Absolutely nothing wrong for YH to make more money than DH, not sure why he should have had a problem with that,…
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.
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.