Reviews

good development

Overall: I enjoyed the back and forth with the leads/their dynamic. 50 episodes between 1-2 minutes each aired on Vigloo app which also has (Match Play, Rule #1 No Dating Rule, Love in the Apocalypse - My Man's Man is from a female character's perspective and I wouldn't call it a BL series)

Content Warnings: punch, blackmail, homophobia

What I Liked
- caring moments
- non dead fish lip press kiss
- stood up/supported partner

Room For Improvement
- background music was too loud at times

How to Watch for Free (episodes are 50 coins each, you can't skip episodes but once unlocked they stay unlocked forever, there are additional tasks to get more coins like following the company on social media)

Day 1
- watch episodes 1-7 (free on the app)
- can watch 10 episodes free with ads, I unchecked the auto unlock, clicked off of that box and another box popped up saying "view ads to watch for free 0/10" (I did that for eps 8-26)
- watch 15 ads per day for 30 coins each on the rewards page and do the daily check in (eps 17-25)

Days 2 & 3
- watch the 10 episodes, do the daily checking, watch the 15 ads per day (should take 2-3 days in total to watch for free)

Read More

chefs kiss

this drama is so good that i've already rewatched it twice. i don't even know where to begin on how good it is.
the plot line was executed so well. the acting was so beautiful, especially from woo dohwan and his enticing eyes. the sad scenes with the OST was so beautiful as well, and made everything 10x sadder.
although haejo's death is revealed within the first episode, it definitely still hits you very hard at the end, especially the "i want to live."
everything about this drama was just amazing and very thorough, and although there was only 10 episodes, it didn't feel rushed and felt very completed.
i would 100% recommend this if you love tearjerkers

Read More

No

A 10-hour-late head pop.

Just wasn't for me. Maybe you will get more out of it!

This drama is a train wreck. If you're looking for anything good – a decent story, interesting characters, watchable acting – just turn around now. Seriously, save yourself. This thing is a mess, and it's not just a harmless mess; it actually pushes some pretty toxic stuff, especially with the male lead.

The biggest problem is the writing. It's just bad. The story jumps all over the place, like the writers just threw a bunch of random scenes together and called it a plot. Nothing makes sense, and you're constantly wondering what's going on. The dialogue is even worse – it's full of cheesy lines and awkward conversations that'll make you cringe so hard you might pull a muscle. You won't remember a single line five minutes after you hear it. And the pacing? Don't even get me started. It's either dragging on forever or rushing through important stuff, which makes the whole thing super boring.

But the absolute worst part? The male lead. This guy is a walking red flag. He's not just bland; he's straight-up toxic. He's controlling, he ignores everyone's feelings, and he has zero respect for boundaries. And the worst part? The show acts like this is okay, even romantic sometimes, which is a seriously messed-up message to send. The actor doesn't help things either. His performance is so wooden and lifeless; it's like watching a robot try to act human, but a robot programmed with toxic masculinity. You never get why he does anything, you never feel for him, and you definitely don't root for him. He's just there, being awful and making the whole thing worse. His behavior shouldn't be excused; it should be called out.

And the side characters? They're totally useless. They're just there to move the terrible plot along, and they have no personalities of their own. They barely get any screen time, and when they do, they don't do anything interesting. They're just… there. They don't add anything to the story, and you forget about them as soon as they're off-screen. They're like background extras who accidentally wandered into the foreground. And they just accept the male lead's awful behavior, which makes it seem even more normal than it should.

The lack of decent side characters just makes the male lead's awfulness even more obvious. He's supposed to be the main focus, but he's completely empty and, honestly, kind of scary. There's no connection between any of the actors, especially with him, which makes everything even more awkward and uncomfortable.

Pros:
• It's a great example of what not to do in a drama.
• It's short, so at least you won't waste too much time on it (but even a little is too much).
• It might get people talking about toxic masculinity in shows.

