that they, and DH, didn't rebel for the obvious reason that they were without any power or leverage to change the situation, and would have been fired if they tried to do something about it: the ones oppressing them were the CEO's lackeys, and they could have hardly done anything against the CEO. As soon as DH got leverage over the CEO he used it to get him to treat the team fairly (notably, he didn't ask for any preferential treatment).

So, he did something about the situation as soon as he had the power to. This to me doesn't say anything bad about his character, and merely means that the depiction of the situation matters: power matters, and if those in charge want to oppress you, if you don't want to be fired there is little you can do about it. It's a realistic portrayal of what would actually happen, rather than a fantasy.

It is simply not true that DH, his brothers and his mother were exploiting YH economically and living off her.

DH had his own job, and supported his brothers economically (we see in the 1st episode that despite his monthly pay his account had very little money in it because of that). DH's brothers had encountered economic difficulties, but they did work, and supported their mother economically when they could (as did DH). It is worth noting that JH, the female owner of the bar, also contributed economically to DH's mother's expenses, without expecting anything in return, even if she was not her daughter in law or in any way related to her by familiar bonds.

it is worth noting that DH did support his family economically while telling them that the money came from YH, such as in the 1st episode when he got money on credit from his account to give his older brother for his daughter's wedding, telling him they were from YH, since she couldn't be present. So they might believe that they came from her, when in fact it was from him. Again, like most things in the drama this wasn't an overstated scene.

YH did contribute economically, and was certainly keen to point it out to DH: namely, she paid about $20k for the house his mother currently lived in (depending on the translation it's unclear whether that part of the house's cost came from both of them). The house's value was $95k, and it was bought with a loan. YH also contributed to the brother's businesses in non-economic way, for example by bringing them clients. Notably, by her own admission, he did all that, and generally was nice to his mother, brothers and her sister in law, not out of genuine desire to do so, without expecting anything in return, but merely to get into DH's good graces so he would allow her to mold him into who she wanted. It was not genuine, without ulterior motive: she did have an ulterior motive, and it was entirely transactional (not to mention manipulative): contrast this with his older brother paying for JA's mother's funeral without expecting anything in return.

When it came time to start the new business, the mother considered mortaging the house, and ultimately DH had to be the one to take care of the situation. The older brother also borrowed money, for example from the guy that shamed him in front of his family that DH argued with. They didn't go ask YH for money. They clearly weren't exploiting YH economically and living off her.

It is also worth noting that it was not a one way street. DH's mother helped raise YH's kid so she could focus on her career. It seemed to me that it was absolutely appalling that she shouldn't be considered family. As, apparently, she didn't consider family her own niece, the daughter of the sister in law that consistently stood up to her and that very clearly treated YH's own son as family, given that YH missed the girl's wedding to spend time with her lover.

It was very clear that DH's brothers were grateful and appreciative of YH, as was her sister in law (who was always in her corner, despite the fact that YH missed her daughter's wedding to spend time with her lover and didn't even bother to call).

Again, I would just stress that on top of DH's brothers and DH himself sustaining his mom economically, and DH sustaining his brothers, there was also JH, the female owner of the bar, that economically sustained DH's mother, despite not being her daughter in law or part of the family. That's what genuine act without ulterior motives is.

DH's older brother's wife even spends time with her mother in law despite being separated from DH's brother. Frankly, I think that everyone considers DH's brothers and mother family, and they consider YH family, and DH's and YH's kid considers them all family, while she is the only one that doesn't consider them family and thinks DH shouldn't consider them family either, as if considering them family somehow detracted from his love for her (despite all his reassurances to the contrary). They all ask where she is when she isn't there (and she often isn't, now that her plan to ingratiate herself to DH to get him to distance himself from family and friends failed, she intentionally avoids meeting them with excuses, as she only spent time with them due to her ulterior motive of wanting to change DH's core values). They clearly consider her family, and treat her kid as family. DH's mother even helped raise the kid. Not family, somehow. It's just insulting, to me. I mean, you don't have to like your family, but to not even acknowledge that they are family? And they certainly liked her (at least before the two brothers discovered the affair, afterwards the younger one, correctly, didn't... he must have felt betrayed, considering how he always stood up for her).

DH's mother appreciated her as well, she simply had trouble communicating it. She was "tsundere", in that sense ;) Which YH's sister in law explained. But at DH's party, it was pretty clear that DH's mother appreciated and was grateful to YH. DH's mother had some old fashioned ideas (which were not shared by DH's brothers or DH himself, who correctly didn't see any issue with YH making more money than him), but in that context it was clear that her concern there was for YH, because she was sorry that she had to work so hard (her concern was misplaced because the truth is that YH enjoyed her work, and it's not as if now that DH makes more money she intended to stop working, in other words this is not something she did because she "had" to do, or a sacrifice, it's something she enjoyed and "wanted" to do).

On YH not being home, that's not an excuse, it's a fact that she herself acknowledged. It's therefore unclear to me why only her perspective on the matter would count, while DH's loneliness shouldn't. It seems just petty and cruel to pretend he stood around in an empty house, rather than spend time with family and friends, if she was not going to be around anyway. Now, he put up with it in silence because he wanted to be supportive of her, but it's unclear to me why he should have been the only one to come up with a solution, given that she was the one to raise the issue, while she would just spurn the offer and not come up with a proposal of her own.

YH knew very well what DH's outlook on family and friends was, he never hid it or lied about it. She did lie, by pretending to be okay with it and to care about his family, and spent time with his family in order to get into DH's good graces, planning to mold him into who she wanted and to have him change his core values for her. That was never going to happen, and she didn't have the right to ask: he simply didn't owe it to her. When she failed, she simply stopped pretending and made up excuses to avoid family events. It's not that she was not invited, it's that she was, and made up excuses not to go, and DH had to justify her absence to his family. Then she would complain about not being there.

Quite clearly, both JA and YR clearly demonstrate how welcoming DH's family and friends were to someone that genuinely wanted to fit in with them. YH, quite simply, never did. Which is a shame, because JA and YR clearly value the neighborhood, and the viewer sees how precious those relationships are (I think DH's kid would be of the same opinion). They were also welcoming of YH at DH's promotion party. So it was not a matter of excluding her, but of her not having any interest in them.

Which is fine, I mean, while it's common for partners' friend groups to overlap, one is not obliged to have the same friend groups as one's partners. Nothing stopped YH from having her own friend group (they live in Seoul and she has a car: just like she was able to meet up with her lover, she could make time to spend time with friends). Frankly, she should have done that, rather than pretend that DH stopped valuing his life long friends. On some level, it does seem unfair and nonsensical to me that she would make him entirely responsible for her loneliness, when she was the one that turned down family events and wasn't interested in establishing a relationship with his friends in the first place, nor did she attempt to develop her own friendships.

If I were to give this a word, I would call it not being emotionally independent. Fundamentally, I think that one needs to be able to be happy by themselves, and only then can they hope to be happy in a relationship. You cannot really expect the other person to make you happy and push that responsibility on them. I feel that the show made this point as well, with the way that DH and JA are separated at the end, and each has to reach happiness by themselves.

It is also worth noting that YH did not even attempt to propose a compromise or reach a middle ground with DH. He was struggling with loneliness himself, but didn't want to bother her, so he put up with it in silence. Good, at least he didn't put the blame on her. He simply started spending more time with his friends and family. But if she didn't want that, she could have very well proposed a compromise (imho it should have come from her, given that she was the one that raised the issue, not from him, though of course he did propose a compromise himself, which she turned down without a counter-proposal).

In particular, I want to stress that physically separating her partner from lifelong friends and family and pretending that he changes his core values around family and community is neither fair nor, in any sense of the word, a "solution". It's not a compromise or middle ground. Frankly, it's unclear why the "solution" to her possessiveness, jealousy and irrational insecurities would not be to deal with them and address them, but to distance her partner from friends and family so as to remove that connection, or to pretend that he loves them less or values them less.

Frankly, this went beyond the small family vs extended family part. Not considering someone that raised your kid to be family? Or your own niece? Also, we are talking about DH's mother and brothers, not his cousin thrice removed. The label "extended family" makes no sense in this context.

On the "love" part, I found DH's words on that pretty incontrovertible. I mean, does YH's love for her child come at the expense of her love for her husband? I mean, it's not as if DH was going on about poly or anything like that. It's familial love and romantic love. Different types of love, and one does not detract from the other in any way.

Ultimately, intent matters. Could both YH and DH have communicated better? Yes. Were they perfect? No.

But YH was verbally and emotionally abusive, and gaslighted him while doing everything from havig a full blown affair with his abusive boss behind his back, to telling JA that now that she was no longer with the boss and it was not her business anymore, she didn't care even if DH was framed and fired. Pluss all the other stuff she did.

DH simply never did a fraction of that to her. He never treated her with a fraction of the lack of loyalty, honesty and respect. He was committed and devoted to her. He wanted to support her and make her happy (he just wouldn't compromise his core values to do it), and everything, from taking care of the housework and making sure she could come back to a tidy home so she could focus on her career, to putting up with his pain and loneliness in silence, rather than snapping and complaining to her like she did, was meant to support her.

YH's flashback was pretty telling: a bunch of scenes where she snapped at DH and treated him absolutely atrociously, verbally and emotionally abusing him while he put up with it in silence, but rather taking care of her in bed and feeding her porridge while knowing she had been having an affair. Or the confrontation with the boss, where he took him to task about not wanting to marry YH, despite reeling from the pain of finding her glove. Or trusting her unconditionally, and defending her to her brothers when they questioned her excuse of being on a business trip when she missed her own niece's wedding.

Ultimately, neither was perfect, but it's pretty clear who let the other down, for the most part. I mean, it's not even a fair contest. YH's behavior was incomparably worse than DH's on any level. Even in terms of loneliness, he too felt lonely and abandoned, and it's unclear to me why him not snapping at her, and putting up with it in silence, would make that unimportant. What, because he didn't complain it doesn't count?

Talking with her lover, YH was honest enough to recognize that this was about her and DH having different values, and that plenty of people wouldn't have had a problem with his values. And the show clearly demonstrates it, because, with absolutely no change in his values or behavior, JA is okay with it, and YH is okay with his younger brother's. I liked that the show didn't make DH abandon his values, or make it seem like they were wrong, but rather showed the viewer how those relationships were precious, and had JA and YR appreciate them.

If DH was the one that tried to distance JA from her grandma or hacker friend, trying to leverage the fact that he made her a favor, and that if she really loved her she would not consider her grandma family, and want to spend time with her, but would instead let him monopolize her attention and distance herself from friends and family. After all, he did her a favor, and so if she really loved him, why not relocate to a distant place where she wouldn't be in contact with her friends and family anymore? Otherwise it means she doesn't love him.

To me, that all sounds pretty crazy. Frankly, it's just that YH's actress gave a great performance, because when you actually look at the situation on its face, you would have to take note of the fact that basically nobody else, from JA to YR (DH's younger brother's gf) really has a problem with their relationship with friends and family (well, JA has the same outlook as DH on family, their values are aligned there).

YH was a liar and a cheater that was moved by entirely self serving reasons. She was also DH's wife. JA was technically supposed to be DH's enemy and was moved by the desire to protect her family. And yet, between the two, nothing could be more glaring than comparing YH's dishonesty and deception to JA's behavior, who, for example, couldn't help but give DH the suggestion about the phone booth despite it going completely against her interests, because he couldn't continue to look at him being deceived. This despite the fact that she was supposed to be on the side of those interested in working against him, and doing all this in order to protect her family, and being in an atrocious situation where she was beaten and lived in poverty, while YH's actions were entirely self serving. Plus, she was a stranger who was paid to be his enemy, while YH was his wife and lived with him every day, she had known him for decades, and DH was her child's father. And yet JA showed him more loyalty, starting out as his enemy, than his own wife.

I kept wondering if she could get any more shameless. Crazy to think that had her lover not lied to her about camping there wouldn't have been this tearful apology scene and no guilt would have been forthcoming, just like there was none before. Or, frankly, even after, and even at the time of the apology she managed to make something that should have been focused on the person she was apologizing to, be about herself, even as DH was telling her she had made him feel completely worthless, unworthy of basic loyalty, honesty and respect and totally destroyed his emotional confidence. Thankfully JA was listening in and told him he was a good person.

It was kind of strange, because it came after the scene in the car where she recalled how she mistreated him, and how he responded with kindness and took care of her, nursing her in bed despite knowing of her affair, feeding her porridge, etc (incidentally, compare that with the way he had to take care of himself when he came home from the fight with the money lender, and YH was more preoccupied with contacting her lover and checking whether her deception had been exposed than about helping DH).

