I'm not really interested in having a conversation about whether cheating is right or wrong, we all have feelings about this.

I want to talk about how Kim Jun was treated in this drama.

No one in this drama was nice to him ever - even his lover.  he asks what he means to her and she goes on about crawling through mud to bring them to the place where they can be together, but never does she call him just to say that she'll be late, and never does she explain her disregard for him properly.  Clearly she was just using him for an excuse to shake up her life, but for crying out loud, she can't ever be nice.  This poor guy is alone in the world and no one treats him like he's worth anything.  My heart breaks for him.

I also want to talk about her husband.  What an ass!  He's a horrible person who arbitrarily decides on things for people without discussing things at all and ignores everyone in his life until everything is in total chaos.  I totally would have left him for the carpenter too.

Does anyone else feel like this or is it just me?

*Side Note*
Going into watching this drama I did not like the actor Lee Soo Hyuk one bit.  I'd seen him in High School King of Savvy and Scholar who walks the night, but by the middle of this drama I loved him and I think I'd watch him in anything now

It's amazing how every viewer see this in a different light. Each character is so complicated and flawed, no wonder each one of us have so many contradicting feelings about them.

As someone who has given this drama A LOT of thought, i understand where you are coming from, and up to a certain point i understand your point of view, but i disagree.

Nobody was nice to him you say. Hm, well you are right, but i can't take his side. We certainly can't call him an angel now, can we? Firstly how did he treat Il Ri when he tried to kick her out of his house/work place. She had a panic attack because of him. Also let's not forget the fact that he knew Hee Tae was her husband but he went and became friends with him. Completely immoral for me, but still i didn't hate him. What made me actually dislike him was the fact that during the later episodes he became very pushy and dogmatic. Who gave him the permission to barge in another man's house drunk (!) and demand things? How dare he? Unacceptable, i don't care if he was hurting, all of them were! Also the fact that he, during the later episodes again, decided that he needed to be with her and put her in his car and drive away for them to be happy... Is this right? For me it's not. Who exactly does he think he is? Making decisions for everyone without their concent, this was not just his life. Did he ask her? He thought it was best for her, but he isn't her father not even her dad. He shouldn't have been like this.

For better or worse he got inside a married couple, who's fault is that is not important here, he should have made his intentions clear and then step back and let Il Ri decide what she wants to do. It was really never about what he or hee tae wanted, it was about her. I understand him, completely, Il Ri was the first woman ever to show care for him, and he loved her, deeply. His mommy issues touched me thoroughy, but his ways, were wrong. Make yourself available, show her that you want to help and you care, but take a step back and let her figure out what she wants. The fact that you want to make her happy doesn't mean you will or you really can.

Also about Hee Tae, again we disagree. He was my favourite character and i would have reacted the same way he did. I am not saying he was in the right of course. He was absent from his wife's life. He loved her, i think that was obvious, he cared, he really did, he asked Il Ri if taking care of Hye Soo was too much for her but she said she was happy doing it, and he stayed at that. His wife was unhappy and he failed to realise that, which is sad but up to a certain point Il Ri herself, wasn't even aware that she was unhappy. Kim Jun saw it, and made her realise it.

You said he decides things without asking. Well, i cannot judge him for that. I put myself in his shoes.
1. Someone has been sending me anonymous texts saying my wife did something (= i'm publicaly humimiliated)
2. I realise my wife, that i love, has been cheating on me while i did nothing wrong (in my mind). How do i react to that? I talk? Is talking really the first thing people do in such situations? It should be, i agree, but i would have cried, and screamed, and yelled, or even worse! If she had problems with our marriage why didn't she talk first? Do i need to confront her for cheating? Why do i need to be the bigger person when she did wrong? Kick her out of my house would have been my decision too.
3. I would also want to show her what it feels like to be cheated on. Il Ri said she didn't want a divorce. Why should i accept her back? "I love you both" I COMPLETELY understand her, but looking it from hee tae's side, he must have been outraged and completely heartbroken. Why isn't he enough for her? Why didn't she tell him? Of course i'd pay her back the same way.
4. But when he saw that video on his phone with his sister and his wife, he got it. He understood, he saw everything from her point of you. How can you hate a person who does that? Now he wants her back, he realised his mistake! He understands her and he wants a 2nd chance.