Cons:
• The writing is awful.
• The characters are boring and badly written, especially the male lead, who's also toxic.
• The acting is terrible, especially from the male lead.

I hope that Lee You Mi gets better script next time. Definitely want to see her in more FL roles. This just isn’t it.

Read More

Stupidity overrated ! misleading rating! WASTE OF TIME

A complete waste of time. This drama is riddled with plot holes and wasted potential, making it incredibly frustrating to watch. The narrative lacked coherence, with characters making illogical decisions that felt completely out of place. The buildup to key moments was poorly executed, left me disappointed and questioning the logic behind the story.

What made it worse was the misleading high ratings—this drama is nowhere near deserving of its praise. The production value might have been decent, but that doesn’t compensate for the lackluster writing and direction. It’s disappointing to see such potential squandered

Read More

I’m genuinely curious about the specifics of what YJ did with DK while secretly seeing him behind HS’ back, before running off with him the first time around. It felt dismissive to reduce such a significant reveal to a brief mention in the later episodes, treating it as a throwaway line at the end, especially while largely ignoring HS’ suffering when he told her he knew. This oversight becomes even more glaring when the narrative equates YJ’s actions to HS’s unrequited mini-crush, a comparison that is both absurd and indicative of a massive double standard.

HS endured over a year of YJ's deception, during which she lied about being at work while meeting DK. She eventually discarded him without explanation and disappeared for years, without as much as a word, only to reappear in his life all of a sudden, as though she could effortlessly resume their relationship. The self entitlement and shamelessness of her taking him for granted to such an absurd degree, coupled with HS’s almost immediate willingness to resume their relationship after barely a half baked apology (if even that), was really hard to swallow. YJ’s intolerance for HS harboring even a fleeting attraction to someone else (particularly considering her own history, where she hurt him so deeply with her actions, and he put up with it) only highlights her unwillingness to take genuine responsibility for the pain she caused.

Her willingness to punish HS by threatening to run off with DK over the mere possibility that he might end their relationship someday, driven entirely by her own ego, represents a shift from her earlier apathy but still demonstrates an alarming lack of regard for his years of suffering. Instead of confronting the damage she inflicted, YJ absurdly equates HS’s unrequited mini-crush to her own actions: the way in the past she lied to HS for over a year while secretly seeing DK, eventually running off to another continent with him.

Context is critical here. YJ did what she did to someone who was entirely loyal and devoted to her. Even if HS had done the same (which he didn’t, let’s have a sense of proportion), his actions would have occurred against the backdrop of her past treatment of him, giving her no grounds to complain. As JA pointed out to YH in My Mister, even if they had slept together, YH still would have no right to complain, given her far worse betrayal.

HS’s insecurities and concerns were rooted in YJ’s past actions, and were a natural and justified emotional response. His inability to express these feelings openly was understandable, given YJ’s tendency to mock, minimize, or dismiss his concerns the few times he raised them. So, he attempted to address the situation by mirroring her own behavior, albeit in a much more watered down way (for instance, by inviting FL to YJ’s exhibition). His efforts were ineffective due to the difference in their starting point, the weight of her past actions contrasted to his willingness to tolerate her more than year long deception, and the way he had previously never had eyes for any other woman besides YJ.

Said more explicitly, the power dynamics in their relationship were never equal. YJ, by her own admission, consistently took HS for granted, doing whatever she pleased with hardly any consideration for his feelings, while expecting him to always be there for her, and only for her. HS, by contrast, in the past endured her deception and remained devoted to her, even during the more than year-long period she lied to his face while seeing DK.

Moreover, HS’s unrequited crush carried no real potential for a relationship (arguably comparable to YJ’s dynamic with HS’s cousin, but less damaging and from a starting point that, in HS’s case, didn’t have baggage of her past actions with DK). By contrast, YJ’s actions with DK had real emotional and relational consequences, and therefore her decision to punish HS by threatening to run off with him again (particularly in light of the fact that the first time around came after her more than year long deception, and that she literally didn’t speak to HS for years after she first went to live with DK, only to suddenly pop up in his life years later) carries an entirely different weight.