So, in terms of guilt, I would say definitely too little and too late, and, one gets the impression, because things didn't work out with her lover. But not even that, because she continued to gaslight him even after her affair ended, and frankly even after discovering he knew (the scene where they mention her not being home and the vicious cycle and she nitpicks and rejects his compromise, despite having raised the issue, came after the flashback in the car after she discovered he knew).

Again, I would put this even after her apology, the latter excluded: compare that to her apology when she was forced to admit that she knew of JA, where she didn't attack DH and make it about herself in the way she did with her previous apology. In that respect, I hope that her departure at the end was due to DH telling her he wanted to separate, rather than her abandoning him right when he needed all the support he could get, dealing with the public humiliation of her affair being known by everyone at the company... That would have been consistent with their character arcs, with YH not being so self serving anymore and DH realizing that he didn't need to sacrifice himself and stay with her for the sake of his child and family, because he wouldn't want his son to live that way, so he shouldn't either.

Incidentally, DH was fully aware, at the time of the apology scene, that when he had gone to ask YH for help with regards to the bribe, she chose instead to rat him out to his boss, and didn't leave the latter despite knowing he intended to fire him. Again, she would have married someone willing to do that to someone she had known for decades, as well as the father of her child: the fact that the guy would have been willing to fire DH was not a deal breaker for her (lying to her about camping was) was appalling. Twenty years and a kid together.

He was also aware that she was conspiring and attempting to manipulate him to get him out of a job, getting into debt and mortaging the house to boot. His boss was having an affair with his wife, and he should be the one having to leave his job? Because it would be more convenient for them not to have him around? A complete moral inversion. When DH was the one that was put into the position of having to work for someone he hated, whose lackeys suppressed him at work, and who was having an affair with his wife?

She could have treated him honestly, but when push came to shove, she did not. Then again, had she been willing to show him any loyalty, honesty and respect, she wouldn't be having an affair in the first place. So she tried to manipulate him into quitting his job. Thankfully, the victim of her deception and manipulation knew what she was doing, and did not comply. He also called out her behavior and didn't allow her to pretend that this was anything different from what it was.

Of course, she was later perfectly willing to take JA out of the picture, despite the latter pointing out to her that without her in the picture, DH would have been framed and fired. She told JA that since she was no longer with the boss, it was not her problem anymore, and that she essentially didn't care whether DH was framed and fired. An interesting perspective, not sure she would have liked it had DH shown her a similar lack of consideration. She would never have to wonder, because he never did. A picture is worth a thousand words: he cared for her while she was recovering from the breakup, feeding her porridge, despite knowing of her affair, while she left him to tend to his own wounds, entirely preoccupied that her deception had been discovered.

DH was under no obligation to leave his job for their convenience, let alone when he was being manipulated and deceived. In fact, it would have been completely unfair for him to be the one that had to leave. Not sure what to call it. Non apologetic apology? Shooting and crying? Crocodile tears? Still more honest and decent than the self serving cynicism ("everyone would have done it", often, but not always, coupled with moral inversion wrt JA or even DH), if not outright victim blaming ("what could he have expected", well, maybe to be honest with him and ask for a divorce, rather than deceiving him for a year, betraying him with his worst enemy, and trying to get him out of a job, among other things), of some other takes on the topic (thankfully, a negligible minority). Less sociopathically indifferent, and less of an utter moral inversion, too. I liked that the drama very much avoided such tropes and minimization/trivialization.

As a matter of fact, one thing I liked very much in the series was the fact that YH's betrayal and the horrific effects it had on DH and those around her were not whitewashed (they even "called out" the way this is usually depicted in dramas, which I found very on point and impressive in terms of "keeping it real"). In My Mister the consequences are presented clearly. And the difference between wanting to break up and betraying and deceiving your partner are made clear. They are different, distinct things and reasons to want a divorce don't imply that one should be any more inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

That's simply a non sequitur. This was made absolutely clear by JA asking YH why she betrayed DH (despite knowing why she was unhappy from listening to the apology scene). and YH replying that she could come up with 100, 1000 excuses, but no real reason. In other words, even she didn't know why she was willing to treat DH with no loyalty, honesty and respect, and didn't simply break up with him. A take that, to be honest, I appreciated much more than trying to come up with some weak excuse, or to pretend that one's reasons to break up would also imply that one would be inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

Now, the truth was that, when it came down to it, YH was self serving and self absorbed, and that was reflected even in the fact that she managed to make even her apology about herself. But I liked the way there was an acknowledgment of how horrific and hurtful her actions were. I would have preferred it didn't come with her gaslighting DH. Again, I couldn't help but think that there might have been some psychological defense mechanism at play, because it's unclear to me how she could question DH's affection, or talk about her own supposed priorities, after the flashback in the car, and considering their respective actions. But, again, I liked the distinctions, the fact that the show didn't pretend that being unhappy means one would be inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

Though I must admit that I did find some things rather strident, such as her lack of self awareness when she talked about her loving DH while questioning his affection and commitment (because he loved his family and friends)... I mean, who is having an affair with whose abusive boss? Plus all the rest YH did? I mean, some minimum sense of proportion or awareness of how delusional she sounded? The self serving, self absorbed nature of the character made it rather difficult to understand how much of it was about herself, because, again, we have her turning even the apology into something that is about her and gaslight DH while having the shamelessness to toot her own horn in terms of her conduct towards him... I mean, after what she did to him? After what she remembered him doing for her in the flashback in the car, responding with kindness to her verbal abuse, taking care of her and giving her porridge in bed, etc. while knowing of her betrayal, and so on? Plus, while I don't think that she should have waited around for the guy, with someone as loyal and devoted as the female bar owner around, to see YH toot her own horn for her past conduct, with the exception of the betrayal, which she correctly acknowledges as horrible and unforgivable, is frankly ridiculous... Again, not that I think she owed it to the monk, in fact I think that the female owner's behavior was counterproductive and inadvisable: the guy left, she was under no obligation to wait around for him when he was simply missing and could have been dead for all she knew. But the contrast did make YH's tooting her own horn in terms of her love and devotion to DH even more ridiculous than her total betrayal did... okay, maybe not more, but a close second.

To state the obvious, no, not "everyone" would have done what YH did. DH was unhappy, and never did anything remotely similar to what YH did. YH's sister in law was separated from DH's brother and asked for a divorce. Not to mention the female bar owner, who is someone that would have very much benefited from actually pursuing another relationship. For that matter, basically everyone around DH, besides his wife, is utterly loyal: his childhood friends would have been willing to risk getting in trouble with the police to cover with him, etc. In that sense, his decision to not distance himself from them as his wife demanded was 100% vindicated, because he would have turned his back on people that would have never betrayed him, for the sake of someone who turned out to be a liar and a cheater, someone disloyal and utterly untrustworthy, who betrayed him completely.

Most people are pretty decent, and would consider the notion of betraying and deceiving one's partner for a year, having an affair with their abusive boss, staying with said boss even when they turned out to be willing to frame one's partner, and trying to get one's partner out of a job, to be utterly repulsive. In fact, I think it would be pretty scummy to consider doing any or all the above, let alone trying to present it as a reasonable option. On the contrary, I am not sure that most morally normal people wouldn't be willing to commit a crime if a gun was held to their family's head and they were backed into a corner.

Not to mention, everything JA did was revertible (excluding getting rid of the money lender, which I consider a heroic act of self defense from a battered child that defended her family, and for which she should have gotten a medal and the appreciation of the community): the guy she framed then got his position back and then some. DH's public humiliation was due to YH's betrayal, JA would have been ready to live on the run forever to avoid it, DH correctly chose to sacrifice himself for her sake, and in any case it was thanks to her that DH avoided getting fired and the destruction of his life was contained to the degree it was possible given the position that YH had put him in. By contrast, YH's actions are not reversible: there is absolutely nothing she can do to undo what she has done. Incidentally, YH also knew that her lover had framed the guy they mistook DH for in the beginning, and kept mum about it. And for entirely self serving reason: she didn't have any grandmother to take care of.

YH's actions were cruel, utterly needless, entirely and easily avoidable, and self serving. She could have easily been honest with DH and divorced him. In fact, that was what one had every right to expect from her. By contrast, JA's actions were motivated by her and her family being threatened and pushed into a corner, with very little options, and wanting to protect her grandma: she was obviously no career criminal enjoying what she was doing or acting out of sheer greed, otherwise she would not be living in poverty, but rolling in dough.

It's clear to me that if there was any obvious path she could have chosen where she could have successfully protected those she cared about without committing crimes she would have gladly done that instead. Of course, she might be missing out on opportunities because of unknown unknowns: for example she didn't know of the help she could get for her grandma, due to the gaps in her education and nobody apparently ever bothering to tell her that it was a possibility (I have to say, in terms of services that one didn't have a great discoverability, probably something they need to fix as a matter of policy). That said, it's not at all self evident to me that she was wrong in her basic premise, because it's not as if someone without an education could easily put together the sums that the money lender was threatening her over in any useful amount of time for her situation.

So, on one hand, a cruel, meaningless, needless, utterly avoidable betrayal of DH, or her child, of her family in general, that YH freely chose to do out of her own free will, for self serving reasons. On the other hand, we have JA being threatened and coerced by the money lender, and needing to put together a lot of money in a short time, to protect her grandma. Pretty humongous difference, morally, on any level. And, as if that was not enough, there is also the fact that when push came to shove and JA actually got to know the person she was framing, she was unable to go through with it, and reversed course at a high personal cost. Contrast this with YH doing what she did to someone she had known for decades, and the father of her child.

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.
Condividi

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.

Absolutely nothing wrong for YH to make more money than DH, not sure why he should have had a problem with that, in fact he didn't. By the way, she was very much not the sole breadwinner, DH had a job as well, and was very good at it (start of his previous team, would have been up for promotion), he was then kneecapped by the CEO's lackeys (the CEO being the guy that his wife was sleeping with behind his back for over a year, aka "sought emotional solace somewhere else"... well, she could have divorced and then "sought emotional solace" or whatever else she wanted with whomever she pleased. On the other hand, sleeping with his evil boss and then proceeding to betray DH more and more severely, until there was virtually no aspect where she could be said not to have betrayed him... that's not exactly what one might imagine with a phrasing as neutral (hypocritical, really) as "sought emotional solace somewhere else". Reminds me of George Carlin's standup on euphemistic words.

Ultimately, if one was honest with themselves, I doubt that anyone sane would prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray one's trust.

YH 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.

It all comes down to a very simple question: would any one sane prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray their trust.

Frankly, YH was delusional. I mean, one could try to be generous and talk about two opposite views of family, but that was not really the case. We are talking about one's brothers and mother, not about one's cousin thrice removed.

Frankly, with an old parent to take care of, I would make perfect sense for them to live nearby. Quite frankly, YH is perfectly capable of understanding this, and in fact she explicitly mentions it at one point. I mean, quite frankly, where I live it's perfectly common for families to live literally in the same building, let alone merely close by. From what I know it's not at all uncommon in certain cultures, including my own, to have close ties to your extended family. Does't mean you like everyone, but it does mean that you accept that when you enter a relationship, you will have to deal with the other person's family as well, and they would take up space in their and your lives.

In terms of contributing to the family, from my experience, it is not at all unrealistic for family to help each other and for the economically stronger party to take up some of the slack. Quite frankly, it's not at all clear to what extend this happened here, particularly with DH apparently paying out of his own pocket and telling people it was from YH (we see him get the money from his bank account, and we also see that there is not much money there: he is obviously not spending on himself, and very clearly he is not living off his wife while accumulating capital on his bank account). We also know that YH is quick to point out the one time that she actually gave money to pay (in part?) to move DH's mother closer to where he lives (an obvious choice, given the woman's age, as anyone with older parents could understand), and she really doesn't meantion anything else (which, give that she even mentioned making kimtchi, I guess she would have done had she had other supposed "ammo"), so if there was any exploitation or big financial burden she was subjected to she would have been sure to mention it.

Actually, what is certain is that the family is surely not exploiting her: they all worked, so it is simply untrue to call her the sole breadwinner, and the brothers were trying to start a business, while DH had his own job. For that matter, we see DH giving the brothers money telling them they were from YH (i.e. for the wedding), while they come from his account (and we see that his balance is not all that high, very clearly he is not spending for himself or accumulating capital while spending YH's money), and when it comes to the brothers' business, the mother wants to mortage the apartment, not to exploit YH. For that matter, let's also note that DH's mother helped raise her kid so she could focus on her career. In general, I find rather disgusting/appalling that one would leverage their economic power over the rest of the family. Okay, she makes more money. So? It's not as if the rest don't work, and it's not as if DH's mom didn't help her out in return. Yet she is not considered "family", despite having helped raise her kid.

