She makes him out to be the bad guy for telling his story, while complaining that he reminds her of the true, incontrovertible and self evident fact that she is in no position to judge him. What he did with the story of how he was a victim of her deception is none of her business, he does not have to answer to her in the first place, and it was not meant as an eff you towards her, but even if it was, as he correctly reminded her, having her talk to him about being a "bad person" and wronging her makes about as much sense as having Dick Cheney give a talk on gun safety. That is, none at all.

Not only was it his right, as a victim of her deception, to tell his own story. Even if he and her lover's wife decided to have some revenge sex with the goal of hurting their adulterous partners, the latter would self evidently have no right to stand on the high pulpit and pass down judgement, having been the ones that broke the trust and rendered their wows null and void. They can't complain about being slighted, after being willing to hurt/humiliate/deceive for months, really indefinitely, until caught, their own family and that of their lover. They didn't care about hurting them to satisfy a whim, so they have no leg to stand on if their cheated partner, when conjure up a measure of psychological safety, find a safe space online to unwind, and this makes them uncomfortable because they don't like to be made to face their own actions.

Posting things on the internet and taking inputs from anonymous randos about major life decisions is objectively stupid and inadvisable. But it is certainly not a slight towards the perpetrator of the very deception he is complaining about. The fact that she cannot look at herself in the mirror after what she did does not mean that the people she hurt (her husband, her lover's wife, her and her lover's children) have to be complicit in keeping it under wraps. The fact that she even feels entitled to such a "radio silence", like a mob boss in the times of Al Capone expecting "omerta", is very telling.

The funny thing is, she will then use this board to inquire about the chances of a husband forgiving/forgetting his wife sleeping with another man, as well as talking about the story from her point of view (contrary to the victim, who has the right to tell their own story, I feel like the perpetrator of the deception should probably double check that it was ok with their victim, although in this case he spoke extensively about the hurt/humiliation/deception he suffered, and therefore none of her words risk exposing him to further humiliation -there is nothing factually new here-). This is not the case with, for example, the stunt she pulled in episode 5 where she unilaterally decided that she was going to reveal his humiliation to her husband's own mother.

I mean, if she ever hopes that he would forgive her one day, shemight start by her not gaslighting him, pretending as if it was fair to ask him to have perfectly innocent motivations without the slightest anger or resentment, or drawing false equivalences between their actions (or rather, not talking about hers while attacking him about his supposed slights -always the same story: the self serving request that the perpetrator be allowed to suppress unflattering information, even from people, like her lover's wife, that had every right to know the truth -in fact, on the contrary, informing her was a moral imperative-).

"When she calls him a bad person, Hyun-woo gets defensive, telling her she has no right to blame him while insisting that he did nothing wrong. Soo-yeon tells him this is exactly the problem: They can’t have a conversation anymore without Hyun-woo yelling at her for what she did wrong."

They are not having a theoretical discussion about their problems, absent context. There is a context, namely that she deceived him for six months and spurned his attempt to reconnect the day after their anniversary to sleep with her lover -a married man with kids-. He is not playing the victim. He is a victim. They cannot have any conversation absent this necessary context.

Not sure in which universe she is living in, but after putting him trough the grinder like she did, she should be prepared to face resentment for a very long time, and frankly if she was genuinely sorry it's hard to see how she could have the sheer lack of shame and guilt to show impatience, being short with him, treating him curtly and reproach him things he has every right to do, without ever acknowledging the completely self serving nature of her requests.

It's not him pointing out that he is the victim in the situation, might I add as an answer to her attempts to gaslight him, that is the problem here. It is the fact that she willingly hurt/humiliated/deceived him to satisfy a whim, thus turning him into a victim, that is the problem and the "elephant in the room" in their conversation. In other words, raising or talking about the problem is *not* the problem. The problem is the problem. The problem is not that you are mentioning the elephant in the room. It is that there is an effing elephant in the room.

And of course, if he is a bad person then what does it make her? He is most definitely not, and in particular for this issue, it was not intended as a slight towards her and it's fully within his right as the victim of the deception (and is therefore relevant to remind her that in this situation he talked about on the board he is the victim and her the perpetrator, making the self evident point that the perp is not the victim, and in this case the victim does not need the perp's approval to tell his story, the perp does not get a vote, sorry-not-sorry).