I would generally say that, for any actions of his that YJ might have found objectionable, she had been guilty of the same, only a billion times worse, and against someone who, at the time, had always been nothing else than loyal and completely devoted to her. YJ’s behavior was a 10, while HS’ actions barely registered as a 1, if even that.

By her own admission, HS was consistently putting up with anything from her, despite the suffering it caused him, including a more than year long deception while he fully knew she was lying about working and seeing DK behind his back, and yet consistently told himself to forgive her, and ended up groveling and begging when she run off with the guy.

By contrast, YJ’s reaction to HS’ unrequited mini-crush and one one-sided stamp kiss was to break him by exploiting the wounds she herself had caused, her jealousy and insecurity leading her to punish him for daring to feel the faintest shred of attraction to someone that 1) had never hurt him as profoundly as she did and 2) didn’t take him absolutely for granted (shocker that he would feel attracted to her really :irony:) by dredging up memories of DK and even threatening to run off with him again, a cruel and calculated move that succeeded in breaking HS down.

Ironically, this showed that she cared enough to act out, in stark contrast to her earlier indifference. However, her double standard remained glaring: while she expected HS to stay devoted to her unconditionally, she dismissed his legitimate grievances and diminished his pain with baseless comparisons. The fact that it worked, reducing HS to groveling once more, only reinforced the skewed and toxic dynamic of their relationship. All in all, I must say that I found HS’s family’s skepticism toward their relationship was entirely understandable (not sure they objected for the right reasons, though).

While the drama’s conclusion attempted to address the imbalance, showcasing YJ’s controlling behavior and HS’s excessive tolerance, the resolution felt insufficient in fully acknowledging the emotional toll on HS or holding YJ accountable for her actions. The contrast between her earlier apathy and her punitive jealousy revealed a relationship fraught with inequities, where YJ’s failure to grapple with the consequences of her actions and their failure to take the effect they had on HS and their relationship seriously, as opposed to turning it into a joking matter.

What did she do with DK while she was deceiving HS? Why did she and DK split up, and she suddenly decided to rekindle her relationship with HS? And so on… none of these questions are tackled, and they very much should have, I cannot imagine a healthy relationship where they are brushed aside because HS is too scared of her running off again, and she suddenly felt inclined to make some concessions because she realized he might feel attracted to someone else that didn’t cause him horrible pain in the past, and didn’t take him for granted.

For his part HS remained in the position of having to plain these toxic games with a master who was going to win every time, as evidenced by the fact that, even after she deceived him for more than a year and run off with DK despite his begging and groveling, not speaking another word for him for years, only to suddenly reappear in his life, she is the one that, once again, is punishing him by threatening to run off with DK again, and he is still the one grovelling.

His concerns are not actually aired and discussed seriously, but rather mocked, while her own jealousy and bruised ego at the mere notion the might even find someone else attractive, even when there was no indication he was ever going to leave her for someone else, are taken absolutely seriously, to the point where she explicitly punished him by threatening him with his worst nightmare, and actually succeeded in beating him into compliance.

Bottom line, no hope whatsoever for him to have a normal relationship like the one he was starting to have with FL. Of course, any issues with trust, etc. are conveniently brushed aside, as are the consequences of his traumatic experiences: he was successfully “scared into submission”, nevermind the fact that her being willing to put him through something like that, fully knowing (because he told her as such) how much her more than year long deception and her running off with DK had hurt him before, should in and of itself have made him question the wisdom of pursuing a relationship with such a person.

I mean, it’s one thing to tease and push one’s boundaries, it quite another to do that given the knowledge that she had been lying to HS’ fare for more than a year and run off with someone, and even beyond that to do that with the very same person she was seeing behind his back and had run off with (I mean, she didn’t use his cousin in this capacity, but the very person she did this with the last time around).