In general, what I do find ridiculous is the way that she puts DH in the uncomfortable position where he has to show up in front of his family without her, and make excuses for her, like in EP 7, where he asks whether she can make time to visit his brothers' new cleaning company, and she declines with an excuse, leading to him looking disappointed, but not surprised... clearly, that's how it has always been with her and the issue of family (and certainly in EP 1 where she misses her own niece's wedding!).

To be honest, YH seems to just want a romantic relationship devoid of context, and I am pretty sure that if she actually tried to turn her love affair in an actual relationship, by pursuing marriage, things would have quickly turned south. Actually, to be honest, things were already turning south, given the way she verbally assaults him in EP 1, in a way reminiscent of her own treatment of DH. It's clear that she was going to replicate the steps of her marriage in record time.

In terms of the mother, she was kind of clueless about how to thank YH, but she was certainly grateful, albeit not knowing how to express it. She told him as such at DH's promotion party. Imho she was clearly happy the few times that YH visited, particularly in the occasion where she and DH played the quiz game at the radio during their return trip. His brothers were also very welcoming/appreciative, such as when she went to DH's brother's company (again, for self serving reasons, to check DH's alibi about being hurt playing soccer). As for his mother, she did have some old fashioned ideas (I mean, call the police... an old person with old fashioned ideas? Nooooo, impossible), but her main point even there was about the fact that she regretted she had to work: she simply couldn't contemplate that in truth she wanted to work, that she liked it, and that it was not a sacrifice. Quite frankly, neither her nor DH were bothered by the fact that she made more money, DH's mom might have had the idea that YH would have preferred DH earned more then her so she could avoid working, but that was simply not the case. Still, the mom's concern came from a good place.

In that respect, though, I do have to stress that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her making more money than DH and that besides the mom thing, which was more for YH's sake anyway, as explained above, essentially no one had a problem with it, least of all DH. Again, it's not clear to me why it should. I mean, is this really something that they should be ashamed of? Or that she should be proud of? Or a circumstance to change? I mean, just because in many cases the man is the one with more money, it's not at all clear to me why it ought to be a problem when it is the other way around. And just like I don't think that if it was the man that made more money that would entitle him to some special priviledge, such as being able to cheat with impunity, the same goes for YH. Again, as explained above, nothing suggests that she is being economically exploited.

Frankly, I think that it's pretty clear how the distance is really generated by YH not having any interest in fitting in to DH's group of family and friends, but rather in wanting to get DH away from them. By contrast, see how comfortable even "outsiders" like JA or DH's younger brother's girlfriend are around the neighbourhood friends, and how, say, DH's sister in law or son are around his mother, who they genuinely consider family. Again, to me both DH's brothers, his sister in law and the neighbourhood people seemed to be pretty warm towards YH and actually to go out of their way to celebrate her. They certainly don't treat her any worse than JA or DH's brohter's girlfriend, who integrate perfectly well in the group.

Talking with another friend about her, she told me that her impression was that she wasn't particularly moved by YH's tears, because they always seemed to be more about herself than about how she had hurt DH. What I will say on that is that she certainly managed to make even something that ought to have been entirely about DH and making him understand how sorry she was for hurting him, be about herself, when she attacked him during the apology with frankly massively unfair accusation (I mean, given what she was apologizing for, good luck convincing any sane person that you put him first and he should be the one whose love for her should be questioned... who was sleeping with the other's evil boss whose lackeys suppressed their spouse at work, knowing he had been prepared to frame and fire her husband, but not considering that a reason to break things off with him, while lying to her about camping was, again? And her betrayal was much deeper than even that).

The bottom line is that her spiel in that occasion was pretty telling: she thought she could change DH, but she didn't, nor should she have expected to be able to. One simply doesn't owe their partner to change their core values for them. She couldn't accept him as he was, and couldn't accept his relationship with his friends and family, and thought she would be finally be happy when she was able to change him. If that was the case, she shouldn't have married him. She obviously knew how close he was to his friends and family, and should have either been prepared to be a part of them too, or sufficiently emotionally independent to be okay with the fact that he had strong emotional, non romantic connections to his community, friends and family (not really extended family, given we are talking about brothers and mother), if she was going to marry him: she brought all these problems on herself, and dragged DH down along with her.

YH married DH without accepting his relationship with his family and friends, and instead of working out a compromise with him, she made herself miserable while piling the blame squarely on him. And that's the truth of the matter, it's pure hypocrisy and an utterly false strawman (well, not even a strawman, given that the claim has no basis in reality) to pretend that things went the other way around: DH never complained about her pretending to go along with his values on family and friends, and it being just a ploy to manipulate him, and he only raised the point of being left alone in an empty house with her never being around when she accused him -after which she acknowledged that, very conveniently turned it into "who knows who started first, vicious cycle", and handwaved it away-, nor did he ever take her to task for essentially admitting to viewing her favours and relationship with his brothers, etc. in a transactional manner, the furthest from a genuine, disinterested act; or about her "plan" to solve this to be to separate him from friends and family in order to cope with her irrational insecurities, a plan that was not a compromise, but his capitulation. He didn't complain about any of that, though he could and should have. Or about her atrocious behaviour, etc. Or about the fact that she was constantly raising this issue, but never proposed a compromise (he also wasn't too happy to be alone in an empty house, but didn't complain, and imho it's just sick to pretend he stays alone at home because you are jealous of him spending time with his friends, despite the fact that you wouldn't be with him anyway... she is essentially asking someone to be alone in order to make herself feel better about her own insecurities).

DH sever accused her about any of the above, though he could and should have. He never blamed her for that part of the so called "failure of the relationship", he merely stressed that it was crazy to think that love was a sort of competition where loving your brother meant you love your spouse less. And it is a crazy notion, and given she presumably loves her son, she should be clear about that. By the same token, DH, correctly, did not back down in terms of what his values around friends and family are, nor should he: he doesn't think they are wrong, and factually speaking they are not wrong in any objective sense, other people like JA and his brother's girlfriend don't have any issues with them, etc. Just because YH doesn't like them it shouldn't mean that DH is wrong to appreciate and value them. That's not something he should apologize for, let alone that it would be insincere, because his stance of family and friends is pretty clear.

DH, obviously did hold her responsible for the affair she chose to have with his boss. And who else is supposed to be responsible: her victim, who was completely unaware of what was going on behind her back? Here again, DH was perfectly correct in pointing out that even if she didn't love him anymore, or was unhappy, she cloud have asked for a divorce. For that matter, even if she fell for someone else, she could have asked for a divorce and then pursue a new relationship. Absolutely nothing about loneliness, unhappiness, etc. made her total betrayal a necessity. For that matter, DH was rather unhappy, to use an euphemism, himself (I would say, suicidally so), and he never contemplated anything that would even come close to her complete betrayal. Again, she is entirely and solely responsible for her choices and decisions regarding the betrayal, nothing short of that would constitute taking responsibility in any adult sense.

And yes, anyway, the end of the story there was that she did betray him completely, and he very much did nothing even remotely close. So in terms of being terrible spouses, he never even came remotely close to doing something even remotely as disrespectful, emotionally traumatic, deceitful, just plain traitorous and repulsive. I mean, if you put everything on the plate, the complete betrayal pretty much dominates over everything else, the comparison between the two of them is not even close, nothing he ever even contemplated doing even came remotely close to being as emotionally traumatic and just sick and twisted, as her deliberate betrayal and deception, for entirely self serving reasons. I mean, from the betrayal and emotional damage to even just the motives and goals, there is no comparison. She betrayed and deceived him in the most complete manner imaginable, for entirely self serving reasons. Nothing else even comes close (and her appalling behaviour, from the verbal abuse to the gaslighing and unfair accusations were really the cherry on top of this sick, twisted cake).

I have to say that to me, if one were to even take into consideration having an affair with their partner's boss, let alone treat it as something even remotely reasonable or normal, in reaction to feeling unhappy in the relationship, is basically scum. Let alone everything else YH did. To pretend otherwise is merely self serving cynicism. Frankly, I cannot understand how anyone would be able to imagine doing that to one's partner without feeling disgust, let alone deliberately betraying and lying to their faces for a year without a shred of guilt.

A reasonable reaction to feeling unhappy in a relationship might be to get a divorce, particularly in this case where they had different views on core issues (to be more precise, where he expressed his views and she married him despite not accepting them, pretending that he would change them for her sake, which was a recipe for making herself unhappy, and unfortunately, in doing so she wrecked DH's life as well).

I wouldn't exactly use the term "taking a wrong turn" for "betray and deceive someone you have known for decades, and the father of your child, having an affair with his abusive boss, manipulating him, and everything else YH did, all the while gaslighting them and treating them horribly, in a show of massive hypocrisy". Nor do I think that it in any way served to "deal with a bad situation'". It didn't address the situation in any way whatsoever. It was cruel and unnecessary, and didn't even get her any close to happiness, which being honest with DH and getting a divorce would have.

Again, this is a bit of a "bait and switch", because when we are talking about their relationship, and splitting up, that's something completely different and distinct from her massive betrayal. One might very well be unhappy and want to split up from their partner, but that wouldn't make them any more inclined to treat them without a shred of loyalty, honesty and respect. The show did a perfectly good job highlighting that fundamental difference.

Frankly, the fact that when she talked about DH to her lover she acknowledge that he was a good person, that he suffered terribly but still did everything he was capable of to do right by his family, and that fundamentally they had merely different views and values (family being her and the kid, or it including his brothers and mother as well, etc.). That she would talk about his depression and pain and then be able to turn around and make a joke of betraying him with her lover was appalling. It would have been a thousand times better had she just hated him. This indifference and complete lack of guilt was absolutely creepy and sociopathic. To acknowledge that he was in pain, that he was still trying his best, and yet betraying him with his boss and being able to joke out of it... repulsive.

And she had the gall to play the victim and question his love and commitment, while giving him an infinite number of reasons to question her own? Even after remembering how she treated him like garbage, and he cared for her feeding her porridge, etc. despite knowing of her betrayal, in the scene in the car with the flashback? The bit where they discussed about the fact that she was never at home and yet expected him to simply stand there in an empty house, because she was irrationally jealous of his friends, happened when she knew he knew of her affair, and he offered a compromise (which she rejected, despite having been the one to raise the issue, without offering one of her own) despite the fact that he was at a point where he had to physically turn around and walk away outside of his apartment when he saw her car downstairs, because he needed space (which she was unwilling to give him) and he couldn't stand her presence for self evident reasons.

Frankly, she was also completely dishonest, to the point where even until the very end, she only fessed up when DH essentially discovered everything. And it was consistently absolutely self serving.

Besides self serving, YH's actions were also cruel and entirely avoidable ("regardless of their impact on others", indeed). She could have easily separated from DH the same way her sister in law did with DH's brother. While being unhappy might lead her to wish to get a divorce, there is absolutely nothing in that that would make one inclined to treat her partner without any loyalty, honesty and respect. There was no need for it, it's something that would have repulsed any morally normal person, and it was just cruel and pointless. Contrast this with JA who, despite being forced into an impossible position, struggling with poverty and physical abuse, and needing to do whatever she had to in order to protect her family, her grandma, was unable to actually go through with it when she realized that DH was actually a good person. As sad as it was, essentially the only good person that she had encountered in her life after her horrible and scarring experiences. And she was unable to hurt such a person, when she saw how he suffered and how he was still trying to do his best. YH saw the same things, event talked about it to her lover, and was able to joke about her betrayal with the latter, and to lie to DH's face day after day for a year.

Consider JA, who did what she did in order to protect her family, her grandma, and was struggling with everything from poverty to physical and emotional abuse. She was being paid to betray DH, and even she was unable to bring herself to do it when she saw that he plainly didn't deserve to be treated that way, and was willing to stand at his side at great personal risk. YH was his wife, the person that he trusted the most (and he trusted her absolutely, defending her to his brothers when they questioned her business trip excuse when she missed her niece's wedding to be with her lover), and she betrayed him completely. From having an affair with his abusive boss (and making jokes about it while she was fully aware of DH's pain and the fact that he still tried to do the best he was capable of), to ratting him out to the boss when DH went to ask her for help regarding the bribery case, to everything else she did.

It is worth comparing YH's deception to JA's behavior, who, for example, couldn't help but give DH the suggestion about the phone booth despite it going completely against her interests, because he couldn't continue to look at him being deceived. This despite the fact that she was supposed to be on the side of those interested in working against him, and doing all this in order to protect her family, and being in an atrocious situation where she was beaten and lived in poverty, while YH's actions were entirely self serving. Plus, she was a stranger who was paid to be his enemy, while YH was his wife and lived with him every day, she had known him for decades, and DH was her child's father. And yet JA showed him more loyalty, starting out as his enemy, than his own wife.