Hee Tae is a flawed person, and should have been more actively in his wife's life. He took her and everything for granted, that is what i blame him for, but he is not a bad person. Noone in this drama is a bad person really. Everyone tried to cope with a difficult and nerve-wrecking situation. Yes everything was chaos at some point, but in such situations the only way you can go upwards is when you have lost everything completely and have hit rock bottom.

You said you would have chosen the carpenter. Completely understandable. Possibly almost everyone would have, but this was not about who is better for her. It was about who she really loves. She loved Jun, yes, possibly he was the biggest love of her life, but he was not her soulmate. Her soulmate was Hee Tae. She loved Hee Tae, she never stopped, she waited for him for 7 years! Their life got complicated because of Hye Soo that's it. She lost herself in his family's drama. Jun was just a window for her to be happy and free again. She loved the feeling of youth she had with him, she loved that she could be careless around him, but was she over her husband? No. If she could be like that with her husband again would she choose him? Yes. When she was on the brink of losing him she chose him. When she was in the hospital she saw him. It was him from the beginning. I am not saying she loved Jun less, and maybe if jun had came first in her life things might have been different.

I also don't think she wasn't nice to him, he was very pushy about his needs. His heart was in the right place but his handling of situations was wrong.

You said he went through mud to bring them to a place they can be together. Yes he did, but did he ever ask her, or gave her space to decide who and what she wants? He didn't. She loved him, yes, but love isn't enough. She needed time, he should have thought more about her needs than his own. You can't take such decisions rushly. Il Ri wasn't such a person. She was unhappy, but she didn't hate her life. She wanted to take care of Hee Soo, she loved Hee Tae's parents, she liked all that, it was just too much at some point, she lost herself and she payed the price.

Again this is just my own way of seeing this drama and characters
For me, I'm a little more black and white when it comes to some things.  II Ri in my opinion made it more difficult on herself. She took on more than she should have. She is the one who became angry at her husband when he suggested that they put his sister in an assisted living home; something I agreed with totally because it's difficult taking care of someone who requires 24 x 7 assistance.  Not only that, II Ri was so into trying to have an affair that she neglected his sister; forgetting about her and leaving her in the rain. Her husband even asked her to please tell him when caring for his sister became too much for her since she was determined to take care of her. Again, she didn't say anything, but cried her eyes out to the man she was cheating with about how hard it was on her.  I truly felt no pity for the wife at all....zero.  I felt even less pity for the man she cheated with because he purposely inserted himself into a married couple's marriage.  Yes, II Ri was cheating with this man wishing 3 days, if not less, of meeting him.  

I only felt sorry for the husband in this drama. I also think he was a fool for taking back his wife because I never truly believed that she loved him. She was treating him as if he had wronged her, when she wronged him on so many levels in my opinion.

This is a really late reply @Naksken so I doubt you'll read it but I have to object to your entire post. Your side note basically explains that your bias towards LSH has blinded you against the other characters. 

Your first claim that no one treats carpenter Kim nicely is blatantly false because everyone treats him well until he proves himself to be an asshole to them. Especially Hee Tae would have become a good friend had Kim Jun not betrayed him by seducing his wife.

To your second claim that Hee Tae is an ass. If he's one then what is Kim Jun who goes after a married woman? Why are you singularly accusing Hee Tae to arbitrarily decide things for others when both Il Ri and Kim Jun does the same thing just as much as Hee Tae? So if you want to put Kim Jun on such a high pedestal then it's ironic in the extreme that you call Hee Tae an ass.

In closing to your post, I think it's very clear that no, I don't think as you and only someone biased towards LSH would agree with you.


I'd also like to address a couple of points from the replying posts.

