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.

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