Some of the premises of the original review contain some factual errors. In some cases the drama was subtle about certain points, in others they were spelled out quite explicitly.

DH was not depressed because someone he hated became CEO, this was explicitly stated in the drama. Though certainly being abused and suppressed at work didn't help. Depression has multiple causes (in some cases, independent from one's life's material conditions). Before that, DH was the star of his department and was up for promotion.

DH did not have an issue making less money than YH (nor shouldn't he), though it's simply untrue to say that she was the only breadwinner: DH had a job, he was not just a househusband (not that there would have been anything wrong with that, and he was certainly more than willing to take care of the groceries and the housework, so YH could come back to a tidy house and she could focus on her career, because he wanted to support her).

As for the work, it's worth noting that the whole team was a target, and that they, and DH, didn't rebel for the obvious reason that they were without any power or leverage to change the situation, and would have been fired if they tried to do something about it: the ones oppressing them were the CEO's lackeys, and they could have hardly done anything against the CEO. As soon as DH got leverage over the CEO he used it to get him to treat the team fairly (notably, he didn't ask for any preferential treatment).

So, he did something about the situation as soon as he had the power to. This to me doesn't say anything bad about his character, and merely means that the depiction of the situation matters: power matters, and if those in charge want to oppress you, if you don't want to be fired there is little you can do about it. It's a realistic portrayal of what would actually happen, rather than a fantasy.

It is simply not true that DH, his brothers and his mother were exploiting YH economically and living off her.

DH had his own job, and supported his brothers economically (we see in the 1st episode that despite his monthly pay his account had very little money in it because of that). DH's brothers had encountered economic difficulties, but they did work, and supported their mother economically when they could (as did DH). It is worth noting that JH, the female owner of the bar, also contributed economically to DH's mother's expenses, without expecting anything in return, even if she was not her daughter in law or in any way related to her by familiar bonds.

it is worth noting that DH did support his family economically while telling them that the money came from YH, such as in the 1st episode when he got money on credit from his account to give his older brother for his daughter's wedding, telling him they were from YH, since she couldn't be present. So they might believe that they came from her, when in fact it was from him. Again, like most things in the drama this wasn't an overstated scene.

YH did contribute economically, and was certainly keen to point it out to DH: namely, she paid about $20k for the house his mother currently lived in (depending on the translation it's unclear whether that part of the house's cost came from both of them). The house's value was $95k, and it was bought with a loan. YH also contributed to the brother's businesses in non-economic way, for example by bringing them clients. Notably, by her own admission, he did all that, and generally was nice to his mother, brothers and her sister in law, not out of genuine desire to do so, without expecting anything in return, but merely to get into DH's good graces so he would allow her to mold him into who she wanted. It was not genuine, without ulterior motive: she did have an ulterior motive, and it was entirely transactional (not to mention manipulative): contrast this with his older brother paying for JA's mother's funeral without expecting anything in return.

When it came time to start the new business, the mother considered mortaging the house, and ultimately DH had to be the one to take care of the situation. The older brother also borrowed money, for example from the guy that shamed him in front of his family that DH argued with. They didn't go ask YH for money. They clearly weren't exploiting YH economically and living off her.

It is also worth noting that it was not a one way street. DH's mother helped raise YH's kid so she could focus on her career. It seemed to me that it was absolutely appalling that she shouldn't be considered family. As, apparently, she didn't consider family her own niece, the daughter of the sister in law that consistently stood up to her and that very clearly treated YH's own son as family, given that YH missed the girl's wedding to spend time with her lover.

It was very clear that DH's brothers were grateful and appreciative of YH, as was her sister in law (who was always in her corner, despite the fact that YH missed her daughter's wedding to spend time with her lover and didn't even bother to call).

Again, I would just stress that on top of DH's brothers and DH himself sustaining his mom economically, and DH sustaining his brothers, there was also JH, the female owner of the bar, that economically sustained DH's mother, despite not being her daughter in law or part of the family. That's what genuine act without ulterior motives is.

DH's older brother's wife even spends time with her mother in law despite being separated from DH's brother. Frankly, I think that everyone considers DH's brothers and mother family, and they consider YH family, and DH's and YH's kid considers them all family, while she is the only one that doesn't consider them family and thinks DH shouldn't consider them family either, as if considering them family somehow detracted from his love for her (despite all his reassurances to the contrary). They all ask where she is when she isn't there (and she often isn't, now that her plan to ingratiate herself to DH to get him to distance himself from family and friends failed, she intentionally avoids meeting them with excuses, as she only spent time with them due to her ulterior motive of wanting to change DH's core values). They clearly consider her family, and treat her kid as family. DH's mother even helped raise the kid. Not family, somehow. It's just insulting, to me. I mean, you don't have to like your family, but to not even acknowledge that they are family? And they certainly liked her (at least before the two brothers discovered the affair, afterwards the younger one, correctly, didn't... he must have felt betrayed, considering how he always stood up for her).

DH's mother appreciated her as well, she simply had trouble communicating it. She was "tsundere", in that sense ;) Which YH's sister in law explained. But at DH's party, it was pretty clear that DH's mother appreciated and was grateful to YH. DH's mother had some old fashioned ideas (which were not shared by DH's brothers or DH himself, who correctly didn't see any issue with YH making more money than him), but in that context it was clear that her concern there was for YH, because she was sorry that she had to work so hard (her concern was misplaced because the truth is that YH enjoyed her work, and it's not as if now that DH makes more money she intended to stop working, in other words this is not something she did because she "had" to do, or a sacrifice, it's something she enjoyed and "wanted" to do).

On YH not being home, that's not an excuse, it's a fact that she herself acknowledged. It's therefore unclear to me why only her perspective on the matter would count, while DH's loneliness shouldn't. It seems just petty and cruel to pretend he stood around in an empty house, rather than spend time with family and friends, if she was not going to be around anyway. Now, he put up with it in silence because he wanted to be supportive of her, but it's unclear to me why he should have been the only one to come up with a solution, given that she was the one to raise the issue, while she would just spurn the offer and not come up with a proposal of her own.

YH knew very well what DH's outlook on family and friends was, he never hid it or lied about it. She did lie, by pretending to be okay with it and to care about his family, and spent time with his family in order to get into DH's good graces, planning to mold him into who she wanted and to have him change his core values for her. That was never going to happen, and she didn't have the right to ask: he simply didn't owe it to her. When she failed, she simply stopped pretending and made up excuses to avoid family events. It's not that she was not invited, it's that she was, and made up excuses not to go, and DH had to justify her absence to his family. Then she would complain about not being there.

Quite clearly, both JA and YR clearly demonstrate how welcoming DH's family and friends were to someone that genuinely wanted to fit in with them. YH, quite simply, never did. Which is a shame, because JA and YR clearly value the neighborhood, and the viewer sees how precious those relationships are (I think DH's kid would be of the same opinion). They were also welcoming of YH at DH's promotion party. So it was not a matter of excluding her, but of her not having any interest in them.

Which is fine, I mean, while it's common for partners' friend groups to overlap, one is not obliged to have the same friend groups as one's partners. Nothing stopped YH from having her own friend group (they live in Seoul and she has a car: just like she was able to meet up with her lover, she could make time to spend time with friends). Frankly, she should have done that, rather than pretend that DH stopped valuing his life long friends. On some level, it does seem unfair and nonsensical to me that she would make him entirely responsible for her loneliness, when she was the one that turned down family events and wasn't interested in establishing a relationship with his friends in the first place, nor did she attempt to develop her own friendships.

If I were to give this a word, I would call it not being emotionally independent. Fundamentally, I think that one needs to be able to be happy by themselves, and only then can they hope to be happy in a relationship. You cannot really expect the other person to make you happy and push that responsibility on them. I feel that the show made this point as well, with the way that DH and JA are separated at the end, and each has to reach happiness by themselves.

It is also worth noting that YH did not even attempt to propose a compromise or reach a middle ground with DH. He was struggling with loneliness himself, but didn't want to bother her, so he put up with it in silence. Good, at least he didn't put the blame on her. He simply started spending more time with his friends and family. But if she didn't want that, she could have very well proposed a compromise (imho it should have come from her, given that she was the one that raised the issue, not from him, though of course he did propose a compromise himself, which she turned down without a counter-proposal).

In particular, I want to stress that physically separating her partner from lifelong friends and family and pretending that he changes his core values around family and community is neither fair nor, in any sense of the word, a "solution". It's not a compromise or middle ground. Frankly, it's unclear why the "solution" to her possessiveness, jealousy and irrational insecurities would not be to deal with them and address them, but to distance her partner from friends and family so as to remove that connection, or to pretend that he loves them less or values them less.

Frankly, this went beyond the small family vs extended family part. Not considering someone that raised your kid to be family? Or your own niece? Also, we are talking about DH's mother and brothers, not his cousin thrice removed. The label "extended family" makes no sense in this context.

On the "love" part, I found DH's words on that pretty incontrovertible. I mean, does YH's love for her child come at the expense of her love for her husband? I mean, it's not as if DH was going on about poly or anything like that. It's familial love and romantic love. Different types of love, and one does not detract from the other in any way.

Ultimately, intent matters. Could both YH and DH have communicated better? Yes. Were they perfect? No.

But YH was verbally and emotionally abusive, and gaslighted him while doing everything from havig a full blown affair with his abusive boss behind his back, to telling JA that now that she was no longer with the boss and it was not her business anymore, she didn't care even if DH was framed and fired. Pluss all the other stuff she did.

DH simply never did a fraction of that to her. He never treated her with a fraction of the lack of loyalty, honesty and respect. He was committed and devoted to her. He wanted to support her and make her happy (he just wouldn't compromise his core values to do it), and everything, from taking care of the housework and making sure she could come back to a tidy home so she could focus on her career, to putting up with his pain and loneliness in silence, rather than snapping and complaining to her like she did, was meant to support her.

YH's flashback was pretty telling: a bunch of scenes where she snapped at DH and treated him absolutely atrociously, verbally and emotionally abusing him while he put up with it in silence, but rather taking care of her in bed and feeding her porridge while knowing she had been having an affair. Or the confrontation with the boss, where he took him to task about not wanting to marry YH, despite reeling from the pain of finding her glove. Or trusting her unconditionally, and defending her to her brothers when they questioned her excuse of being on a business trip when she missed her own niece's wedding.

Ultimately, neither was perfect, but it's pretty clear who let the other down, for the most part. I mean, it's not even a fair contest. YH's behavior was incomparably worse than DH's on any level. Even in terms of loneliness, he too felt lonely and abandoned, and it's unclear to me why him not snapping at her, and putting up with it in silence, would make that unimportant. What, because he didn't complain it doesn't count?

Talking with her lover, YH was honest enough to recognize that this was about her and DH having different values, and that plenty of people wouldn't have had a problem with his values. And the show clearly demonstrates it, because, with absolutely no change in his values or behavior, JA is okay with it, and YH is okay with his younger brother's. I liked that the show didn't make DH abandon his values, or make it seem like they were wrong, but rather showed the viewer how those relationships were precious, and had JA and YR appreciate them.

If DH was the one that tried to distance JA from her grandma or hacker friend, trying to leverage the fact that he made her a favor, and that if she really loved her she would not consider her grandma family, and want to spend time with her, but would instead let him monopolize her attention and distance herself from friends and family. After all, he did her a favor, and so if she really loved him, why not relocate to a distant place where she wouldn't be in contact with her friends and family anymore? Otherwise it means she doesn't love him.

To me, that all sounds pretty crazy. Frankly, it's just that YH's actress gave a great performance, because when you actually look at the situation on its face, you would have to take note of the fact that basically nobody else, from JA to YR (DH's younger brother's gf) really has a problem with their relationship with friends and family (well, JA has the same outlook as DH on family, their values are aligned there).

YH was a liar and a cheater that was moved by entirely self serving reasons. She was also DH's wife. JA was technically supposed to be DH's enemy and was moved by the desire to protect her family. And yet, between the two, nothing could be more glaring than comparing YH's dishonesty and deception to JA's behavior, who, for example, couldn't help but give DH the suggestion about the phone booth despite it going completely against her interests, because he couldn't continue to look at him being deceived. This despite the fact that she was supposed to be on the side of those interested in working against him, and doing all this in order to protect her family, and being in an atrocious situation where she was beaten and lived in poverty, while YH's actions were entirely self serving. Plus, she was a stranger who was paid to be his enemy, while YH was his wife and lived with him every day, she had known him for decades, and DH was her child's father. And yet JA showed him more loyalty, starting out as his enemy, than his own wife.

