This Week, My Wife Will Have an Affair: Episode 6

by chocolatte

The consequences of an affair are far-reaching, especially if the offenders are married and have families of their own. Our protagonists are still in the process of wading through their new reality, but a path forward isn’t as clear when none of the questions they face are easy to answer. When does it make sense to fight for your marriage? When do you move on? And how do you make these decisions when it’s not just you involved?

 
EPISODE 6 RECAP

Soo-yeon packs her things, determined to move out of their apartment. Hyun-woo asks if she’s really going to go through with this, but before the conversation can continue, they hear the front door open — it’s Hyun-woo’s mom and Joon-soo.

Hyun-woo’s mom knows that Soo-yeon wants a separation. Determined not to let that happen, Hyun-woo’s mom is clear with the couple: They can fight if they want to, but they should do it while living together.

Soo-yeon starts to speak up, but Hyun-woo stops her. He tells his mom that he and Soo-yeon will fix their problems on their own and tries to usher his mother out. Mom agrees to leave, but not before reminding the couple that marriage isn’t easy to undo. She says it’s easy to talk about separation, but hard to reverse once it actually happens.

Those words don’t change Soo-yeon’s mind though, and she continues to pack. Hyun-woo bitterly asks if she’s giving up on her role as a mom now that she’s given up being a wife. Looking wounded by his words, Soo-yeon tells Hyun-woo that she’ll take Joon-soo with her.

Hyun-woo can’t accept that, so he stops her and tells her he’ll leave instead. He makes it clear that he’s not doing this for her — he just doesn’t want Joon-soo to suffer.

It’s dinner time at Ara and Yoon-ki’s, and Yoon-ki is busy stuffing his face. Ara gently suggests that he take his jacket off, but when he does, a single flower petal drifts from his jacket onto the table — a remnant from Yoon-ki’s dalliance with the flower arrangement instructor. Ara’s eagle eye spots a few more petals, but as soon as she gets up from the table, a panicked Yoon-ki ends up eating the petals, effectively destroying the evidence.

Hyun-woo heads to the office to spend the night. He’s written another post online to announce the separation, where he notes that his wife seemed more concerned about Sun-woo’s wife finding out about the affair than she was about her own husband.

He settles onto the couch only to be interrupted by a tapping on the shoulder: it’s Bo-young, there to reclaim her space. She sets Hyun-woo up in the conference room for the night, but unable to fall asleep, Hyun-woo checks the responses to his post. None of his commenters are particularly supportive of his decision to leave home.

The next morning, Bo-young continues to help Hyun-woo get adjusted to his new environment, providing tips on how to freshen up using wet wipes and blotting powder. Haha, she’s so awesome.

When Joon-young arrives at work, he and Hyun-woo discuss the separation. Hyun-woo says he plans to spend his nights at the office or wherever else he can find, and Joon-young starts to invite Hyun-woo over to his place only to stop himself, looking guilty. Hyun-woo tells him not to worry — he’d feel too sorry towards Joon-young’s wife if he imposed.

Ara shows Yoon-ki a photo of a good-looking man and asks him what he thinks — she wants to set him up with the flower arrangement teacher. Ara looks straight into Yoon-ki’s eyes and says, “I hear she’s the type that men like.” Yoon-ki stares back at Ara, then loudly disagrees with her assessment.

Of course, back at the office, Yoon-ki exchanges kissy faces and sexy texts with said teacher. He jumps when his secretary enters with a message from Ara, but after she leaves the room, he says to himself with glee that it’s so much more thrilling now that he has a mole in the office.

While Hyun-woo catches up on responses to his post, we check in with TOYCRANE fans Ajumma and Grandma. They make themselves at home in the post office with face masks and food as they get ready to check out the latest posts. But they get kicked out just as fast, and they fret about how they’ll be able to read the next installment of Hyun-woo’s story.

Hyun-woo’s team makes last minute edits to their show before airing. Afterward, Hyun-woo, Bo-young, and Joon-young meet with the CEO, who praises their work on the pilot. While Bo-young and Joon-young involve the CEO in their usual bickering, Hyun-woo answers a call from Sun-woo’s wife.

Yoon-ki’s on the phone too, making lunch plans with his saleswoman girlfriend. But first things first: He meets with an attractive new client who thinks her husband’s cheating on her. Yoon-ki instantly turns on the charm, sidling up next to the woman and adding her as a friend on Facebook.

