I appreciated the meeting FL had with ML after their divorce, where she gave a more serious apology, admitting that she had taken him for granted, never thinking that she could lose him, and avoided gaslighting him or "both siding" the situation, or throwing in some self serving cynicism or false moral equivalency. This was quite necessary after their disastrous previous encounter. Nevertheless, I must admit that I found some of the choices in the last episode strange.

In the text below I'll add some spoilers from some other shows/movies (My Mister, Crazy Rich Asians, The Magicians, A Good Lawyer's Wife, Spring in a Small Town).

I'll point out that one's subjective preferences have really no bearing on the morality of the action in question. To illustrate why they cannot be the standard, consider the cases of, 1) someone cheating a lot but not having any intention of breaking up with their partner, and 2) Someone that breaks up with their partner before cheating. Obviously, if someone wanted their significant other not to leave them, they might think they would suffer less with 1), but obviously 2) is the more moral choice, where they are treated with honesty and respect (and reasonably the one that will lead to greater long term happiness).

I found kind of ridiculous the way FL kept underscoring, both before having unprotected sex with her ex and when talking about the event with her husband, that no feelings were involved, as if this was supposed to change everything, make what she did better or somehow make it "not count". Arguably, it made it worse in some respects (and arguably not in others), because she was essentially saying that she chose to throw away any loyalty, respect and honesty towards someone she had been married to for years in order to have meaningless and unimportant sex with someone she didn't even like. Meaning, in other words, that in terms of her priorities, a meaningless and unimportant sexual encounter ranked above (as she chose to prioritize it over) her treating her partner with loyalty, respect and honesty.

This is a bit like the stories one hears of places where men don't consider having sex with prostitutes as cheating... well, but on the other hand, the fact that they were willing to hurt, humiliate and deceive their spouses over something so futile, arguably in some ways (and arguably not in others) make it even more demeaning.

The funny thing is that I often find myself arguing against the opposite trope, where dramas will try to use "love" as a free pass, mixing issues that are really orthogonal, such as relationship issues, or feelings towards a third party, with one's decision to hurt, humiliate and deceive their partners (and/or the partner of the one they cheated with). To channel DH in My Mister, why one is unhappy and why one chose to cheat are two separate matters, and shouldn't be conflated: being unhappy (as he was) is very much not a sufficient condition to cheat, while being willing to treat your partner with no loyalty, respect and honesty is a necessary one. And that, in his words, is the crucial question: why they felt they deserved to be treated that way. As he pointed out, if you are unhappy (or, I would say, you fell for someone else), you have the option to break things off with your current partner respectfully, before pursuing a new relationship. Quite frankly, if you are at a point where you are ready to cheat, then you are at a point where you can break up with your partner instead. Another example of this notion is Astrid in the Crazy, Rich, Asian movie, where she confronts her philandering husband and when he tries to point to his insecurities, her horrible family and her faults, she tells him to not try to turn this on him, that he is the one that messed up, and that he cannot use those points, valid in isolation, as a legitimate explanation for his actions.

Anyway, TLDR, the bottom line is that while loving the third party in no way makes the decision to hurt, humiliate and deceive your partner better, certainly not having feelings for the third party doesn't make it any better, either.

Of course, there are situations like the one depicted in A Good Lawyer's Wife or The Magicians, where the wife and girlfriend, respectively, whose bf and husband slept with other women, had every right, imho, to sleep with someone else: given that their partner had not shown them loyalty, respect and honesty, they had no right to expect any from them in return, either.

Certainly, one needs a sense of proportions, and feeling attracted to someone or having a crush, spending time with someone, dating them, flirting with them, kissing them, having sex with them... these are not the same thing. I don't believe some of them even constitute a betrayal: I think that it is quite natural for people to feel attracted to various people, without it necessarily meaning that they intend to sleep with them, and I draw a clear distinction between feelings, emotions and random thoughts (or, for that matter, a physiological reaction such as arousal or lack thereof), which are not under one's control, and actions, which are. This is why we hold people accountable for their actions, but we abhor the notion of a thought crime as an Orwellian nightmare.

I think there is a distinction between working with someone, or taking care of a friend when they are sick, or liking someone that listens to our issues (all of which are imho very natural behaviors), or even having a small crush, and having full blown unprotected sex with one's ex on the hotel table. Even in the case of FL, had she walked away when her ex started flirting with her, or even when he kissed her, obviously her behavior would have had very different implications in terms of her unwillingness to cross that line (a line that, for example, her husband, who had ironically followed her out of concern for her wellbeing and ended up discovering her affair, was unwilling to cross).