I kept wondering if she could get any more shameless. Crazy to think that had her lover not lied to her about camping there wouldn't have been this tearful apology scene and no guilt would have been forthcoming, just like there was none before. Or, frankly, even after, and even at the time of the apology she managed to make something that should have been focused on the person she was apologizing to, be about herself, even as DH was telling her she had made him feel completely worthless, unworthy of basic loyalty, honesty and respect and totally destroyed his emotional confidence. Thankfully JA was listening in and told him he was a good person.

It was kind of strange, because it came after the scene in the car where she recalled how she mistreated him, and how he responded with kindness and took care of her, nursing her in bed despite knowing of her affair, feeding her porridge, etc (incidentally, compare that with the way he had to take care of himself when he came home from the fight with the money lender, and YH was more preoccupied with contacting her lover and checking whether her deception had been exposed than about helping DH).

So, in terms of guilt, I would say definitely too little and too late, and, one gets the impression, because things didn't work out with her lover. But not even that, because she continued to gaslight him even after her affair ended, and frankly even after discovering he knew (the scene where they mention her not being home and the vicious cycle and she nitpicks and rejects his compromise, despite having raised the issue, came after the flashback in the car after she discovered he knew).

Again, I would put this even after her apology, the latter excluded: compare that to her apology when she was forced to admit that she knew of JA, where she didn't attack DH and make it about herself in the way she did with her previous apology. In that respect, I hope that her departure at the end was due to DH telling her he wanted to separate, rather than her abandoning him right when he needed all the support he could get, dealing with the public humiliation of her affair being known by everyone at the company... That would have been consistent with their character arcs, with YH not being so self serving anymore and DH realizing that he didn't need to sacrifice himself and stay with her for the sake of his child and family, because he wouldn't want his son to live that way, so he shouldn't either.

Incidentally, DH was fully aware, at the time of the apology scene, that when he had gone to ask YH for help with regards to the bribe, she chose instead to rat him out to his boss, and didn't leave the latter despite knowing he intended to fire him. Again, she would have married someone willing to do that to someone she had known for decades, as well as the father of her child: the fact that the guy would have been willing to fire DH was not a deal breaker for her (lying to her about camping was) was appalling. Twenty years and a kid together.

He was also aware that she was conspiring and attempting to manipulate him to get him out of a job, getting into debt and mortaging the house to boot. His boss was having an affair with his wife, and he should be the one having to leave his job? Because it would be more convenient for them not to have him around? A complete moral inversion. When DH was the one that was put into the position of having to work for someone he hated, whose lackeys suppressed him at work, and who was having an affair with his wife?

She could have treated him honestly, but when push came to shove, she did not. Then again, had she been willing to show him any loyalty, honesty and respect, she wouldn't be having an affair in the first place. So she tried to manipulate him into quitting his job. Thankfully, the victim of her deception and manipulation knew what she was doing, and did not comply. He also called out her behavior and didn't allow her to pretend that this was anything different from what it was.

Of course, she was later perfectly willing to take JA out of the picture, despite the latter pointing out to her that without her in the picture, DH would have been framed and fired. She told JA that since she was no longer with the boss, it was not her problem anymore, and that she essentially didn't care whether DH was framed and fired. An interesting perspective, not sure she would have liked it had DH shown her a similar lack of consideration. She would never have to wonder, because he never did. A picture is worth a thousand words: he cared for her while she was recovering from the breakup, feeding her porridge, despite knowing of her affair, while she left him to tend to his own wounds, entirely preoccupied that her deception had been discovered.

DH was under no obligation to leave his job for their convenience, let alone when he was being manipulated and deceived. In fact, it would have been completely unfair for him to be the one that had to leave. Not sure what to call it. Non apologetic apology? Shooting and crying? Crocodile tears? Still more honest and decent than the self serving cynicism ("everyone would have done it", often, but not always, coupled with moral inversion wrt JA or even DH), if not outright victim blaming ("what could he have expected", well, maybe to be honest with him and ask for a divorce, rather than deceiving him for a year, betraying him with his worst enemy, and trying to get him out of a job, among other things), of some other takes on the topic (thankfully, a negligible minority). Less sociopathically indifferent, and less of an utter moral inversion, too. I liked that the drama very much avoided such tropes and minimization/trivialization.

As a matter of fact, one thing I liked very much in the series was the fact that YH's betrayal and the horrific effects it had on DH and those around her were not whitewashed (they even "called out" the way this is usually depicted in dramas, which I found very on point and impressive in terms of "keeping it real"). In My Mister the consequences are presented clearly. And the difference between wanting to break up and betraying and deceiving your partner are made clear. They are different, distinct things and reasons to want a divorce don't imply that one should be any more inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

That's simply a non sequitur. This was made absolutely clear by JA asking YH why she betrayed DH (despite knowing why she was unhappy from listening to the apology scene). and YH replying that she could come up with 100, 1000 excuses, but no real reason. In other words, even she didn't know why she was willing to treat DH with no loyalty, honesty and respect, and didn't simply break up with him. A take that, to be honest, I appreciated much more than trying to come up with some weak excuse, or to pretend that one's reasons to break up would also imply that one would be inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

Now, the truth was that, when it came down to it, YH was self serving and self absorbed, and that was reflected even in the fact that she managed to make even her apology about herself. But I liked the way there was an acknowledgment of how horrific and hurtful her actions were. I would have preferred it didn't come with her gaslighting DH. Again, I couldn't help but think that there might have been some psychological defense mechanism at play, because it's unclear to me how she could question DH's affection, or talk about her own supposed priorities, after the flashback in the car, and considering their respective actions. But, again, I liked the distinctions, the fact that the show didn't pretend that being unhappy means one would be inclined to treat their partner with no loyalty, honesty and respect.

Though I must admit that I did find some things rather strident, such as her lack of self awareness when she talked about her loving DH while questioning his affection and commitment (because he loved his family and friends)... I mean, who is having an affair with whose abusive boss? Plus all the rest YH did? I mean, some minimum sense of proportion or awareness of how delusional she sounded? The self serving, self absorbed nature of the character made it rather difficult to understand how much of it was about herself, because, again, we have her turning even the apology into something that is about her and gaslight DH while having the shamelessness to toot her own horn in terms of her conduct towards him... I mean, after what she did to him? After what she remembered him doing for her in the flashback in the car, responding with kindness to her verbal abuse, taking care of her and giving her porridge in bed, etc. while knowing of her betrayal, and so on? Plus, while I don't think that she should have waited around for the guy, with someone as loyal and devoted as the female bar owner around, to see YH toot her own horn for her past conduct, with the exception of the betrayal, which she correctly acknowledges as horrible and unforgivable, is frankly ridiculous... Again, not that I think she owed it to the monk, in fact I think that the female owner's behavior was counterproductive and inadvisable: the guy left, she was under no obligation to wait around for him when he was simply missing and could have been dead for all she knew. But the contrast did make YH's tooting her own horn in terms of her love and devotion to DH even more ridiculous than her total betrayal did... okay, maybe not more, but a close second.

To state the obvious, no, not "everyone" would have done what YH did. DH was unhappy, and never did anything remotely similar to what YH did. YH's sister in law was separated from DH's brother and asked for a divorce. Not to mention the female bar owner, who is someone that would have very much benefited from actually pursuing another relationship. For that matter, basically everyone around DH, besides his wife, is utterly loyal: his childhood friends would have been willing to risk getting in trouble with the police to cover with him, etc. In that sense, his decision to not distance himself from them as his wife demanded was 100% vindicated, because he would have turned his back on people that would have never betrayed him, for the sake of someone who turned out to be a liar and a cheater, someone disloyal and utterly untrustworthy, who betrayed him completely.

Most people are pretty decent, and would consider the notion of betraying and deceiving one's partner for a year, having an affair with their abusive boss, staying with said boss even when they turned out to be willing to frame one's partner, and trying to get one's partner out of a job, to be utterly repulsive. In fact, I think it would be pretty scummy to consider doing any or all the above, let alone trying to present it as a reasonable option. On the contrary, I am not sure that most morally normal people wouldn't be willing to commit a crime if a gun was held to their family's head and they were backed into a corner.

Not to mention, everything JA did was revertible (excluding getting rid of the money lender, which I consider a heroic act of self defense from a battered child that defended her family, and for which she should have gotten a medal and the appreciation of the community): the guy she framed then got his position back and then some. DH's public humiliation was due to YH's betrayal, JA would have been ready to live on the run forever to avoid it, DH correctly chose to sacrifice himself for her sake, and in any case it was thanks to her that DH avoided getting fired and the destruction of his life was contained to the degree it was possible given the position that YH had put him in. By contrast, YH's actions are not reversible: there is absolutely nothing she can do to undo what she has done. Incidentally, YH also knew that her lover had framed the guy they mistook DH for in the beginning, and kept mum about it. And for entirely self serving reason: she didn't have any grandmother to take care of.

YH's actions were cruel, utterly needless, entirely and easily avoidable, and self serving. She could have easily been honest with DH and divorced him. In fact, that was what one had every right to expect from her. By contrast, JA's actions were motivated by her and her family being threatened and pushed into a corner, with very little options, and wanting to protect her grandma: she was obviously no career criminal enjoying what she was doing or acting out of sheer greed, otherwise she would not be living in poverty, but rolling in dough.

It's clear to me that if there was any obvious path she could have chosen where she could have successfully protected those she cared about without committing crimes she would have gladly done that instead. Of course, she might be missing out on opportunities because of unknown unknowns: for example she didn't know of the help she could get for her grandma, due to the gaps in her education and nobody apparently ever bothering to tell her that it was a possibility (I have to say, in terms of services that one didn't have a great discoverability, probably something they need to fix as a matter of policy). That said, it's not at all self evident to me that she was wrong in her basic premise, because it's not as if someone without an education could easily put together the sums that the money lender was threatening her over in any useful amount of time for her situation.

So, on one hand, a cruel, meaningless, needless, utterly avoidable betrayal of DH, or her child, of her family in general, that YH freely chose to do out of her own free will, for self serving reasons. On the other hand, we have JA being threatened and coerced by the money lender, and needing to put together a lot of money in a short time, to protect her grandma. Pretty humongous difference, morally, on any level. And, as if that was not enough, there is also the fact that when push came to shove and JA actually got to know the person she was framing, she was unable to go through with it, and reversed course at a high personal cost. Contrast this with YH doing what she did to someone she had known for decades, and the father of her child.

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.
Condividi

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.

Absolutely nothing wrong for YH to make more money than DH, not sure why he should have had a problem with that, in fact he didn't. By the way, she was very much not the sole breadwinner, DH had a job as well, and was very good at it (start of his previous team, would have been up for promotion), he was then kneecapped by the CEO's lackeys (the CEO being the guy that his wife was sleeping with behind his back for over a year, aka "sought emotional solace somewhere else"... well, she could have divorced and then "sought emotional solace" or whatever else she wanted with whomever she pleased. On the other hand, sleeping with his evil boss and then proceeding to betray DH more and more severely, until there was virtually no aspect where she could be said not to have betrayed him... that's not exactly what one might imagine with a phrasing as neutral (hypocritical, really) as "sought emotional solace somewhere else". Reminds me of George Carlin's standup on euphemistic words.

Ultimately, if one was honest with themselves, I doubt that anyone sane would prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray one's trust.

YH 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.

It all comes down to a very simple question: would any one sane prefer someone that was attached to friends and family, and wanted to spend quite some time with them, but that fundamentally treated them with loyalty, honesty and respect, or someone that was didn't show them any loyalty, honest or respect, and was willing to betray them with their own (the betrayal's victim's) abusive boss, and gaslight them, and deceive them, and manipulate them, etc., plus everything else YH did to DH? I would say that the choice ought to be obvious. Even if one were to split over differences of priorities and values, at the very least the former wouldn't betray their trust.

Frankly, YH was delusional. I mean, one could try to be generous and talk about two opposite views of family, but that was not really the case. We are talking about one's brothers and mother, not about one's cousin thrice removed.

Frankly, with an old parent to take care of, I would make perfect sense for them to live nearby. Quite frankly, YH is perfectly capable of understanding this, and in fact she explicitly mentions it at one point. I mean, quite frankly, where I live it's perfectly common for families to live literally in the same building, let alone merely close by. From what I know it's not at all uncommon in certain cultures, including my own, to have close ties to your extended family. Does't mean you like everyone, but it does mean that you accept that when you enter a relationship, you will have to deal with the other person's family as well, and they would take up space in their and your lives.