I don't consider it selfish at all of him to stand his ground and remind her that he is the victim her, a fact that she conveniently seems to frequently forget.

I mean, if we wanted to switch recriminations there is the little fact that she *forgot* or *omitted* to tell him that her lover was working with her on the same project as the client at work, thus making her claim that she will never see/interact with him again false the very next day. Probably a little detail that she should have mentioned to her husband, though giving the bs she was running with instead of answering his very relevant questions like how long did it go on and whether she slept with her lover, information he practically had to force out of her (speaking of being confrontational, in the same episode where she apologized she also used the affair as a weapon when she told him she slept with him and she missed him to the point that she was the one contacting him after their first encounter).

I feel that the apology would have more weight behind it if she did not treat him curtly or try to preach to him from the pulpit. As he correctly remarked, she is not exactly in a position where she can give morality lessons to anyone, and hurting someone because you hate them is a hundred times preferrable than completely disregarding their suffering for no real reason at all -to satisfy a superficial whim-. Good or bad, he did have a reason. In my opinion, he had tons of better motives to do what he did. He should not hate himself nor his wife, by projection. Trusting their partners unconditionally was a mistake, but the ones at fault are the adulterous copule, for having exploited that trust.

So, surprise surprise, we see that the adulterous wife, already extremely reluctant to admit how long she went behind her husband's back and that she slept with her lover, turns out to have lied by omission about him being the client of the project she was working on. Might it have been something worth mentioning to her husband? But no, of course he should give her the benefit of the doubt and apply the most pink colored glasses, rose tinted charitable interpretation. Which would be, exactly?

Considering also the reluctance she showed in divulging information on the affair (duration, has she slept with him or not, where is her wedding ring, does she love him), preferring to utter platitudes, sophistry and evasions, I think that unilaterally deciding that she is leading you by the nose is perfectly warranted. Incidentally, this is part of a general trend of hiding inconvenient (for her) information, let's recall chapter 5 -where, if she, to use a metaphor, asked to "keep it in the family", she should have remembered that her lover's wife is part of that family as well-.

Not to state the obvious, but with her months long deception, coupled with her inability to be honest without serious prompting and reluctance to divulge information (only to use them as a weapon to hurt him by throwing the fact she slept with her lover and was the one who missed him so much she initiated contact after their first encounter), among which we can count the fact that she did not, in fact, reveal she was working with the guy on the same project, where he was the client, an information that one would think he was entitled to know. This is not honesty, it's deceptive behavior, and holding it over her head until she starts to show some genuine, not impatient and perfunctory, contrition, is the least she could expect

It's mightily irritating that even now she thinks she can lecture him from a position of moral superiority, even complaining when he pushes back with the very relevant defense that she is in no position to lecture from a bully pulpit anyone on anything

I frankly don't think that asking the ML's wife to behave like a human with a shred of empathy and respect for her husband and just genuinely apologize, answer every question he asks without lecturing, self righteousness and self pity, reluctance and omissions, is too much to ask. But soon after being caught red handed she was evading about the affair's duration and whether she slept with the guy or not, and then she covered up the fact that her lover was working with her at her day job on the same project, which one would think would be very relevant information given the fact she had just promised never to see him again. Turns out she would see him the very next day (ironically, he was the one to correctly decide they shouldn't continue to work together, and more ironically, he stayed and kicked her out of the project, rather than leaving himself... not that we would expect anything different from the philanderer). Of course, had she had such dignity and respect, she never would have deceived him.

I mean, I don't get where she thinks that she can preach from the bully pulpit. Has she done anything to atone for what she has done? No (not that anything she could do matters, but I just notice that she has actually not done anything and the efforts to make this thing work have been on his side... what she did was conceal the fact that her lover was her client on her big project, while telling her husband she won't meet him, and meeting him the very next day. Just lies by omission, etc.

I don't think that anything she could do would atone for what she had done to him, but I see her not even try, and complain that he is still upset about *being lied to for six months*, a fact he had to corner her to get her to admit.