Again, the show did try to make the relationship appear more equitable by the end, but it was always whatever YJ was deigning to give, there was never a moment where HS’ concerns were addressed and he actually set boundaries, the situation was that he was more or less willing to stand around and do whatever and put up with anything YJ would do to him, because of some mystical sense of predestination or something equally absurd.

Basically, he would have put up with anything because he was broken by her threat, and had she actually run off, he would have waited around for a moment that might never have come, rather than actually pursued a relationship which could have made him happier… This makes it impossible for me to truly see them as equal, any effort to make the situation equal feels to me like they come as YJ’s concessions.

Let’s be explicit about this. There was nothing guaranteeing YJ would have come back the first time around. He certainly didn’t think there was, at the time, otherwise he wouldn’t have been as distraught as he was (note that she was with DK for years, and he never heard a word from her in all that time, and it was far from a given that she would break up with the guy… again, they never even discussed why things between her and DK ended and she was apparently inclined to rekindle her relationship with HS, that’s surely something any normal person would want to know in his position? After all, wasn’t she in love with DK at the time?). Even the second time around, obviously he didn’t appear to truly believe it was a mere temporary inconvenience, otherwise he wouldn’t have felt such agony. In both cases, it would be good for him not to take her return for granted, because it wasn’t.

In terms of him being someone YJ can take for granted, she suddenly discovered he wasn’t (and proceeded to use the trauma she had originally inflicted to try to break him into compliance). The issue is, he wasn’t for about the time it took to go from her reappearance in his life to her second time running off with DK (which she almost did). In that period, he very briefly contemplated the possibility of letting himself be attracted to someone he might have had, in other circumstances, a normal, non toxic relationship where she hadn’t horribly hurt him, didn’t take him for granted and wouldn’t attempt to punish him via the very same man that in the past she had been seeing behind his back and run off with the first time around, threatening to run off with the guy a second time.

By the time she left the second time, what remained was only someone that she could indeed take for granted, and that would be willing to stay around for her to pick up at her convenience, and wouldn’t leave no matter what she did. That’s not a good situation for either of them. It was good for her not to take him for granted, and that was only possible when he was the kind of person that would be willing to entertain, at least for a brief moment, the possibility that he could be happy with someone else, at least in principle.

This is a disaster because one could very well imagine an alternative scenario where she runs off and never comes back, and he waits around pining for her, and even in the best case scenario, by essentially stipulating he would stick around no matter what she does to him, he is making himself reliant on her being there (or being willing to come back) and making his happiness reliant dependent on her concessions.

Again, as for her intentionally using the trauma she had originally caused him as leverage to punish and threaten him, because she couldn’t put up with the idea of him being attracted to someone else, one cannot help but think that hopefully the mystical predestination stuff would be just a way for him to encourage himself (if that wasn’t the case, he might have been less agitated at the prospect of her leaving). The alternative would be delusional. I like to think that in time he would have pursued another relationship, and that he wouldn’t really stay with her literally regardless of how much she hurt him. I don’t think that would be a healthy mind state to inhabit.

I mean, they don't talk about her deceiving him for more than a year while she was with HS, nor about what she felt for DK, why she broke up with him and then wanted to rekindle her relationship with HS, etc. Like, how does what she felt for DK differ from her feelings towards HS? This sounds like the kind of questions one would ask when they saw her popping up all of a sudden outside their place of work and door after years of complete silence. And it's certainly not unreasonable to try to understand why things are supposed to be different this time and why he should put any trust into her claim of love and commitment. Because it's entirely non obvious to me that he should, based on her prior actions.