In terms of contributing to the family, from my experience, it is not at all unrealistic for family to help each other and for the economically stronger party to take up some of the slack. Quite frankly, it's not at all clear to what extend this happened here, particularly with DH apparently paying out of his own pocket and telling people it was from YH (we see him get the money from his bank account, and we also see that there is not much money there: he is obviously not spending on himself, and very clearly he is not living off his wife while accumulating capital on his bank account). We also know that YH is quick to point out the one time that she actually gave money to pay (in part?) to move DH's mother closer to where he lives (an obvious choice, given the woman's age, as anyone with older parents could understand), and she really doesn't meantion anything else (which, give that she even mentioned making kimtchi, I guess she would have done had she had other supposed "ammo"), so if there was any exploitation or big financial burden she was subjected to she would have been sure to mention it.

Actually, what is certain is that the family is surely not exploiting her: they all worked, so it is simply untrue to call her the sole breadwinner, and the brothers were trying to start a business, while DH had his own job. For that matter, we see DH giving the brothers money telling them they were from YH (i.e. for the wedding), while they come from his account (and we see that his balance is not all that high, very clearly he is not spending for himself or accumulating capital while spending YH's money), and when it comes to the brothers' business, the mother wants to mortage the apartment, not to exploit YH. For that matter, let's also note that DH's mother helped raise her kid so she could focus on her career. In general, I find rather disgusting/appalling that one would leverage their economic power over the rest of the family. Okay, she makes more money. So? It's not as if the rest don't work, and it's not as if DH's mom didn't help her out in return. Yet she is not considered "family", despite having helped raise her kid.

In general, what I do find ridiculous is the way that she puts DH in the uncomfortable position where he has to show up in front of his family without her, and make excuses for her, like in EP 7, where he asks whether she can make time to visit his brothers' new cleaning company, and she declines with an excuse, leading to him looking disappointed, but not surprised... clearly, that's how it has always been with her and the issue of family (and certainly in EP 1 where she misses her own niece's wedding!).

To be honest, YH seems to just want a romantic relationship devoid of context, and I am pretty sure that if she actually tried to turn her love affair in an actual relationship, by pursuing marriage, things would have quickly turned south. Actually, to be honest, things were already turning south, given the way she verbally assaults him in EP 1, in a way reminiscent of her own treatment of DH. It's clear that she was going to replicate the steps of her marriage in record time.

In terms of the mother, she was kind of clueless about how to thank YH, but she was certainly grateful, albeit not knowing how to express it. She told him as such at DH's promotion party. Imho she was clearly happy the few times that YH visited, particularly in the occasion where she and DH played the quiz game at the radio during their return trip. His brothers were also very welcoming/appreciative, such as when she went to DH's brother's company (again, for self serving reasons, to check DH's alibi about being hurt playing soccer). As for his mother, she did have some old fashioned ideas (I mean, call the police... an old person with old fashioned ideas? Nooooo, impossible), but her main point even there was about the fact that she regretted she had to work: she simply couldn't contemplate that in truth she wanted to work, that she liked it, and that it was not a sacrifice. Quite frankly, neither her nor DH were bothered by the fact that she made more money, DH's mom might have had the idea that YH would have preferred DH earned more then her so she could avoid working, but that was simply not the case. Still, the mom's concern came from a good place.

In that respect, though, I do have to stress that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her making more money than DH and that besides the mom thing, which was more for YH's sake anyway, as explained above, essentially no one had a problem with it, least of all DH. Again, it's not clear to me why it should. I mean, is this really something that they should be ashamed of? Or that she should be proud of? Or a circumstance to change? I mean, just because in many cases the man is the one with more money, it's not at all clear to me why it ought to be a problem when it is the other way around. And just like I don't think that if it was the man that made more money that would entitle him to some special priviledge, such as being able to cheat with impunity, the same goes for YH. Again, as explained above, nothing suggests that she is being economically exploited.

Frankly, I think that it's pretty clear how the distance is really generated by YH not having any interest in fitting in to DH's group of family and friends, but rather in wanting to get DH away from them. By contrast, see how comfortable even "outsiders" like JA or DH's younger brother's girlfriend are around the neighbourhood friends, and how, say, DH's sister in law or son are around his mother, who they genuinely consider family. Again, to me both DH's brothers, his sister in law and the neighbourhood people seemed to be pretty warm towards YH and actually to go out of their way to celebrate her. They certainly don't treat her any worse than JA or DH's brohter's girlfriend, who integrate perfectly well in the group.

Talking with another friend about her, she told me that her impression was that she wasn't particularly moved by YH's tears, because they always seemed to be more about herself than about how she had hurt DH. What I will say on that is that she certainly managed to make even something that ought to have been entirely about DH and making him understand how sorry she was for hurting him, be about herself, when she attacked him during the apology with frankly massively unfair accusation (I mean, given what she was apologizing for, good luck convincing any sane person that you put him first and he should be the one whose love for her should be questioned... who was sleeping with the other's evil boss whose lackeys suppressed their spouse at work, knowing he had been prepared to frame and fire her husband, but not considering that a reason to break things off with him, while lying to her about camping was, again? And her betrayal was much deeper than even that).

The bottom line is that her spiel in that occasion was pretty telling: she thought she could change DH, but she didn't, nor should she have expected to be able to. One simply doesn't owe their partner to change their core values for them. She couldn't accept him as he was, and couldn't accept his relationship with his friends and family, and thought she would be finally be happy when she was able to change him. If that was the case, she shouldn't have married him. She obviously knew how close he was to his friends and family, and should have either been prepared to be a part of them too, or sufficiently emotionally independent to be okay with the fact that he had strong emotional, non romantic connections to his community, friends and family (not really extended family, given we are talking about brothers and mother), if she was going to marry him: she brought all these problems on herself, and dragged DH down along with her.

YH married DH without accepting his relationship with his family and friends, and instead of working out a compromise with him, she made herself miserable while piling the blame squarely on him. And that's the truth of the matter, it's pure hypocrisy and an utterly false strawman (well, not even a strawman, given that the claim has no basis in reality) to pretend that things went the other way around: DH never complained about her pretending to go along with his values on family and friends, and it being just a ploy to manipulate him, and he only raised the point of being left alone in an empty house with her never being around when she accused him -after which she acknowledged that, very conveniently turned it into "who knows who started first, vicious cycle", and handwaved it away-, nor did he ever take her to task for essentially admitting to viewing her favours and relationship with his brothers, etc. in a transactional manner, the furthest from a genuine, disinterested act; or about her "plan" to solve this to be to separate him from friends and family in order to cope with her irrational insecurities, a plan that was not a compromise, but his capitulation. He didn't complain about any of that, though he could and should have. Or about her atrocious behaviour, etc. Or about the fact that she was constantly raising this issue, but never proposed a compromise (he also wasn't too happy to be alone in an empty house, but didn't complain, and imho it's just sick to pretend he stays alone at home because you are jealous of him spending time with his friends, despite the fact that you wouldn't be with him anyway... she is essentially asking someone to be alone in order to make herself feel better about her own insecurities).

DH sever accused her about any of the above, though he could and should have. He never blamed her for that part of the so called "failure of the relationship", he merely stressed that it was crazy to think that love was a sort of competition where loving your brother meant you love your spouse less. And it is a crazy notion, and given she presumably loves her son, she should be clear about that. By the same token, DH, correctly, did not back down in terms of what his values around friends and family are, nor should he: he doesn't think they are wrong, and factually speaking they are not wrong in any objective sense, other people like JA and his brother's girlfriend don't have any issues with them, etc. Just because YH doesn't like them it shouldn't mean that DH is wrong to appreciate and value them. That's not something he should apologize for, let alone that it would be insincere, because his stance of family and friends is pretty clear.

DH, obviously did hold her responsible for the affair she chose to have with his boss. And who else is supposed to be responsible: her victim, who was completely unaware of what was going on behind her back? Here again, DH was perfectly correct in pointing out that even if she didn't love him anymore, or was unhappy, she cloud have asked for a divorce. For that matter, even if she fell for someone else, she could have asked for a divorce and then pursue a new relationship. Absolutely nothing about loneliness, unhappiness, etc. made her total betrayal a necessity. For that matter, DH was rather unhappy, to use an euphemism, himself (I would say, suicidally so), and he never contemplated anything that would even come close to her complete betrayal. Again, she is entirely and solely responsible for her choices and decisions regarding the betrayal, nothing short of that would constitute taking responsibility in any adult sense.

And yes, anyway, the end of the story there was that she did betray him completely, and he very much did nothing even remotely close. So in terms of being terrible spouses, he never even came remotely close to doing something even remotely as disrespectful, emotionally traumatic, deceitful, just plain traitorous and repulsive. I mean, if you put everything on the plate, the complete betrayal pretty much dominates over everything else, the comparison between the two of them is not even close, nothing he ever even contemplated doing even came remotely close to being as emotionally traumatic and just sick and twisted, as her deliberate betrayal and deception, for entirely self serving reasons. I mean, from the betrayal and emotional damage to even just the motives and goals, there is no comparison. She betrayed and deceived him in the most complete manner imaginable, for entirely self serving reasons. Nothing else even comes close (and her appalling behaviour, from the verbal abuse to the gaslighing and unfair accusations were really the cherry on top of this sick, twisted cake).

I have to say that to me, if one were to even take into consideration having an affair with their partner's boss, let alone treat it as something even remotely reasonable or normal, in reaction to feeling unhappy in the relationship, is basically scum. Let alone everything else YH did. To pretend otherwise is merely self serving cynicism. Frankly, I cannot understand how anyone would be able to imagine doing that to one's partner without feeling disgust, let alone deliberately betraying and lying to their faces for a year without a shred of guilt.

A reasonable reaction to feeling unhappy in a relationship might be to get a divorce, particularly in this case where they had different views on core issues (to be more precise, where he expressed his views and she married him despite not accepting them, pretending that he would change them for her sake, which was a recipe for making herself unhappy, and unfortunately, in doing so she wrecked DH's life as well).

I wouldn't exactly use the term "taking a wrong turn" for "betray and deceive someone you have known for decades, and the father of your child, having an affair with his abusive boss, manipulating him, and everything else YH did, all the while gaslighting them and treating them horribly, in a show of massive hypocrisy". Nor do I think that it in any way served to "deal with a bad situation'". It didn't address the situation in any way whatsoever. It was cruel and unnecessary, and didn't even get her any close to happiness, which being honest with DH and getting a divorce would have.

Again, this is a bit of a "bait and switch", because when we are talking about their relationship, and splitting up, that's something completely different and distinct from her massive betrayal. One might very well be unhappy and want to split up from their partner, but that wouldn't make them any more inclined to treat them without a shred of loyalty, honesty and respect. The show did a perfectly good job highlighting that fundamental difference.

Frankly, the fact that when she talked about DH to her lover she acknowledge that he was a good person, that he suffered terribly but still did everything he was capable of to do right by his family, and that fundamentally they had merely different views and values (family being her and the kid, or it including his brothers and mother as well, etc.). That she would talk about his depression and pain and then be able to turn around and make a joke of betraying him with her lover was appalling. It would have been a thousand times better had she just hated him. This indifference and complete lack of guilt was absolutely creepy and sociopathic. To acknowledge that he was in pain, that he was still trying his best, and yet betraying him with his boss and being able to joke out of it... repulsive.

And she had the gall to play the victim and question his love and commitment, while giving him an infinite number of reasons to question her own? Even after remembering how she treated him like garbage, and he cared for her feeding her porridge, etc. despite knowing of her betrayal, in the scene in the car with the flashback? The bit where they discussed about the fact that she was never at home and yet expected him to simply stand there in an empty house, because she was irrationally jealous of his friends, happened when she knew he knew of her affair, and he offered a compromise (which she rejected, despite having been the one to raise the issue, without offering one of her own) despite the fact that he was at a point where he had to physically turn around and walk away outside of his apartment when he saw her car downstairs, because he needed space (which she was unwilling to give him) and he couldn't stand her presence for self evident reasons.

Frankly, she was also completely dishonest, to the point where even until the very end, she only fessed up when DH essentially discovered everything. And it was consistently absolutely self serving.

Besides self serving, YH's actions were also cruel and entirely avoidable ("regardless of their impact on others", indeed). She could have easily separated from DH the same way her sister in law did with DH's brother. While being unhappy might lead her to wish to get a divorce, there is absolutely nothing in that that would make one inclined to treat her partner without any loyalty, honesty and respect. There was no need for it, it's something that would have repulsed any morally normal person, and it was just cruel and pointless. Contrast this with JA who, despite being forced into an impossible position, struggling with poverty and physical abuse, and needing to do whatever she had to in order to protect her family, her grandma, was unable to actually go through with it when she realized that DH was actually a good person. As sad as it was, essentially the only good person that she had encountered in her life after her horrible and scarring experiences. And she was unable to hurt such a person, when she saw how he suffered and how he was still trying to do his best. YH saw the same things, event talked about it to her lover, and was able to joke about her betrayal with the latter, and to lie to DH's face day after day for a year.