I would say that the problem with their conversations is not that he brings up the affair, but that she gave him the reason to bring up the affair, namely by, first of all, having the affair in the first place (had she not, probably they would be having fewer arguments -before they had none, as shown in the first episodes-), and second of all, by implying that he does not have the right to tell his own story. She not only has no right to tell him what he should say, but she has no moral ground to judge him either, and here the affair is absolutely relevant to the conversation. My opinion: he could sing about it in stadium concerts Taylor Swift style for all I care, but asking for opinion on such a thing on the internet is dumb.

More generally, I don't get where she gets this notion that the conversation should go down as she planned, or why she supposes she should be able to dictate the terms the terms of how the conversation is going to go down. Why should he avoid bringing up topics (relevant topics, in this specific context, given the nature of her accusations) just to spare *her* feelings? As he could and should have replied, where was the corresponding concern for *his* feelings when she was having the affair? No, he should not pull punches when she attempts to turn the tables on him or gaslight him in an argument, he should hold his ground and point out her hypocrisy. Just because the emperor is embarassed, it's no reason to shut up and not point out the obvious fact that he has no clothes.

This is the same issue they encountered with the episode 5 debacle, where she just presupposed she had the right to dictate the terms of how the fallout of her affair being discovered should go down, namely that he should not discuss it with anyone and not reveal it to the *other* poor person they were duping. She had no right to make that decision and it is galling she would even ask.

"with a heightened sense of his own righteousness."

I wouldn't say this. He was devastated after learning of the deception, and tried to reassure himself of the obvious, namely that he didn't deserve what she did to him (which he did not).

I think that on the contrary in this chapter he is too harsh on himself. Yes, in the last period he has been angry and has had issues being perfectly calm and balanced in conversations with his wife. That's frankly to be expected after the world shattering heartbreak he suffered: he thought she was his whole world, a perfect woman, instead she was a snake that was deceiving him for the past half a year.

I didn't like the "drop" analogy because it gaslights him, it makes it seem like she has no agency. It's paternalistic and denies her ownership and responsibility over her own actions. Neither he nor she knew of her difficulties, and when she realized it instead of rethinking her priorities or talking to him about her difficulties, she started an affair and set out to deliberately deceive him for the past six months. Not sure how *any* of that helper clear her schedule (one would think adding a lover in the mix would complicate things instead), though suspiciously when she needed to meet her lover she could magically come up with the necessary hours.

Again, I am struck by how low the bar is: they have *one* kid. There are plenty of families with two, three, four kinds where both parents have full time jobs. He is indeed clueless about sewing and cooking and stuff like that, and this has the effect of making those things appear more difficult than they actually are -they are not rocket science, he simply never learned them-. All in all, with all due respect, she is not planning D-Day or the Moon landing, she is a graphic designer with *one* kid.

Okay, so essentially the blog she complained about in the first part of the episode is really the same thing that "saves" them and brings them together in the second part, and she starts to use it. Hopefully she will apologize and tell him it was not a bad idea, not that I am holding my breath (I think it was, I think it was stupid, but I also don't think she has any right to complain: he is the victim here, as he *correctly* and *completely fairly* remarked, and he has the right to tell his own story.

I like how she ends up taking advantage of what she was complaining about, the blog, without ever thinking of going back and saying she was sorry (she should have done so in any case, as her victim has the right to tell his story in any way he chooses and she shouldn't have the ability to butt in... and I am saying this while thinking that asking randos on the internet for life advice is *not* an intelligent idea).

I mean, I struggle to understand why he would stay with her at all, all things considered. She was the one that deceived him and would have never stopped lying to him, by her own admission, which seems like a pretty big elephant in the room to address, and she casually sidelines it, bringing forth her recriminations. She pretends he listens and thinks about her feelings, but makes no effort to understand him in return.

I really think that he should reconsider being with her at all, given the impatience when he just learned about her affair and is emotions are still raw and angry, she apparently does not feel any need to show him a little empathy and try to see the situation from his point of view -the isolation, the loneliness, the inability to find another outlet, the need to tell his story and elaborate his emotions-.