That's what they should have ironed out, not how they feel about her drinking habits while pregnant (spoiler: not good because it hurts the baby... I don't care whether HS likes drinking as well, if he wants to be supportive he should refrain, but it doesn't change the fact that he is not pregnant, she is, and this is not about her, it's about the fact that it could harm the baby and she knows it). Same thing, frankly, with her making kimchi: not a good idea. And really, am I supposed to be impressed by the cheap emotional manipulation, and forget about her thoughtlessly drinking while pregnant, or the whole story with DK, or trying to use the trauma she inflicted on HS to punish and control him? That's intellectually insulting. And yes, cheesy promises during the marriage scene are better than nothing, but talk is cheap, actions are what counts, and nothing can substitute openly talking about the aforementioned open issues related to her past actions with DK, her feelings for the guy and HS, now and in the past, and why he should feel in any way reassured given her recent willingness to use the trauma she inflicted against him (and then making a joke out of his insecurities and pain which, as demonstrated in his outburst at the side of the road, clearly pain him still).

Read More

Watched this drama as the episodes were being released a few years ago, thus my memory of it is a bit foggy. However, what I can clearly remember is:

- Jisoo's acting and character is amazing.
- Could barely wait for each new episode to be released, kept me hooked throughout!

But, the worst part of this drama was the ending. Really awful ending. I marked my review as containing spoilers because of this, but it really is disappointing. What kept me watching was the fact I didn't know how it was going to end. Had the ending been good, I would have given this drama a solid 9 out of 10.

Read More

Feelgood and charmingly funny

A «growing up drama» that makes you smile loads and leaves you with a good feeling.

Very brief synopsis:
The female weightlifter Kim Book Joo works towards her goal of joining the national team, living life happily at school with her two close friends on the weightlifting team. She has never been in love, and doesn’t give much thought to boys, until she falls head over heels in love with a handsome guy shielding her from the rain one day. She also gets reacquainted with a former classmate, who is now a handsome swimmer at the same school as her.
We follow her along the journey of how her crush develops, how her friendships tackle it when love comes into the equation, and life itself.

What bugged me:
I was surprised when I found out how old she was supposed to be. I thought she (and her friends) acted extremely childish, so thought they were supposed to be younger.
I wasn’t thrilled with the fake crying, and am no fan of screaming girls.
I didn’t really notice at first, but I guess after halfway or so I started noticing the two main leads had a very big (unrealistically big?) wardrobe. Especially coats and winter jackets - they wore new ones so often!
There was a few times I wondered about shift between day/night time in scene changes.

The positives:
As mentioned first, this is a feelgood drama with funny charm. I found myself smiling and chuckling loads of times.
The cast was good. FL had very rich facial expressions, and ML managed to ooze charm befitting of his character.

The story progresses well, and gives you the necessary breathers. I was very glad they didn’t go overboard with scheming/jealousy/intrigues/sabotaging.

Read More

Ghibli-esque atmosphere, unique story, compelling mystery. A+++ in my books.

I knew from the get go this was going to be good, what with the writer being the same as Moving (2023).

It absolutely did not disappoint. It is confusing in the best way, until it’s not and how validating and satisfying the payoff is!

I mostly cried, was thoughtful, felt understood and profoundly moved by this drama. The acting was for the most part amazing (not a big fan of Seolhyun but eh), especially from Hyunjoo’s actress and of course Ju Jihoon. But they all did amazing. Everything is so important in this, every little detail so well thought, you can only watch with full intention. It felt a little like a Ghibli, because the aesthetics and mood settings are extremely unique and draw you into the plot in a way no drama ever does. I love that the soundtrack is so lowkey. Moments of silence are so important and underrated in nowadays’ productions.

Loved, loved, loved this so much.

Watch it at night, under a heavy blanket, with hot chocolate on a comfortable bed 🫶🏼 You’re in for a treat.