I think that the notion that merely having feelings for someone, and not acting on them, would constitute cheating, is an appalling and pernicious misuse of language, because it equates a situation where one fell out of love with someone and before pursuing a relationship with someone else decided to break up with their current partner, as being the same as someone that just slept with the other person behind their partner's back, basically making it virtually impossible not to cheat, unless one only ever felt something for one person during the course of their whole life (or, I guess, for nobody).

ML's emotions are scrutinized and he is crucified over his supposed fantasies, while feeling the temptation to do something and not acting on it is treated as the same, or worse, as having full blown unprotected sex with someone behind one's partner's back. A complete moral inversion. At the same time, an impossible standard where he is crucified over any "bad" thought, and an exceedingly lose one where the thought and action are treated as indistinguisheable, or worse, where thinking something "bad" is treated as worse than doing it. In reality, everybody understands that if one merely thinks about robbing a bank, but doesn't plan to do it, they are not a thief. If thoughts were equivalent to actions, then the number of drivers being arrested every day would be much higher than the number warranted by road rage incidents. Thankfully, merely wishing to knock the snot out of someone does not translate into an intention to actually do it, let alone into an action.

I think that gaslighting him like that was completely unreasonable, and that this was also the show's take on the situation, and that the message being conveyed was that FL was being irrational and unfair when she threw that tantrum (particularly considering she had unprotected sex with her ex, something she hid from him for the last two years, until he told her he knew... here the famous rooftop scene of Ji An in My Mister comes to mind, with her telling YH that it was laughable for her to ask whether she had slept with DH, because essentially she had betrayed him first -incidentally, in a much more worst fashion than what they could ever do, at that-, and so she has no right whatsoever to complain about it even if they had done anything). I think this was acknowledged by the show when FL apologized for her behavior after their divorce.

Regarding FL's mindset when she cheated because her husband did not want to have sex, I would say that it's in some way analogous to the married guy that tries to hit on the twenty years old at a bar after his wife refuses to "put out", in order to seek validation and show that they still "got it". So, a mix of validation, insecurities, ego and horniness. I don't think it was purely a search for validation, tbh, because otherwise she would have quit once her ex showed interest in her sexually, or after he kissed her. And contrary to her hesitation and active/passive attitude when she called him, etc., when they got going she certainly seemed rather horny/passionate. I must also say that I don't really know how seriously to take her disgust for the guy versus what is kind of a play (also not sure why she kept his phone number if she was repulsed by him). I am saying this because I got the definite impression that she knew very well that this was going to be the outcome, from the time that she called the guy, and in fact that she called the guy exactly because of that.

I will note that the guy was married, and she had no hesitation in sleeping with him regardless, thereby hurting and participating in the deception of a woman she had likely never met, and that had done nothing to her, and that would have had every right not to be treated as an object and to be put in a position to make an informed decision. Then again, that's the same treatment ML gets: despite her "regret" -which barely lasted a couple of minutes before she shamelessly started gaslighting him and using her affair and his defaillance to hurt him... let's just say that their meeting after their divorce thankfully went better-, it's not as if that was enough to stop her from sleeping with her ex, or to push her to come clean with her husband in the two years afterwards, until he told her he knew.

As for the husband, I found her attitude towards him completely unfair (thankfully, she took responsibility more seriously in their follow up encounter after their divorce).

Essentially, she accused him of sleeping with the neighbor. When she learned that that was not the case, it's not as if she took a step back and acknowledged it, she pressed ahead with new accusation, and contradictory ones at that: he was either lying about not sleeping with the woman, or, once she moved past that, he was attracted to her and imagined her while masturbating, etc., or was not sexually aroused by her and didn't sleep with her only because of that (turns out this was not the case, in any case these are obviously mutually exclusive: he is either aroused by her or not).

It's hard to understand why she feels she would have any right to shamelessly attack him in such a manner, given that she had unprotected sex with her ex. To be perfectly frank, even if ML had decided to pursue a sexual or romantic relationship with someone else, it's not as if she would have any leg to stand on: she didn't show him any loyalty, so she has no right to expect any in return. A similar argument can be made about her complaints with regards to the neighbor, given that her ex she had cheated with was also married, as discussed above. So, she is essentially the very kind of person that she purports to hate (while the neighbor was by all accounts innocent -frankly, realistically paying because she didn't want to deal with a crazy stalker that followed her against her will and could have ruined her reputation with unfounded rumors-).

