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A woman has come forward with an account of discovering that her husband had been maintaining an unusually close relationship with his ex-wife after their remarriage.
The story of A, a woman in her 30s who has been in her second marriage for seven years, was featured on JTBC's "Sageon Banjang," a TV current-affairs program, on Monday.
A is raising a 6-year-old daughter she had with her current husband. The husband also has a son from his previous marriage.
Before they remarried, the husband told A he would need to pay child support and see his son once a month. A accepted this without question. Because the payments did not place a significant strain on household finances, she raised no objections.
Still, A admitted she sometimes felt hurt that her husband seemed to pay more attention to his son from his first marriage than to their daughter.
Even so, she did not try to stop her husband from spending time with his son. She said she made an effort to understand him, reasoning that the boy would be deeply hurt if his father grew distant simply because a half-sibling had been born.
The situation shifted once the son entered adolescence. The husband began spending even more time with him and started buying expensive gifts — a gaming console, a laptop and a tablet.
The trouble began last fall. A said her husband was away overnight roughly half of each month. As time went on, his behavior grew increasingly out of character. While preparing documents for her year-end tax filing, A checked the household credit card statements and found charges at a lodging establishment.
She then reviewed the dashcam footage from the family vehicle and found recordings of her husband entering and leaving the lodging with his ex-wife — without his son present.
The footage also showed the husband and his ex-wife engaging in affectionate physical contact, A said.
When confronted, the husband admitted to visiting the lodging but insisted nothing sexual had taken place. He later expressed remorse and said he wanted to make their marriage work.
A's anxiety did not subside. "I'm worried that he will keep meeting his ex-wife over issues involving the child," she said.
Psychology professor Park Sang-hee said the situation remained unresolved — citing the ex-wife's health issues among other factors — making it difficult to take the husband's word alone. "There is a need to seek professional help, such as couples counseling, to make clear which family the husband is responsible for," Park said.
Attorney Son Su-ho said that under current law, A could potentially seek damages from the ex-wife, but noted that any amount awarded might be limited given that A and her husband had not yet divorced. He also warned that if litigation proceeded, the husband might perceive it as an attack on his son rather than on the ex-wife.
choigo@heraldcorp.com