Read More

Honestly, I couldn't help but notice how YH constantly accused DH of faults she was far guiltier of herself.
DH would come home after work to handle house chores and tidy the apartment before she returned, often after grocery shopping. YH was rarely home, and when she was, she would retreat to her studio, leaving him afraid to even watch TV in case it disturbed her. So, because he didn’t want to stay in an empty house, DH met up with his brothers and friends. This dynamic was something YH herself acknowledged, claiming this was a vicious cycle that led them to see each other less and less, though notably this admission came only after she unilaterally gaslighted DH, despite both knowing of her affair, and he pointed out that it’s not as if she was around much either.

YH was often absent as well, I would maybe even say just as much, if not more, than DH. I got the impression that sometimes it was for days, and even involved her coming back after he was asleep. You didn’t see him complaining and gaslighting her about this, the way she did to him. Even when she was at home, she was cooped up in her office. She even missed her own niece's wedding to spend time with her lover, yet DH defended her against his brother's (unfortunately correct) suspicions, insisting he trusted her implicitly. He was clearly hurt that she didn’t even bother to call, which stands in contrast to his routine of calling home after work to check what she needed.

YH's dismissal of her niece as family and skipping the wedding to meet her lover felt shocking, especially considering how the girl's mother supported YH and treated her son like family. Similarly, DH's mother helped raise their child so YH could focus on her career, yet YH was convinced DH should not view his own mother as part of his family. Imagine telling JA that her grandmother was not family. JA's bond with her grandmother mirrored DH's with his mother, both rooted in shared survival after parental loss.

Now, I must admit that I think that the main issue here was DH and YH wanting different things. Notably, he never tried to hide his values, she pretended to go along with it while planning to get into DH’s good graces so that he would distance himself from family and friends, which in my mind seems kind of a love-bombing situation (idealization/devaluation/discard cycle, transactional view of favors, etc. with the expectation that your partner would allow you to manipulate them into changing their core values in return… compare that with DH’s brother paying for JA’s grandma’s funeral without asking or expecting anything in return).

Bottom line, DH accepted YH for how she was, knew that her career was important to her and accepted her absences, which he had to justify them in front of his family, in a way that YH simply didn’t reciprocate when it came to DH’s actions and what was important to him, i.e. his family. I mean, given how she viewed this all as a competition, one could just imagine the abuse she would have put him through had he dared to miss an important family event, due to his job (“do you care about your career more than me?”, etc.).

More than wanting to spend time with DH, YH seemed primarily concerned with preventing him from spending time with others he cared about, driven by jealousy. While these aren’t mutually exclusive, I think that it’s pretty easy to see from her actions where the emphasis lie. She had no problem ignoring DH when she came home and retreating to her office, not to mention her frequent absences (especially toward the end, when she was meeting up with her lover). Even then, she continued to gaslight DH and question his commitment, showcasing a staggering double standard.
If this was not the case, I would say that we would see different behavior from her. While DH admitted to feeling abandoned, he accepted what mattered to YH (her career) and wanted to support her without treating their relationship as a competition. YH, on the other hand, did not reciprocate. Her actions reflected not the desire to spend time together but a determination to control DH and isolate him from others he cared about.

As another example, when DH, despite them both knowing of her betrayal, offered a compromise, YH rejected it without suggesting an alternative, and in general not once did she express a desire to adjust her own schedule to spend more time together (nor did DH ask her to when he suggested meeting her half way, only talking about his own schedule). She showed no empathy for DH’s need for space, even when they both knew of her betrayal, at a time when he had to physically turn away from their apartment when he saw her car outside. All along, her only “solution” involved DH’s complete surrender: cutting himself off from his family and friends, including his elderly mother, whom they had moved closer to support.
DH, feeling lonely in an empty house, sought solace in the company of family and friends. YH, however, seemed to prefer that he remain alone, even in her absence, if it meant he wasn’t with those he loved. She was indifferent to his suffering so long as it prevented him from connecting with others. Her behavior revealed a possessive and controlling view of love, treating it as a competition rather than a partnership.