All things considered, FL gaslighting ML for... cleaning their apartment with his female friend, who listened to him when she refused to? Visiting for half an hour when she was sick? And so on. Imho it all felt, for lack of better words, too "innocent" or too "silly" to take seriously, particularly when compared to FL's actions. What's next, an indirect kiss being worse than sex behind a spouse's back? At least a six years old for which holding hands is the equivalent of a marriage proposal would have no double standard. It's hard to see this genuine human connection as repulsive, and even more absurd when FL had unprotected sex with her ex and hid it from ML for the past two years, and he had been living with this knowledge while pretending not to know. Overall, the notion that he should have refused to open up with someone that cared about his feelings and closed himself off to that healing experience seems masochistic, unjust and self flagellating.

As an aside, if you equated sexual fantasies with actual sexual encounters and affairs, and went on to be so invasive as to dissect people's thoughts during masturbation, equating them to an actual physical affair, any guy's body count would be in the hundreds if not thousands. Fantasies and reality are quite different things.

I believe ML when he says the neighbor was a friend he liked because she listened to him. It's not as if he ever pursues a relationship with her, even after he breaks up with his wife. But even if he had actually felt a deep passion for her, I have to say that I still fail to see how this would make him a moral monster, or worse than someone that would have unprotected sex with their ex when their partner wouldn't "put out". I mean, this is essentially the plot of the Chinese masterpiece "Spring in a Small Town", where the whole point is that the characters feel deeply attracted to each other, but decide *not to* pursue an actual affair behind her husband's back. The point is exactly that they feel a temptation, but resist it, and choose not to act on it. By the way, I don't think that, in order to be moral, they would *have* had to cut each other off their lives and not see each other again: I would see no issue with them being friends from a moral point of view, it's just that in terms of the practical situation, it was easier for them to be separated and not see each other.

In that case you would essentially have FL that chose to cross that boundary and have meaningless sex with her ex, over loyalty, respect and honesty for her partner, and ML that chose not to break that boundary and renounced to pursue a sexual or romantic relationship with someone he loved deeply as long as he was still married to FL. I frankly don't see anything wrong with the latter (well, I do see something wrong in that, given that she had not shown him any loyalty, in this specific case he really had no reason to show FL any loyalty either, though given that the neighbor was married as well he should have either waited for her to break up, or chosen someone else), in any case I really cannot equate it with, or even more outrageously see it as worse, than the former.

But we were never even close to that kind of "Spring in a Small Town" situation, the guy basically liked having a friend that listened to his problems, and didn't find her sexually repulsive. They cleaned together, and he took care of her for half an hour when she was sick, like imho any good friend would. At the very most, he had a small crush, if even that (I think not even that, tbh). Simply incomparable to anything FL did with her ex.

This honestly felt like her acknowledging some rather horrific behavior, and then grasping at straws once she discovered that what she planned to accuse him of turned out to be a fantasy. She was in disbelief for a second, and then accused him of things that were mutually contradictory, and in any case would amount to him either not being physically attracted to the neighbor (i..e. not finding her sexually arousing), or being attracted, nay, in love with her and not pursuing a sexual or romantic relationship with her while they were still married (i.e. not kissing her, not dating her, not flirting with her, etc.. not that any of those would equate to have unprotected sex with someone). The reality, more prosaically, is that he liked her because she listened to him, but never had any intention to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with her. Which is more than okay imho, or not okay for the opposite reason: again, given FL's betrayal, if the neighbor had been unattached I would have had no hesitation to wish he would actually pursue a relationship with her.

I tried to rationalize this as a coping mechanism to reduce the guilt she felt about what she had done to him, and pretend this was more of a both-sides situation, which imho it definitely was not, in terms of the line she crossed and he didn't... but as for realism, I struggled to imagine being told your husband followed you because he was concerned for you, saw you go have sex with your ex, had to live with this for two years, and you can still gaslight him and use the affair against him? Two seconds after apologizing? But I guess I had a similar experience in My Mister or Crazy Rich Asian.

I liked that she met her ex husband after their divorce and apologized without crucifying him over his feelings and fantasies -literally what he thought when he masturbated, etc.- ... again, this from someone that actually had unprotected sex with her ex boyfriend, a married man -to use her phrasing- and who was never asked who *she* was thinking about while sleeping with the guy behind her husband's back -a missed opportunity, really, given they were in full disclosure mode ;)-. But yes, I liked her taking full responsibility for her actions and admitting she took ML for granted, without gaslighting.