Walking out after coffee, Bo-young asks Joon-young if Hyun-woo’s situation has changed recently. Joon-young tells her that Hyun-woo left home, having separated from his wife. Bo-young says that if Joon-young was in Hyun-woo’s situation, he would have kicked his wife out and made a scene. Joon-young thinks that’s unfair and brings up the dinner they had together a while back, saying he joined her because he felt bad for her. Bo-young just retorts that he should feel worse for his wife.

Oh, speak of the devil — Bo-young notices Joon-young’s wife walking by and points her out. Joon-young doesn’t even seem to recognize her at first, then comments that his wife’s grown her hair out, sparking an odd look from Bo-young.

Hyun-woo sits down with Sun-woo’s wife, who’s eerily calm as she thanks him for telling her about the affair. She says that the affair turned out to be an opportunity to examine her relationship with Sun-woo, and for her to ask herself why he cheated. Hyun-woo’s incredulous that she’s not angry, telling her, “It’s not important why he cheated. What’s important is that he did cheat.”

She says she was angry, even after Sun-woo sincerely apologized to her. But her anger helped her realize that she didn’t really want a divorce. She says she’s trying to muster up the courage to forgive and understand him instead of the courage to divorce him.

Hyun-woo stammers that he and Soo-yeon aren’t thinking about divorce so quickly either. But after Sun-woo’s wife leaves, he takes his wedding ring off and slams it onto the table before shoving it back into his pocket.

Soo-yeon treats some fellow moms to a fancy lunch. Anxious for the other moms’ approval, she ends up agreeing to ask Hyun-woo about securing a videographer for an upcoming school event, even though she looks uncomfortable about it. Her troubles seem to be extending to work too, with no relief in sight.

Back at his office, Hyun-woo mulls over his conversation with Sun-woo’s wife and chucks his pen across the room in frustration, almost hitting an unexpected visitor: Ara. She’s stopped by to drop off lunch for the crew; she says she brought lunch for Yoon-ki too, but he isn’t in his office.

That’s because Yoon-ki’s at a hotel with his saleswoman girlfriend. As she chatters on about her day, Yoon-ki focuses on hitting up his newest target — the jilted wife who visited his office earlier — on his phone.

Joon-young, Bo-young, and Hyun-woo are out drinking when Bo-young gets a call from one of the husbands from their show, who keeps calling her to complain about his wife’s affair. Joon-young sympathizes with the husband (because men have an instinct to breed, he explains), but Bo-young rolls her eyes and asks what’s wrong with men.

When Joon-young asks Bo-young why she got married, she answers, “Because I was bad at math.” She says she wasn’t able to calculate whether or not she’d live well with her ex; she was bad at foreign languages too, since she couldn’t understand a word her ex said to her. Hyun-woo tells her that not all marriages are like that, but Bo-young doesn’t have any plans to get married again.

Though Bo-young’s drunk by the end of the night, she refuses a ride home from Joon-young. Instead, she stumbles over to a patch of grass and lies down. When the two men try to get her up, she rolls over and flashes her ring finger at Hyun-woo, asking him why he took off his wedding ring.

She asks Hyun-woo if he knows why the wedding ring is worn on the ring finger, but instead of answering, she collapses in a fit of giggles before passing out. Joon-young screams at her to get up, and after a moment, she does. Calling herself crazy, she takes off her socks and chucks them towards Joon-young before lying back down. Hahaha.

Hyun-woo, meanwhile, runs his fingers across the empty spot where his wedding ring used to be.

Joon-young carries Bo-young home and struggles to put her down on her bed, eventually collapsing into bed with her. He comes face to face with Bo-young’s sleeping face and freezes — his heart starts pounding, and you can practically see the hearts shooting out of his eyes. He gets himself together, but before he leaves, he takes off her shoes and covers her with a blanket.

Hyun-woo is about to check into a motel when Soo-yeon calls. Sadly, the first thing Soo-yeon asks about is the videographer for Joon-soo’s school event. Disappointed that she didn’t ask after him, Hyun-woo cuts the conversation short.

For some reason, the motel clerk is reluctant to give a room to a solo Hyun-woo, and even checks up on him multiple times. It turns out someone had committed suicide in the room not too long ago, and much to Hyun-woo’s horror, the clerk is worried about Hyun-woo’s state. That creeps Hyun-woo out, and in the end, he grabs his stuff and leaves.