Consider JA, who did what she did in order to protect her family, her grandma, and was struggling with everything from poverty to physical and emotional abuse. She was being paid to betray DH, and even she was unable to bring herself to do it when she saw that he plainly didn't deserve to be treated that way, and was willing to stand at his side at great personal risk. YH was his wife, the person that he trusted the most (and he trusted her absolutely, defending her to his brothers when they questioned her business trip excuse when she missed her niece's wedding to be with her lover), and she betrayed him completely. From having an affair with his abusive boss (and making jokes about it while she was fully aware of DH's pain and the fact that he still tried to do the best he was capable of), to ratting him out to the boss when DH went to ask her for help regarding the bribery case, to everything else she did.

It is worth comparing YH's deception to JA's behavior, who, for example, couldn't help but give DH the suggestion about the phone booth despite it going completely against her interests, because he couldn't continue to look at him being deceived. This despite the fact that she was supposed to be on the side of those interested in working against him, and doing all this in order to protect her family, and being in an atrocious situation where she was beaten and lived in poverty, while YH's actions were entirely self serving. Plus, she was a stranger who was paid to be his enemy, while YH was his wife and lived with him every day, she had known him for decades, and DH was her child's father. And yet JA showed him more loyalty, starting out as his enemy, than his own wife.

Some of the premises of the above -> some of the premises of the original review

Some of the premises of the original review contain some factual errors. In some cases the drama was subtle about certain points, in others they were spelled out quite explicitly.

DH was not depressed because someone he hated became CEO, this was explicitly stated in the drama. Though certainly being abused and suppressed at work didn't help. Depression has multiple causes (in some cases, independent from one's life's material conditions). Before that, DH was the star of his department and was up for promotion.

DH did not have an issue making less money than YH (nor shouldn't he), though it's simply untrue to say that she was the only breadwinner: DH had a job, he was not just a househusband (not that there would have been anything wrong with that, and he was certainly more than willing to take care of the groceries and the housework, so YH could come back to a tidy house and she could focus on her career, because he wanted to support her).

As for the work, it's worth noting that the whole team was a target, and that they, and DH, didn't rebel for the obvious reason that they were without any power or leverage to change the situation, and would have been fired if they tried to do something about it: the ones oppressing them were the CEO's lackeys, and they could have hardly done anything against the CEO. As soon as DH got leverage over the CEO he used it to get him to treat the team fairly (notably, he didn't ask for any preferential treatment).

So, he did something about the situation as soon as he had the power to. This to me doesn't say anything bad about his character, and merely means that the depiction of the situation matters: power matters, and if those in charge want to oppress you, if you don't want to be fired there is little you can do about it. It's a realistic portrayal of what would actually happen, rather than a fantasy.

It is simply not true that DH, his brothers and his mother were exploiting YH economically and living off her.

DH had his own job, and supported his brothers economically (we see in the 1st episode that despite his monthly pay his account had very little money in it because of that). DH's brothers had encountered economic difficulties, but they did work, and supported their mother economically when they could (as did DH). It is worth noting that JH, the female owner of the bar, also contributed economically to DH's mother's expenses, without expecting anything in return, even if she was not her daughter in law or in any way related to her by familiar bonds.

it is worth noting that DH did support his family economically while telling them that the money came from YH, such as in the 1st episode when he got money on credit from his account to give his older brother for his daughter's wedding, telling him they were from YH, since she couldn't be present. So they might believe that they came from her, when in fact it was from him. Again, like most things in the drama this wasn't an overstated scene.

YH did contribute economically, and was certainly keen to point it out to DH: namely, she paid about $20k for the house his mother currently lived in (depending on the translation it's unclear whether that part of the house's cost came from both of them). The house's value was $95k, and it was bought with a loan. YH also contributed to the brother's businesses in non-economic way, for example by bringing them clients. Notably, by her own admission, he did all that, and generally was nice to his mother, brothers and her sister in law, not out of genuine desire to do so, without expecting anything in return, but merely to get into DH's good graces so he would allow her to mold him into who she wanted. It was not genuine, without ulterior motive: she did have an ulterior motive, and it was entirely transactional (not to mention manipulative): contrast this with his older brother paying for JA's mother's funeral without expecting anything in return.

When it came time to start the new business, the mother considered mortaging the house, and ultimately DH had to be the one to take care of the situation. The older brother also borrowed money, for example from the guy that shamed him in front of his family that DH argued with. They didn't go ask YH for money. They clearly weren't exploiting YH economically and living off her.

It is also worth noting that it was not a one way street. DH's mother helped raise YH's kid so she could focus on her career. It seemed to me that it was absolutely appalling that she shouldn't be considered family. As, apparently, she didn't consider family her own niece, the daughter of the sister in law that consistently stood up to her and that very clearly treated YH's own son as family, given that YH missed the girl's wedding to spend time with her lover.

It was very clear that DH's brothers were grateful and appreciative of YH, as was her sister in law (who was always in her corner, despite the fact that YH missed her daughter's wedding to spend time with her lover and didn't even bother to call).

Again, I would just stress that on top of DH's brothers and DH himself sustaining his mom economically, and DH sustaining his brothers, there was also JH, the female owner of the bar, that economically sustained DH's mother, despite not being her daughter in law or part of the family. That's what genuine act without ulterior motives is.

DH's older brother's wife even spends time with her mother in law despite being separated from DH's brother. Frankly, I think that everyone considers DH's brothers and mother family, and they consider YH family, and DH's and YH's kid considers them all family, while she is the only one that doesn't consider them family and thinks DH shouldn't consider them family either, as if considering them family somehow detracted from his love for her (despite all his reassurances to the contrary). They all ask where she is when she isn't there (and she often isn't, now that her plan to ingratiate herself to DH to get him to distance himself from family and friends failed, she intentionally avoids meeting them with excuses, as she only spent time with them due to her ulterior motive of wanting to change DH's core values). They clearly consider her family, and treat her kid as family. DH's mother even helped raise the kid. Not family, somehow. It's just insulting, to me. I mean, you don't have to like your family, but to not even acknowledge that they are family? And they certainly liked her (at least before the two brothers discovered the affair, afterwards the younger one, correctly, didn't... he must have felt betrayed, considering how he always stood up for her).

DH's mother appreciated her as well, she simply had trouble communicating it. She was "tsundere", in that sense ;) Which YH's sister in law explained. But at DH's party, it was pretty clear that DH's mother appreciated and was grateful to YH. DH's mother had some old fashioned ideas (which were not shared by DH's brothers or DH himself, who correctly didn't see any issue with YH making more money than him), but in that context it was clear that her concern there was for YH, because she was sorry that she had to work so hard (her concern was misplaced because the truth is that YH enjoyed her work, and it's not as if now that DH makes more money she intended to stop working, in other words this is not something she did because she "had" to do, or a sacrifice, it's something she enjoyed and "wanted" to do).

On YH not being home, that's not an excuse, it's a fact that she herself acknowledged. It's therefore unclear to me why only her perspective on the matter would count, while DH's loneliness shouldn't. It seems just petty and cruel to pretend he stood around in an empty house, rather than spend time with family and friends, if she was not going to be around anyway. Now, he put up with it in silence because he wanted to be supportive of her, but it's unclear to me why he should have been the only one to come up with a solution, given that she was the one to raise the issue, while she would just spurn the offer and not come up with a proposal of her own.

YH knew very well what DH's outlook on family and friends was, he never hid it or lied about it. She did lie, by pretending to be okay with it and to care about his family, and spent time with his family in order to get into DH's good graces, planning to mold him into who she wanted and to have him change his core values for her. That was never going to happen, and she didn't have the right to ask: he simply didn't owe it to her. When she failed, she simply stopped pretending and made up excuses to avoid family events. It's not that she was not invited, it's that she was, and made up excuses not to go, and DH had to justify her absence to his family. Then she would complain about not being there.

Quite clearly, both JA and YR clearly demonstrate how welcoming DH's family and friends were to someone that genuinely wanted to fit in with them. YH, quite simply, never did. Which is a shame, because JA and YR clearly value the neighborhood, and the viewer sees how precious those relationships are (I think DH's kid would be of the same opinion). They were also welcoming of YH at DH's promotion party. So it was not a matter of excluding her, but of her not having any interest in them.

Which is fine, I mean, while it's common for partners' friend groups to overlap, one is not obliged to have the same friend groups as one's partners. Nothing stopped YH from having her own friend group (they live in Seoul and she has a car: just like she was able to meet up with her lover, she could make time to spend time with friends). Frankly, she should have done that, rather than pretend that DH stopped valuing his life long friends. On some level, it does seem unfair and nonsensical to me that she would make him entirely responsible for her loneliness, when she was the one that turned down family events and wasn't interested in establishing a relationship with his friends in the first place, nor did she attempt to develop her own friendships.

If I were to give this a word, I would call it not being emotionally independent. Fundamentally, I think that one needs to be able to be happy by themselves, and only then can they hope to be happy in a relationship. You cannot really expect the other person to make you happy and push that responsibility on them. I feel that the show made this point as well, with the way that DH and JA are separated at the end, and each has to reach happiness by themselves.

It is also worth noting that YH did not even attempt to propose a compromise or reach a middle ground with DH. He was struggling with loneliness himself, but didn't want to bother her, so he put up with it in silence. Good, at least he didn't put the blame on her. He simply started spending more time with his friends and family. But if she didn't want that, she could have very well proposed a compromise (imho it should have come from her, given that she was the one that raised the issue, not from him, though of course he did propose a compromise himself, which she turned down without a counter-proposal).

In particular, I want to stress that physically separating her partner from lifelong friends and family and pretending that he changes his core values around family and community is neither fair nor, in any sense of the word, a "solution". It's not a compromise or middle ground. Frankly, it's unclear why the "solution" to her possessiveness, jealousy and irrational insecurities would not be to deal with them and address them, but to distance her partner from friends and family so as to remove that connection, or to pretend that he loves them less or values them less.

Frankly, this went beyond the small family vs extended family part. Not considering someone that raised your kid to be family? Or your own niece? Also, we are talking about DH's mother and brothers, not his cousin thrice removed. The label "extended family" makes no sense in this context.

On the "love" part, I found DH's words on that pretty incontrovertible. I mean, does YH's love for her child come at the expense of her love for her husband? I mean, it's not as if DH was going on about poly or anything like that. It's familial love and romantic love. Different types of love, and one does not detract from the other in any way.

Ultimately, intent matters. Could both YH and DH have communicated better? Yes. Were they perfect? No.

But YH was verbally and emotionally abusive, and gaslighted him while doing everything from havig a full blown affair with his abusive boss behind his back, to telling JA that now that she was no longer with the boss and it was not her business anymore, she didn't care even if DH was framed and fired. Pluss all the other stuff she did.

DH simply never did a fraction of that to her. He never treated her with a fraction of the lack of loyalty, honesty and respect. He was committed and devoted to her. He wanted to support her and make her happy (he just wouldn't compromise his core values to do it), and everything, from taking care of the housework and making sure she could come back to a tidy home so she could focus on her career, to putting up with his pain and loneliness in silence, rather than snapping and complaining to her like she did, was meant to support her.

YH's flashback was pretty telling: a bunch of scenes where she snapped at DH and treated him absolutely atrociously, verbally and emotionally abusing him while he put up with it in silence, but rather taking care of her in bed and feeding her porridge while knowing she had been having an affair. Or the confrontation with the boss, where he took him to task about not wanting to marry YH, despite reeling from the pain of finding her glove. Or trusting her unconditionally, and defending her to her brothers when they questioned her excuse of being on a business trip when she missed her own niece's wedding.

Ultimately, neither was perfect, but it's pretty clear who let the other down, for the most part. I mean, it's not even a fair contest. YH's behavior was incomparably worse than DH's on any level. Even in terms of loneliness, he too felt lonely and abandoned, and it's unclear to me why him not snapping at her, and putting up with it in silence, would make that unimportant. What, because he didn't complain it doesn't count?

Talking with her lover, YH was honest enough to recognize that this was about her and DH having different values, and that plenty of people wouldn't have had a problem with his values. And the show clearly demonstrates it, because, with absolutely no change in his values or behavior, JA is okay with it, and YH is okay with his younger brother's. I liked that the show didn't make DH abandon his values, or make it seem like they were wrong, but rather showed the viewer how those relationships were precious, and had JA and YR appreciate them.

