As an avid Korean drama fan, I am well aware of the typical story plot: the parents usually disapprove, amnesia occurs right after the conflict, the last episode shows the couples' happy ending, etc. Additionally, most Korean dramas consists of a rich guy and a poor girl, doctors, a crime-fighter and an innocent girl, or high-school students. It always repeats. There are exceptions, but very little of them. In fact, "My Wife's Having An Affair This Week" is one of these exceptions.
To those who are not familiar with this drama, "My Wife's Having An Affair This Week" is mainly about husband Do Hyun-Woo who discovered his wife Jung Soo-Yeon is having an affair by coincidentally looking at her phone. He keeps this to himself, which causes him to desperately ask an online community what to do. There are two other couples that portray such dark relationships in life.
The image above is the main couple of this series. Meet husband Do Hyun-Woo and his wife Jung Soo-Yeon. As mentioned before, the wife had an affair with another man. They were seeing each other for about six months. What's sad and disappointing is that this woman had/has a child in kindergarten. However, in this drama, Soo-Yeon's explanations as to why she cheated was mainly because of stress as a mother and an employer. Naturally, it can be explainable. On the other hand, it's also "unforgivable," according to the online community. The dark perspectives on relationships such as this instance show how not every relationship can be perfect. Almost every Korean drama portrays a relationship to have some conflict but none of them show any cheating. In my opinion, cheating is perhaps the worst kind of darkness in a relationship. Cheating means the loyalty and faith in the other person in a relationship is broken. Often times, there's no going back when someone has cheated. But this couple isn't the worst.
Meet this married couple: husband Choi Yoon-Ki and wife Eun A-Ra. This time, the man is the one who cheats on his wife. However, he doesn't cheat on his wife only once. Not even twice. More like five times. In my honest opinion, this was the most disappointing relationship in the entire drama. As the husband is constantly cheating rather boldly in front of his wife, he continues to do so while shamelessly portraying his "love" for his wife. By doing so, he goes home every night to eat dinner with his wife. As I mentioned before, the reason as to why this couple is the most disappointing relationship is because the wife is aware of her husband's multiple affairs. Yet she continues to pretend not to know. Why? Mainly because she loves him dearly. She hopes that one day he'll stop. But he never does. This couple also angered me. It made me question relationships. It made me wonder if there are people like this husband who constantly cheats on his wife. It made me wonder if they ever felt guilty. Sadly, I knew the answer: some people can cheat on people without a single drop of guilt.
Meet the last couple: Ahn Joon-Young and Kwon Bo-Young. Although this couple wasn't necessarily showing the darkness in relationships, these two showed the aftermath of terrible relationships. Ahn Joon-Young is a divorced husband whose wife ran away three days after their honeymoon. He lived the rest of his years pretending that he still had a wife out of shame. However, when he began to get to know Kwon Bo-Young more, he overcame such difficulties. He wasn't afraid to talk about his dark past. What's interesting is that Kwon Bo-Young also had a rough past. Like the main motif in this drama, she was cheated on by her husband. She eventually divorced her cheating husband. Because of that, her faith in relationships was tainted. She had difficulty accepting a new relationship with Ahn Joon-Young at first. But like all happy endings, they both overcame their difficulties and became a couple in the end.
Overall, this drama really opened my views on relationships. I've always imagined it to be perfect, almost like a fantasy. But once I finished this drama, I realize that not everything is as it seems. Because of this series, I have become more cautious towards relationships and have decided to be extremely careful when I choose the man that I want to marry.
If you have some free time on your hands, I truly recommend you to watch "My Wife's Having An Affair This Week." And don't worry, there are tons of websites with English subtitles.