I don't really agree with the "I understand her" part. Or the "we forgive her" part. Granting everything about the stress, etc., I don't get the ease of the breakup with her lover, and the guilt that made her unable to look at or stay with her husband after he discovered the truth, compared to the fact that she planned to continue to see her lover and lie to her husband indefinitely before, with no apparent problem being with her husband, looking him in the eye and lying to him. In her place, I would be wrecked with guilt, unable to last a day in that torturous situation. She planned to do this indefinitely. Where was the guilt?

I found the suggestion of "understanding why she did it" insulting. Okay, that's something that could be addressed. But frankly, the motive is besides the point. Reminds me of a journal article I had read that used those exact words: the loneliness, the thing missing from the marriage, etc. might all have been valid complaints to address in the appropriate manner, or grounds for divorce. They are not reasons to cheat. For that matter, we see characters here that have been put through much worse: the protagonist, her lover's wife. They don't cheat (they don't even abandon their partners). They should. The wife beating drunk, or a philanderer like her lover, or herself for that matter, do deserve to be cheated on (was hoping for some revenge sex between the cheated spouses). Him being slightly inattentive might be true in and of itself, but we cannot seriously consider it a "reason to cheat" any more than we can seriously consider "stealing a loaf of bread" a reason for "having your hand cut off". There is no proportion. This cannot be an excuse/rationalization. They might be true. But unhappyness does not equate cheating. Again, her lover's wife and her husband have more than enough reason to be unhappy, and they won't cheat on their spouses (though shey should, as they would deserve it). There is simply no proportionality between an unintentional slight and a premeditated (her "not inteding to" is hogwash and evasion) half a year long deception.

There is another element to this, namely that her lover is married and has a family. She does not know them, and they *surely* did not to anything to deserve the hurt/humiliation/deception, so there is no possible way they could be factored into her "reason" (on the other hand, being able to do this to them signals a rather sociopathic lack of empathy). Again, surely they *did not* contribute to her decision to hurt/humiliate/deceive them, given that she did not even know them in the first place and they did nothing to her. She simply didn't care about hurting her, at least not enough to avoid doing that if it meant giving up on satisfying her selfish whim. This is an angle the show should have focused more on. It's not as if it's normal callously hurting people you don't know if you can satisfy your selfish whim.

He has every right to share his story anonymously on the internet. I mean, is she familiar with Reddit? Plenty of communities for cheating/reconciliation/divorce stories/counselling/sharing experiences.

I didn't like the self serving attitude of the wife, nor the fact that she tried to dictate the schedule with which he gets over what happened and doesn't bring it up (it was very recently that he discovered it, anyway). He does not owe her anything in that regard.

I mean, it's not as if we need to wonder, she stated it clearly the last chapter. The matter is not about love for her husband or lack thereof (it was manifestly not enough to stop her from deceiving him indefinitely), it's about her guilt and inability to look at him in the face (would have come in useful *while* she was having the affair, maybe she could have answered sincerely when he asked her how she was and proposed to spend time together, rather than lie about being well and having to work, only to go to sleep with her lover (never understood why she did that, in light of the "stress" bit, as it seemed like he was giving her exactly what she wanted, and she still thought of her husband as a good man and wanted to stay in the marriage)

I am concerned about her lack of character development. She was the one that would have deceived him for life. It's not as if she thought what she was doing was not despicable, or that he was despicable and deserved it (she thought he was a good man, and that she was doing this to a good man -I don't know how she dealt with the disgust and managed to reach out to her lover after their first encounter, planning to continue cheating and lying to her husband indefinitely-). None of those things stopped her from wanting to deceive him indefinitely, and she didn't have any big epiphanies/learning moments since the beginning. She is the one that shattered the relationship, but he is the one doing all the learning?

