My Wife’s Having an Affair This Week (2016)

This drama explores multiple aspects of marriage, to cheating, to divorce, in a way that helps you see both sides of each couple and allows you to understand their feelings. It explains well the consequences of each action, and how others could be affected, even sheds some light on the complicity of getting a divorce in Korea. And even though it is such a heavy subject, there's plenty of laughs and love.

I find it annoying that 16-20 episode dramas are always one or two episodes too long, unnecessarily stretching out the story just to fill space. However since there's only twelve episodes, not a moment is wasted here. Song Ji Hyo and velvet voiced, Lee Seon Gyun are amazing as the leads, portraying every emotion of a struggling couple from start to finish, but what's great about this drama is that even the side stories are just as interesting. I honestly loved the PD Ahn and Writer Kwon couple most. Lee Sang Yeob played PD Ahn so well you couldn't help but find him adorable and fall in love too.

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A Perfect Wife Not Sharing Her Burdens to The Husband For Help … BUT Choosing to Cheat Him

I watched this drama quite late in 2021 and enjoyed it. The actings of Main Lead / Supporting actors and actresses were great. OST by Park Won and UrbanZakapa were also so emotional. I rewatched it again from the start to better understand the story to sympathize the cheating wife SY in this drama but it was hard to agree upon the (opened) happy ending story of this remade K-drama version.

The Writer seemed to make the cheating wife SY looked like the Victim of her own affair whom had reasons to cheat her husband and deserved sympathy at the end. Her character, as written, was a thoughtful and beautiful career mom who kept things to herself and she wanted to please and make everyone happy although she was exhausted. Her husband HW was a good husband who “unintentionally” overlooked her burdens b/c he always thought that SY was a perfect wife. SY did her best to be a good mom and perfect housewife and then when a married man noticed her weakness and approached her, she felt happy when being with that man. The story showed us that she had ONCE slept with her lover and CHOSE to continue “emotional” affair relationship by secretly keeping it under her smiling face to her family since the affair started.

SY and her lover SW had their own lovely families and created their own WEIRD and SELFISH imagination that having an affair without divorcing in mind was the excuse to NOT destroy their own families - so it was acceptable to continue their affair. Her lover arranged an appointment to sleep with SY which she did not deny and wanted to serve his desire. She “intentionally’” planned and lied to her husband about her office meeting activity such that she could have a spare time to commit adultery with her lover in a Hotel room. She had told her husband that she would be able to pick up her son at a Nursery school after her office meeting ended. So, it meant that the cheating wife did NOT care or feel any guilt in sleeping with another man and then went to see her son. However, her husband suspected and caught-up her affair red-handed in the Hotel before it happened.

The story did not clearly show that SY felt guilty after her affair was found out. She calmly told her husband that she would stop seeing her (presently) ex-lover “for now” rather than saying ““from now on”. The husband felt upset when hearing the “for now” wordings and she did NOT correct or clarify those wordings. Those unclear wordings might be interpreted that she just wanted to temporarily stop the relationship with her lover and possibly hoped to refresh their love again in future b/c both of them still met each other in the office.

The affair relationship and emotional feelings (Love VS Playing with Fire) between SY and her affair partner was so confusing and it was hard to understand their characters in the drama. When the affair was caught-up and during the three’s confrontation in a hotel room, her lover claimed in front of her husband’s face that he loved SY …. Even earlier, SY, herself, had dared to lie in front of her husband’s face to sleep with her lover and also lately admitted that she was happy when being with that married man and did not even to think to end the affair relationship.. From those scenes, Viewer would expect that their relationship was not the “Playing with Fire or One Night Stand”. Then the story portrayed that SY might want to temporarily stop her relationship with her ex-lover “for now”. SY did not think that her ex-lover would dump her BUT it was so surprising that she did not express her disappointing or upset feeling to her (now) ex-lover whom she was so happy when being with him BUT he now completely abandoned her. HOW did both SY and her lover, with their depth of emotion, break-up their affair relationship “so easily” and “too simply”? …. Anyway, the story seemed to show that SY started to feel guilty to the husband after her ex-lover did not want to contact her any more. She kept saying sorry endlessly to the husband throughout the show.

After SY’s affair was caught up, when she and her husband firstly talked at home, she acted so calmly and said to him she did not want to deceive him and was sorry for what she had done. SY also added that she did not have an affair to divorce him. But during their conversation, she did not openly talk and wanted to deny her husband’s question if she had yet slept with her lover. When her husband did push her the question, she could not deny the fact but expressed her upset feeling when replied to him that she and her lover had already slept together and she missed that man so much. If she felt guilty, how could she encounter her husband that she thought of another man all the times?

The Lyrics said that the wife SY did NOT have an affair b/c she loved her lover. However, the written story showed so DIFFERENTLY. She expressed her smiling and happy face when being with her lover and also later admitted that she did not think to end her affair relationship if her husband did not find out. There was a short scene during the three’s confrontation in the hotel room when the husband pushed her the question if she actually loved and felt seriously with her lover. She was reluctant to answer and SW quickly jumped-in saying that they were playing with fire. Her lover’s quick reaction and her reluctance meant that the cheating wife could not tell the truth that she was also in love with another man. SY also disclosed later that she was so busy with her office and family works and did not have time to be herself or even had time to fix her worn-out shoes ….. BUT it was so surprising as shown in the drama that after she started having an affair with another man, she could then “magically” find her (not enough) times to meet her lover at any cafeteria and could manage her time to sleep with him in a hotel room RATHER THAN spending that time with her husband and family. SY’s character was not a flirtatious woman type. So if she intentionally planned and repeated the same affair mistake in having another man take her cloth off and touch her body, it meant that she passionately loved that man.

There were so many scenes in the drama obviously showed SY’s expressions that she was in LOVE with that married man SW such as wearing beautiful dresses when seeing him; preparing her colorful lingeries to show to SW when being together in a hotel room, kissing her hand given to SW; planning and intentional lying about her office meeting activity to sleep with him; taking her wedding ring off when being with SW; thinking to temporarily stop seeing SW after the affair was found out; later sharing her story that she forgot her family, her husband, son, etc and did not feel sorry and guilty about the affair when being with SW and lastly sharing her feeling like a kid chasing after a balloon and accepted that she would continue the affair if her husband did not find out. All of these seemed to show that SY might love another man much more than her husband during the affair period and she seemed to be ready to leave her husband if SW decided to divorce his wife.

The cheating wife’s intentional affair mistake was so MUCH MUCH WORSE than her husband’s unintentional overlooking her stresses. He was a good husband but not a mind reader. Although the story tried to show that SY felt remorseful and kept crying, there was not much scene showing her enough growth to gain her husband’s trust or showing how much she loved her husband. I understand that this drama was the story of the husband HW to grow maturely and improve himself. So, it did not show much story about SY while her ‘intentional’ mistake and repeatedly lying was much worse. It was hard for me to be sympathetic from the given story that SY would deserve the happiness ending.

This K-drama’s story for the husband is that Forgiving can be done BUT Forgetting is harder. The story presented that HW’s character was an indecisive person and he always thought a lot before making any decision. He felt pain and struggled to force himself to hug his wife b/c he could not get rid of the image of his wife being with her ex-lover. Actually what was in his head was his wife was being hold and physically touched by another man which much hurt him and was the “key” reason that led to the divorce. It did NOT make any sense at all that the divorce erased his painful memory in such a SHORT PERIOD and he walked back to restart husband/wife relationship again !! Forget such kind of emotional hurt feeling due to affair takes times even years or forever. If they returned back, they would divorce again.

DRAMA is still DRAMA.

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