Soo-yeon returns home and finds her mother-in-law in the kitchen and Joon-soo already asleep. When her mother-in-law asks after Hyun-woo, Soo-yeon honestly answers that Hyun-woo left the house. Mom isn’t pleased with this and starts to criticize Hyun-woo. Soo-yeon then decides to admit the truth: “It’s not him,” she says. “It’s me. I cheated. I’m sorry.”

Joon-young meets Hyun-woo at the playground where Hyun-woo plans to spend the night. This pricks at Joon-young’s conscience, so he finally invites Hyun-woo spend the night at his place, saying that his wife isn’t home.

Hyun-woo gushes at how nice Joon-young’s house is, oblivious to the dark expression on Joon-young’s face. It’s only after Joon-young leaves to get beer that Hyun-woo starts to notice things about the apartment — the lone toothbrush in the bathroom, the empty refrigerator, the general absence of a female presence in the house.

Hyun-woo’s looking into Joon-young’s bedroom when Joon-young creeps up behind him, looking like some kind of a serial killer. (A Signal reference, maybe?) Before Hyun-woo follows Joon-young out, he makes note of a suitcase tucked away in the corner.

Now Hyun-woo’s fully suspicious of Joon-young, and we get some scary background music to match Hyun-woo’s mood. He returns to Joon-young’s room to try to open the suitcase, but before he gets too far, Joon-young grabs his shoulder. Hyun-woo yelps when he sees a small knife in Joon-young’s hand and recoils in fear.

Hyun-woo’s overactive imagination is put to rest as he gets the real story from Joon-young (who’s using the knife to cut apples). It turns out that Joon-young’s wife really did leave three days after their honeymoon, and he’s lived in this apartment alone for the last three years pretending to be married.

Joon-young says he was too embarrassed to tell the truth, and then he missed his chance to come clean. He also says that he hasn’t been able to date other women because he’s scared of something embarrassing happening again.

Meanwhile, Hyun-woo’s mom and Soo-yeon are having a similar heart-to-heart conversation. Hyun-woo’s mom asks Soo-yeon about the possibility of divorce, but Soo-yeon responds that she and Hyun-woo haven’t really had a proper conversation yet.

Hyun-woo’s mom says that wives can have affairs too — after all, they’re human — but she says that mothers don’t have that same luxury. Soo-yeon quietly tells her mother-in-law that even if she gets divorced, she’ll make the best decision for Joon-soo.

Her mother-in-law assures her that she knows what a good mother Soo-yeon is. She recalls how Soo-yeon used to rush home from work when Joon-soo was breastfeeding, sweaty and with bruised toes. “If your mother had seen that, she would have cried,” she says. At this, Soo-yeon breaks down in tears.

When Joon-soo stumbles into the kitchen asking for his dad, it’s Grandma who comforts him by giving him a big hug and telling him that his dad will be home soon.

Many cans of beer later, Hyun-woo and Joon-young argue about who’s got it worse between the two of them. Hyun-woo was stabbed in the back and made a fool of himself online and Joon-young’s gone through some ridiculous lengths pretending to be married, including buying himself an anniversary cake and present every year. Joon-young wails that he’s afraid to date again and both he and Hyun-woo dissolve into tears, throwing their arms around each other in solidarity.

The next day, Bo-young grabs Joon-young as soon as she gets into work and drags him to the conference room. She shoves a plastic bag holding his socks in his face, asking him why he’d take his socks off at her house and leave them there.

Joon-young explains that he brought a drunk Bo-young home safely, then got his socks dirty while taking out her trash. Bo-young’s annoyed that he’d do such a thing in the first place, so Joon-young angrily tells her that he’ll stop caring about her.

Hyun-woo returns a call from Soo-yeon and is surprised to hear his son on the other end, asking him when he’s coming home. Joon-soo passes the phone over to Soo-yeon, who asks Hyun-woo about the videographer again. But then she asks him to come home, admitting that she was hasty in asking for a separation. True to form, Hyun-woo gets huffy and tells her that he’ll come home when he’s ready to come home.

He returns to his desk where he comes across his wedding ring, tucked away in his desk drawer. He slams the drawer shut in anger.

Yoon-ki waits around for his latest client (and potential mistress) to show up for another appointment. He turns down an invitation from the young PD, LEE JI-HOON, to join their team for a premiere watch party; he also takes note of his secretary swooning over the handsome PD.