I was disappointed in the lack of character development in the wife. They had communication issues, but basically, in terms of scale, there is no contention: she is the one that wrecked the relationship, giving it the coup de grace, and inflicting such a traumatizing emotional wound on him. Yet while he tries to understand her and where they went wrong, she does not have any epiphany and doesn't do any learning and growing. Essentially, she knows the exact same things now as in the beginning: it's not as if she thought what she was doing was ok and then learned it was not, or as if she thought he was a monster deserving of being deceived (she thought he was a good man), and none of those stopped her from planning to betray and deceive him indefinitely. It's simply impossible to say, in light of those facts, that she is in no need for learning and introspection, yet he is the one doing all the learning and introspection and splitting the hair on his behavior and her motives. The relationship problems were not caused by only one side (if anything, neither realized the issue of her stress and when she did, she lied to him about it and didn't tell him... when he had a inkling that there might be a problem, he did reach out and try to ask how she was doing and whether she wanted to spend time together to reconnect, and she lied that everything was fine and she had to work, only to go sleep with her lover). This is to say, between the two she is the one most in need of growing and learning and introspecting, to understand why she was ready to do what she did with no intention of stopping (and yet now feels so guilty and it was so easy to end her affair, so why was it worthy for her to reach out to her lover after their first encounter and plan to carry on and continue deceiving her husband for life?).

If she had any character development at all, she would have read the blog he had every right to write and come back and apologized for her behavior. Which included trying to pressure him into healing on *her* schedule, which he does not owe her, and him not processing his pain in any way he sees fit, which he does not owe her.

I think he has every right to be hurt and reactive, and he does not owe it to her to heal at the pace and according to the schedule *she* thinks he should. And if she feels entitled to that, reminding her that *she* was the one that caused him that emotional wound is the completely fair and correct thing to do. What is unfair is her trying to commandeer the way he processes the trauma she caused him, and trying to pressure him about the time it takes for him to heal and elaborate the trauma.

I think that she should acknowledge that the blog turned out to be valuable in the end. Not that she would ever do that, or apologize for prioritizing her not feeling uneasy about having to face her own actions over his attempt to cope and heal from the trauma he caused. Which he has every right to do at *his* pace. He should have told her that no, he has every right to remind her she inflicted that wound to him every time she seems to forget it and treat him as if he owed to her to move along with the healing process at the pace she, the perpetrator, is comfortable with.

I think that given the extremely traumatic nature of the events she put him through, having patience and understanding that he has every right to process the trauma she inflicted in any way he pleases, with the schedule/timeline he is most comfortable with, would be nice.

If she had any character growth, after reading the blog the epiphany would have prompted her to action. Unfortunately the show looks down on her as a pretty vase, someone in need of rescuing, that is helpless and cannot do anything by herself (like actually talking to her husband about her problems instead of lying to his face that everything was a-okay and then sleeping with someone else). The only time she was not passive and actively did something was when she reached out to her lover after their first encounter. Would be nice if she actually tried to learn/understand her husband/try to atone/redeem herself (not that she could, but not even seeing her try is galling). Some introspection about how she could cheat, willingly reach out to her lover after their encounter and choose to continue cheating and lying to her husband indefinitely, when faced with the guilt she feels after his discovery and the ease with which they broke things off without any second thought, should prompt some "was it worth it", "why did I do it" moments. Also, some basic considerations about the fact that her husband is trying to understand her, while her lover dropped her, the woman he claimed to love, like a sack of hot potatos, badmouthing her to his wife and dropping her form the project (rather than recusing himself) without even talking to her. That's who she betrayed her husband for. Someone that took away her choice without even discussing the situation with her, the same way he did to his wife when he chose to lie to her indefinitely, depriving her of the ability to choose, because she thought she was his property and didn't have the right to be able to decide to leave him.

Actually, her self reflection and learning process should have started after the encounter with her lovers' wife. When she faced the fact that she destroyed the lives of people that she didn't know and had never done anything to her, for a superficial whim, a relationship that was gone like the wind, so easily, and that she was willing to carry on and deceive her husband his entire life over.

If they both need to grow and improve, it's true that she needs much more soul searching, introspection and learning, having been willing not only to deceive her husband, but to also cheat with another woman's husband when she knew he had a family. The results of which can be seen in episode 6, and should have prompted some epiphany. Her husband is the one doing the learning and running around trying to pinpoint anything he might have done wrong, while she destroyed two families over a superficial whim (a relationship she couldn't quit that they broke off as easy as that).