If DH was the one that tried to distance JA from her grandma or hacker friend, trying to leverage the fact that he made her a favor, and that if she really loved her she would not consider her grandma family, and want to spend time with her, but would instead let him monopolize her attention and distance herself from friends and family. After all, he did her a favor, and so if she really loved him, why not relocate to a distant place where she wouldn't be in contact with her friends and family anymore? Otherwise it means she doesn't love him.

To me, that all sounds pretty crazy. Frankly, it's just that YH's actress gave a great performance, because when you actually look at the situation on its face, you would have to take note of the fact that basically nobody else, from JA to YR (DH's younger brother's gf) really has a problem with their relationship with friends and family (well, JA has the same outlook as DH on family, their values are aligned there).

Some of the premises of the above contain some factual errors. In some cases the drama was subtle about certain points, in others they were spelled out quite explicitly.

DH was not depressed because someone he hated became CEO, this was explicitly stated in the drama. Though certainly being abused and suppressed at work didn't help. Depression has multiple causes (in some cases, independent from one's life's material conditions). Before that, DH was the star of his department and was up for promotion.

DH did not have an issue making less money than YH (nor shouldn't he), though it's simply untrue to say that she was the only breadwinner: DH had a job, he was not just a househusband (not that there would have been anything wrong with that, and he was certainly more than willing to take care of the groceries and the housework, so YH could come back to a tidy house and she could focus on her career, because he wanted to support her).

As for the work, it's worth noting that the whole team was a target, and that they, and DH, didn't rebel for the obvious reason that they were without any power or leverage to change the situation, and would have been fired if they tried to do something about it: the ones oppressing them were the CEO's lackeys, and they could have hardly done anything against the CEO. As soon as DH got leverage over the CEO he used it to get him to treat the team fairly (notably, he didn't ask for any preferential treatment).

So, he did something about the situation as soon as he had the power to. This to me doesn't say anything bad about his character, and merely means that the depiction of the situation matters: power matters, and if those in charge want to oppress you, if you don't want to be fired there is little you can do about it. It's a realistic portrayal of what would actually happen, rather than a fantasy.

It is simply not true that DH, his brothers and his mother were exploiting YH economically and living off her.

DH had his own job, and supported his brothers economically (we see in the 1st episode that despite his monthly pay his account had very little money in it because of that). DH's brothers had encountered economic difficulties, but they did work, and supported their mother economically when they could (as did DH). It is worth noting that JH, the female owner of the bar, also contributed economically to DH's mother's expenses, without expecting anything in return, even if she was not her daughter in law or in any way related to her by familiar bonds.

it is worth noting that DH did support his family economically while telling them that the money came from YH, such as in the 1st episode when he got money on credit from his account to give his older brother for his daughter's wedding, telling him they were from YH, since she couldn't be present. So they might believe that they came from her, when in fact it was from him. Again, like most things in the drama this wasn't an overstated scene.

YH did contribute economically, and was certainly keen to point it out to DH: namely, she paid about $20k for the house his mother currently lived in (depending on the translation it's unclear whether that part of the house's cost came from both of them). The house's value was $95k, and it was bought with a loan. YH also contributed to the brother's businesses in non-economic way, for example by bringing them clients. Notably, by her own admission, he did all that, and generally was nice to his mother, brothers and her sister in law, not out of genuine desire to do so, without expecting anything in return, but merely to get into DH's good graces so he would allow her to mold him into who she wanted. It was not genuine, without ulterior motive: she did have an ulterior motive, and it was entirely transactional (not to mention manipulative): contrast this with his older brother paying for JA's mother's funeral without expecting anything in return.

When it came time to start the new business, the mother considered mortaging the house, and ultimately DH had to be the one to take care of the situation. The older brother also borrowed money, for example from the guy that shamed him in front of his family that DH argued with. They didn't go ask YH for money. They clearly weren't exploiting YH economically and living off her.

It is also worth noting that it was not a one way street. DH's mother helped raise YH's kid so she could focus on her career. It seemed to me that it was absolutely appalling that she shouldn't be considered family. As, apparently, she didn't consider family her own niece, the daughter of the sister in law that consistently stood up to her and that very clearly treated YH's own son as family, given that YH missed the girl's wedding to spend time with her lover.

It was very clear that DH's brothers were grateful and appreciative of YH, as was her sister in law (who was always in her corner, despite the fact that YH missed her daughter's wedding to spend time with her lover and didn't even bother to call).

Again, I would just stress that on top of DH's brothers and DH himself sustaining his mom economically, and DH sustaining his brothers, there was also JH, the female owner of the bar, that economically sustained DH's mother, despite not being her daughter in law or part of the family. That's what genuine act without ulterior motives is.

DH's older brother's wife even spends time with her mother in law despite being separated from DH's brother. Frankly, I think that everyone considers DH's brothers and mother family, and they consider YH family, and DH's and YH's kid considers them all family, while she is the only one that doesn't consider them family and thinks DH shouldn't consider them family either, as if considering them family somehow detracted from his love for her (despite all his reassurances to the contrary). They all ask where she is when she isn't there (and she often isn't, now that her plan to ingratiate herself to DH to get him to distance himself from family and friends failed, she intentionally avoids meeting them with excuses, as she only spent time with them due to her ulterior motive of wanting to change DH's core values). They clearly consider her family, and treat her kid as family. DH's mother even helped raise the kid. Not family, somehow. It's just insulting, to me. I mean, you don't have to like your family, but to not even acknowledge that they are family? And they certainly liked her (at least before the two brothers discovered the affair, afterwards the younger one, correctly, didn't... he must have felt betrayed, considering how he always stood up for her).

DH's mother appreciated her as well, she simply had trouble communicating it. She was "tsundere", in that sense ;) Which YH's sister in law explained. But at DH's party, it was pretty clear that DH's mother appreciated and was grateful to YH. DH's mother had some old fashioned ideas (which were not shared by DH's brothers or DH himself, who correctly didn't see any issue with YH making more money than him), but in that context it was clear that her concern there was for YH, because she was sorry that she had to work so hard (her concern was misplaced because the truth is that YH enjoyed her work, and it's not as if now that DH makes more money she intended to stop working, in other words this is not something she did because she "had" to do, or a sacrifice, it's something she enjoyed and "wanted" to do).

On YH not being home, that's not an excuse, it's a fact that she herself acknowledged. It's therefore unclear to me why only her perspective on the matter would count, while DH's loneliness shouldn't. It seems just petty and cruel to pretend he stood around in an empty house, rather than spend time with family and friends, if she was not going to be around anyway. Now, he put up with it in silence because he wanted to be supportive of her, but it's unclear to me why he should have been the only one to come up with a solution, given that she was the one to raise the issue, while she would just spurn the offer and not come up with a proposal of her own.

YH knew very well what DH's outlook on family and friends was, he never hid it or lied about it. She did lie, by pretending to be okay with it and to care about his family, and spent time with his family in order to get into DH's good graces, planning to mold him into who she wanted and to have him change his core values for her. That was never going to happen, and she didn't have the right to ask: he simply didn't owe it to her. When she failed, she simply stopped pretending and made up excuses to avoid family events. It's not that she was not invited, it's that she was, and made up excuses not to go, and DH had to justify her absence to his family. Then she would complain about not being there.

Quite clearly, both JA and YR clearly demonstrate how welcoming DH's family and friends were to someone that genuinely wanted to fit in with them. YH, quite simply, never did. Which is a shame, because JA and YR clearly value the neighborhood, and the viewer sees how precious those relationships are (I think DH's kid would be of the same opinion). They were also welcoming of YH at DH's promotion party. So it was not a matter of excluding her, but of her not having any interest in them.

Which is fine, I mean, while it's common for partners' friend groups to overlap, one is not obliged to have the same friend groups as one's partners. Nothing stopped YH from having her own friend group (they live in Seoul and she has a car: just like she was able to meet up with her lover, she could make time to spend time with friends). Frankly, she should have done that, rather than pretend that DH stopped valuing his life long friends. On some level, it does seem unfair and nonsensical to me that she would make him entirely responsible for her loneliness, when she was the one that turned down family events and wasn't interested in establishing a relationship with his friends in the first place, nor did she attempt to develop her own friendships.

If I were to give this a word, I would call it not being emotionally independent. Fundamentally, I think that one needs to be able to be happy by themselves, and only then can they hope to be happy in a relationship. You cannot really expect the other person to make you happy and push that responsibility on them. I feel that the show made this point as well, with the way that DH and JA are separated at the end, and each has to reach happiness by themselves.

It is also worth noting that YH did not even attempt to propose a compromise or reach a middle ground with DH. He was struggling with loneliness himself, but didn't want to bother her, so he put up with it in silence. Good, at least he didn't put the blame on her. He simply started spending more time with his friends and family. But if she didn't want that, she could have very well proposed a compromise (imho it should have come from her, given that she was the one that raised the issue, not from him, though of course he did propose a compromise himself, which she turned down without a counter-proposal).

In particular, I want to stress that physically separating her partner from lifelong friends and family and pretending that he changes his core values around family and community is neither fair nor, in any sense of the word, a "solution". It's not a compromise or middle ground. Frankly, it's unclear why the "solution" to her possessiveness, jealousy and irrational insecurities would not be to deal with them and address them, but to distance her partner from friends and family so as to remove that connection, or to pretend that he loves them less or values them less.

Frankly, this went beyond the small family vs extended family part. Not considering someone that raised your kid to be family? Or your own niece? Also, we are talking about DH's mother and brothers, not his cousin thrice removed. The label "extended family" makes no sense in this context.

On the "love" part, I found DH's words on that pretty incontrovertible. I mean, does YH's love for her child come at the expense of her love for her husband? I mean, it's not as if DH was going on about poly or anything like that. It's familial love and romantic love. Different types of love, and one does not detract from the other in any way.

Ultimately, intent matters. Could both YH and DH have communicated better? Yes. Were they perfect? No.

But YH was verbally and emotionally abusive, and gaslighted him while doing everything from havig a full blown affair with his abusive boss behind his back, to telling JA that now that she was no longer with the boss and it was not her business anymore, she didn't care even if DH was framed and fired. Pluss all the other stuff she did.

DH simply never did a fraction of that to her. He never treated her with a fraction of the lack of loyalty, honesty and respect. He was committed and devoted to her. He wanted to support her and make her happy (he just wouldn't compromise his core values to do it), and everything, from taking care of the housework and making sure she could come back to a tidy home so she could focus on her career, to putting up with his pain and loneliness in silence, rather than snapping and complaining to her like she did, was meant to support her.

YH's flashback was pretty telling: a bunch of scenes where she snapped at DH and treated him absolutely atrociously, verbally and emotionally abusing him while he put up with it in silence, but rather taking care of her in bed and feeding her porridge while knowing she had been having an affair. Or the confrontation with the boss, where he took him to task about not wanting to marry YH, despite reeling from the pain of finding her glove. Or trusting her unconditionally, and defending her to her brothers when they questioned her excuse of being on a business trip when she missed her own niece's wedding.

Ultimately, neither was perfect, but it's pretty clear who let the other down, for the most part. I mean, it's not even a fair contest. YH's behavior was incomparably worse than DH's on any level. Even in terms of loneliness, he too felt lonely and abandoned, and it's unclear to me why him not snapping at her, and putting up with it in silence, would make that unimportant. What, because he didn't complain it doesn't count?

Talking with her lover, YH was honest enough to recognize that this was about her and DH having different values, and that plenty of people wouldn't have had a problem with his values. And the show clearly demonstrates it, because, with absolutely no change in his values or behavior, JA is okay with it, and YH is okay with his younger brother's. I liked that the show didn't make DH abandon his values, or make it seem like they were wrong, but rather showed the viewer how those relationships were precious, and had JA and YR appreciate them.

If DH was the one that tried to distance JA from her grandma or hacker friend, trying to leverage the fact that he made her a favor, and that if she really loved her she would not consider her grandma family, and want to spend time with her, but would instead let him monopolize her attention and distance herself from friends and family. After all, he did her a favor, and so if she really loved him, why not relocate to a distant place where she wouldn't be in contact with her friends and family anymore? Otherwise it means she doesn't love him.

To me, that all sounds pretty crazy. Frankly, it's just that YH's actress gave a great performance, because when you actually look at the situation on its face, you would have to take note of the fact that basically nobody else, from JA to YR (DH's younger brother's gf) really has a problem with their relationship with friends and family (well, JA has the same outlook as DH on family, their values are aligned there).