When his client ends up pushing their meeting to the evening, Yoon-ki asks his secretary to go watch the premiere of the show with the team in his stead, strategically mentioning Lee PD’s name. She needs no further convincing and bolt, freeing up Yoon-ki to visit his flower teacher for a quick rendezvous.

Yoon-ki exchanges texts with Ara while he’s with the teacher, telling her he’s busy with work. But Ara’s actually in his office, and she visibly deflates when she reads his text.

Our Ajumma fan reads the latest TOYCRANE post on a tiny screen — it looks like she got herself a cell phone. Grandma wonders where she got the money and subsequently freaks out when she looks in the mirror and realizes that her gold tooth is gone. Ha.

At work, Soo-yeon finds herself in a text chain with other moms who are planning an outing after school. She gets guilt-tripped into promising them the videographer in exchange for the moms taking Joon-soo with them, and sighs with frustration.

Soo-yeon then picks up a call from an unknown number. Her eyes widen when the woman on the line introduces herself as Sun-woo’s wife.

Hyun-woo’s team (plus Yoon-ki’s secretary) gather in the conference room to watch the premiere of their show. Hyun-woo distractedly rubs his ring finger, which is still sans his wedding ring.

Sun-woo’s wife wears a defiant look in her eyes when she meets Soo-yeon, completely different than her demeanor with Hyun-woo. She tells Soo-yeon that she was curious to see what kind of woman she was, and asks if Soo-yeon expected Sun-woo to throw away his family for her.

Soo-yeon can’t say much as Sun-woo’s wife tears into her, calling her a cliché. She tells Soo-yeon her affair could never turn into romance, since she’s hurt their entire family. “I hope you always remember the wrong you did,” she says. “I hope you remember us for the rest of your life, and that you’re pained by it.”

Before she leaves, she says her husband was right: “You weren’t worth meeting. You’re a nobody.” Damn.

Back at Hyun-woo’s office, the team’s happy about the initial positive feedback to their pilot. Hyun-woo’s still distracted, and asks Lee PD about a videographer’s availability.

Soo-yeon’s lost in thought at work when she’s interrupted by a colleague asking about a project due that day. Soo-yeon seems to have completely missed the change to the deadline; she apologizes and promises to get the job done.

As she’s working, Soo-yeon receives a text reminding her to pick up Joon-soo by 6:00 p.m. Faced with no other option, Soo-yeon calls Hyun-woo for help. He’s unsympathetic to her plight, telling her that he’ll be busy taking his team out to dinner in celebration of their premiere. They hang up, but Hyun-woo looks conflicted.

Ara scrolls through the flower teacher’s social media feed and pauses at an update that she finds suspicious. She texts Yoon-ki to ask about his dinner plans, and he writes back that he’s still working but will be home for dinner.

Yoon-ki technically is still in the office, as he’s meeting with the client whose husband is cheating on her. But work’s not really what’s on his mind, and he makes his move on the woman. Surprisingly, she’s down for it — why shouldn’t she be, she asks, when her husband is seeing someone else?

Hyun-woo does end up going to get Joon-soo after all, but he’s unhappy to find Joon-soo sitting by himself. After a few minutes, Soo-yeon rushes in, then immediately starts sucking up to the other moms, which Hyun-woo notes with disapproval. One of the moms brings up the videographer again, and surprisingly, Hyun-woo speaks up to say he’s put in a request.

Outside, Hyun-woo berates Soo-yeon for agreeing to the videographer request and for pandering to the moms. He says she needs to pay more attention to Joon-soo — Hyun-woo says he’s being excluded by other kids, and blames Soo-yeon for not being a better mom.

He tells her that she uses Joon-soo as an excuse, when all she wants to do is show off to the world that she’s a super mom that’s better than the stay-at-home moms. Soo-yeon looks shell-shocked at Hyun-woo’s words, but she quietly tells him to think what he wants. In response, he tells Soo-yeon to act boldly around those other moms instead of acting like their maid.

At a noraebang with the rest of their team, Joon-young warns Bo-young not to drink too much, because he’s not carrying her home again. Bo-young says his wife would be upset to know that he carried her home in the first place, and Joon-young retorts that it won’t happen again.