YH refused to accept what mattered to DH (his family) the way he supported what mattered to her (her career). She saw love as a competition, rather than acknowledging that there are different types, from friendship to familial to romantic love: it’s not as if her love for their child diminished her love for her husband, for example. Her possessiveness was shown also in her behavior with her lover in the first episode, where she attacked him for not constantly calling her, even at the risk of exposing their affair, questioning his commitment in a controlling pattern eerily similar to her dynamic with DH, suggesting to me that her new relationship was likely to end as her marriage did, and probably much earlier (not that he would have married her, anyway, as it turned out).

Read More

ML’s (and his male and female colleagues’) lack of basic housework skills (and the exaggerated marveling and fawning that followed) was quite irritating. Lack of skill is understandable if one is unfamiliar with the work (and I don’t think tasks like knitting should ever be mandatory), but my initial thought was that they should have spent time living alone to develop independence and self-reliance. Yet, I realized that at least his colleagues had, in fact, lived alone, and still, here we are.

That said, by the show’s narrative, ML did more around the house and with the child than most, if not all, the other men in the drama. He was certainly more involved than the other dads, and unlike Yoon-ki or the wife’s lover, ML wasn’t sleeping around behind his spouse’s back or planning to deceive her indefinitely. Yet, him, not them, was the one that was betrayed and lied to. The key difference seems to be that ML chose to marry someone who turned out to be disloyal and untrustworthy, unlike those other men.

Now, FL feeling overwhelmed was clearly an issue, and I’ve already noted that ML’s ineptitude with house chores was frustrating in its own right. But this is a separate issue from the affair, and trying to connect them causally muddies the waters.
It’s a simple non sequitur: having an affair didn’t free up FL’s schedule; if anything, it added more tasks (texting, buying lingerie, planning meetups, etc.), all of which presumably took more time than, say, reading a few pages of a book. Her affair didn’t address the issue, and couldn’t have addressed it even just in principle. And regardless, it would still raise legitimate questions about her values and priorities, especially since she was willing to break her spouse’s trust and lie to him forever.

Moreover, FL didn’t recognize she had too much on her plate herself, and when she did, she actively lied to ML, assuring him everything was fine when he explicitly asked. ML isn’t a mind reader, and so he trusted her words. From what we are shown, he appreciated her a lot, even putting her on a pedestal, essentially thinking she was perfect and flawless (i.e. buying her deception). That was not an accident: FL was not only completely uncommunicative, but deliberately deceptive, explicitly lying to him about there being a problem.

While it would’ve been ideal for ML to notice the problem before FL did and for their common work at home to be rebalanced so that they could handle their common responsibilities without burnout (possibly with help from family, friends, or hired assistance), communication is key when one partner is unaware of an issue. Waiting silently or, worse, as in this case, lying about the problem, is counterproductive. People are not mind readers and they tend to believe their spouses are honest when they tell them stuff.

To me this is just a practical issue. They had shared responsibilities for their home and child, which should’ve been addressed collaboratively, not by betraying trust. Rather than framing it as just “helping out”, I would more accurately frame this as rebalancing their workload to prevent either from feeling overwhelmed. Again, this to me is a concrete, pragmatic question. For example, if FL was a doctor working 10h shift and ML had a freer work schedule, it would’ve made sense for him to take on more housework and childcare compared to her. If they had family, friends, or disposable income, those resources could’ve been leveraged to ease the burden, freeing up both of their schedules.

Ultimately, while we might wish our partners could always anticipate problems we haven’t noticed ourselves, haven’t voiced, or worse, as in this case, that we have deliberately deceived them into believing it did not exist. But that’s unrealistic. People have blind spots and won’t always be on the same page (and often the people closest to us are the ones we are blindsided by, maybe because, as in the case of ML, we trust them implicitly). The solution is to communicate, not deceive. In this case, given that ML already did more around the house than other dads, it’s clear he would’ve been willing to adjust the balance further. With one child (not a toddler) and available resources like supportive family, friends, and disposable income, this problem was eminently solvable.

Read More