@Charming92:
I have to disagree that Hee Tae wasn't active enough in his wife's life, he did take an interest, argued with her when he thought she did something stupid, begged her to share her burdens. Unfortunately, Il Ri's character flaw of being stubborn came in the way of all that. I also have to disagree that he took her for granted, would someone who commissions an expensive piece of furniture for them really be taking said person for granted?

And I don't think the carpenter would be chosen by most people, only shallow people who find the actor hot would since they don't look deeper into his character. His development was basically going from wanting to be alone to not wanting to be alone, his other traits don't change. Il Ri and Kim Jun's relationship was a fantasy that could never turn into a reality, Il Ri wasn't free with him. Instead, it was more of a pretending her burdens didn't exist when she was with him since her crush on him blotted out everything else. 

I also don't think Il Ri ever was in love with carpenter Kim, did she have a huge crush? Yes, but that was it. In my opinion, their second to last conversation shows this in how she thanks him for the experience but shuts down any possibility for anything more.


@Sweetiepea:
I think you're a little too biased in the opposite direction of the Hee Tae haters (LSH lovers). Her forgetting her sister-in-law wasn't because she wanted an affair. She had a huge crush on Kim Jun and her husband's narration mentions one of her character flaws is to barrel in without much thought, so when she got an idea on how to help him learn multiplication tables she simply rushed over. Then once she was there with carpenter Kim he decided he wanted her and showed it through kissing her. That threw her for a loop, she was not expecting that which meant she completely forgot Hee Soo. I also think you have your timespans mixed up, the events leading up to their first kiss happen over a couple of weeks at least and not in three days.

I enjoyed watching this drama and rewatched it a few times.  Characters of the husband HT, the unfaithful wife IR, and her lover KJ were understandable when they were happy and felt upset or angry and yelled to his/her partners or other people.  They were not perfect and were selfish by their own ways.  

HT did not want to forgive and take IR back b/c he was so much hurt and did not understand why IR cheated on him.  HT felt small and was insulted that IR felt passionately in love with another man b/c his education background, occupation, and society recognition were much better when compared to KJ except that KJ was younger and a good-looking guy.

KJ approached and crazily loved a married woman b/c he never had anyone showing or expressing any care to him before.  He had childish and pushy behaviors b/c he was alone and did not connect or work with anyone.

IR who created the love triangle situation betrayed her “lovely” husband b/c she was excited and felt comfortable and was happy when being and talking with KJ who was around her age and handsome.

The character that I mostly disliked in this drama was IR.  Indeed, she was a kind person but her character made things to be so complicated.  

When IR said to herself or told her sister and even KJ that she would NOT see KJ any more, she was always back to see KJ … during the times that she felt so remorseful in hurting her husband HT; did not ever want to divorce her husband; and begged her husband’s forgiveness several times.   The worst was whenever she intentionally or unintentionally met KJ, she always expressed her care and gave him a hope implying that she still thought of him while she tried very hard in begging her husband to forgive her.

After HT wanted to take IR back, the reason that she did not want to stay with him b/c she was hurt when HT had resented and insisted to divorce her and did not want to take her back.  Her choice in not staying back with her husband was understandable.  IR did not believe that her husband would be able to forgive her which was quite similar to herself that she, obviously, could NOT forget KJ although she had early told her husband so many times that she would try to end her feelings with KJ.

Anyway, I wonder if IR realized and understood HT well enough that the reason he did not want her back after his Mom got dementia was that he did not want to trouble her any more.

When KJ wanted to end his relationship with IR b/c she did not want to leave her hometown to be with him, in the next day after IR talked with her old friend and thought “what she had done”, she then called KJ …. FOR WHAT ?  It seemed like …. IF she was not told and misunderstood that her husband might be injured in his cruise trip, she would definitely go to see and apologize KJ (again, KJ would forgave her as always) and their relationship would continue although IR never stopped loving her husband.  If IR did not misunderstand and had the sac-sac hyperventilation, when KJ finished and showed her the Rocking chair as HT’s divorce present, she would be back to stay with HT b/c she knew that her husband forgave her and absolutely wanted to take her back.