By the time Hyun-woo arrives, everyone’s gone except for Bo-young (and Joon-young, who’s throwing up in the bathroom). Bo-young mentions Hyun-woo’s missing wedding ring, then surprises him by asking if his wife is having an affair. She then asks Hyun-woo if there was any meaning in taking off his ring.

Hyun-woo thinks back to earlier that night when he dropped Soo-yeon and Joon-soo off at home. As he watched Soo-yeon struggling to carry Joon-soo in on her back, he’d received a comment from TUNAMAYO asking if he still hasn’t had a proper conversation with his wife. TUNAMAYO encourages him to remember the vows he took when he slipped the wedding ring on Soo-yeon’s finger. Noting that the ring is worn on the weakest finger, she wrote, “Maybe it means we should live supporting each other’s weaknesses.”

Back in the present, Hyun-woo leaves Bo-young with a credit card and heads back into the office. He opens his desk drawer and looks at his ring.

Hyun-woo tells the world via another online post that tonight, he’s going to try again to talk to his wife and ask her why she did what she did. As Hyun-woo hails a taxi to head home, we see that he’s put his ring back on. But at home, Soo-yeon sits alone in the living room and takes her ring off, setting it atop divorce papers.

“This week,” Hyun-woo says in voiceover, “my wife is divorcing me.”

 
COMMENTS

I know it’s a symptom of their troubled relationship, but man, Hyun-woo and Soo-yeon are SO out of sync with one another. While Hyun-woo’s too angry to be able to sit down with Soo-yeon for a levelheaded conversation, Soo-yeon’s overwhelmed and chooses to retreat and run away rather than spend time dealing with her marriage (or what’s left of it). When Soo-yeon wants to talk, Hyun-woo blows her off. And when Hyun-woo decides he’s ready for another conversation, Soo-yeon’s ready to throw in the towel. As painful as it is to watch, you can’t deny that it’s realistic, and I have to applaud the show for depicting the slow downward spiral of a marriage in such a compelling and heartbreaking way.

I have to admit I felt sorry for Soo-yeon as she went through what was probably one of the worst days of her life. It’s true that Soo-yeon doesn’t really have a leg to stand on when it comes to the fallout after her affair — Hyun-woo has a right to be as angry as he is, as does Sun-woo’s wife. But as a working mom myself, I truly felt for Soo-yeon in those scenes where she’s scrambling to make sure Joon-soo’s taken care of while falling down on her responsibilities at work.

It’s just really sad to see how alone she is, and how much lonelier she’ll be if she decides to go through with this divorce. I don’t see any of her issues improving once she really separates from Hyun-woo; if anything, I see it getting worse. So from that perspective, I’d probably be an advocate for her to at least try saving her marriage with Hyun-woo, but only if she has any feelings left for him. I’m not in agreement with Hyun-woo’s mother that a mother has to be bound to a loveless marriage just for the sake of her children, because sometimes, it’s better to get divorced rather than force one’s children to live in a toxic household. The question for Soo-yeon now becomes whether or not her relationship is worth fighting for, and I hope that as the show continues, we keep learning more about Soo-yeon’s motivations and what their marriage really looked like before her affair began.

Bo-young’s character is quickly turning out to be one of my favorites — I just love her no-nonsense attitude towards her work and her relationships, and the fact that she could really care less about what others think of her or her lifestyle. She’s shown us from day one that she’s thoughtful and introspective when it comes to the topic of marriage, and she’s probably done more to help Hyun-woo get through his issues than anyone else in his circle of supporters (maybe with the exception of TUNAMAYO). Also, she makes a hilarious drunk.

That being said, I’m looking forward to the inevitable romance between her and Joon-young, now that we’ve confirmed that he’s not another sketchy married man. Our king of overreactions was so subdued when he told Hyun-woo the truth about his faux marriage — it’s as if he’s bottled up all of his emotions regarding his life and only lets them out when it comes to other people’s problems. While I found it ridiculous (and not believable, frankly) that he pulled off the charade of being a married man for three whole years, I totally buy that he’s been unable to date because he’s so paralyzed by the fear of something similar happening to him again.

Despite all his talk about male “instincts,” Joon-young seems like the kind of guy who can nurse a crush for years on end, and judging by the way he looked at Bo-young when he took her home, he’s probably already there with her. Now, we’ll wait for Bo-young to realize that her unending annoyance with Joon-young is actually a deep-seated attraction to him. I’m all for including an adultery-free love story in this stormy tale of affairs and marriages on the rocks, so bring it on!

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