'My allowance is 300,000 won, my wife's credit card bill is 7 million won — can I get a divorce?'

A man considering divorce has shared his story of a stay-at-home wife who runs up 7 million won ($4,500) a month on her credit card while treating him like a money-making machine and hurling insults at him.

The account, from a man identified only as A, a self-employed man in his 40s with a stay-at-home wife and four children, was shared on July 1 on the YouTube channel of attorney Yang Na-rae.

A said he runs a business with annual sales of 200 million to 300 million won while also handling most of the childcare himself.

"My eldest walks to school alone, but I handle drop-off and pick-up for the other three kids and personally pick up the first and second from their hagwon," he said. "I work alone at the shop, so I often don't get home until after midnight."

His wife, he said, handles only the youngest child's drop-off and pick-up, spends her mornings exercising, and meets friends for lunch two or three times a week — a comparatively relaxed lifestyle.

A acknowledged that his annual sales are not small, but said that after loan repayments, rent and children's education costs, there is almost nothing left over.

"My monthly allowance, including cigarettes, comes to about 200,000 to 300,000 won, while my wife's credit card bill runs about 7 million won every month," he said.

He said most of the charges were for meals with friends, workout clothes and home décor items. "Recently she has been pressuring me to get a foreign car and move to a bigger house," he said. "Not long ago she charged a 6.8 million won massage chair at 3 in the morning."

A also described emotional distress. His wife still brings up a noraebang outing he had with friends 10 years ago, telling him, "I'm watching you because you might do it again — get your act together." She has also attacked him by raising the subject of his late father and his estranged brother, and objects to him staying in contact with his siblings — to the point where he said he cannot freely reach out even when his mother is ill. "Since getting married, I've lost almost all my personal relationships," he said.

A said he told his wife he wanted a divorce, but she refused. "Why would I divorce you? Keep living that hard life. Go earn money and raise the kids. I will never divorce you," she reportedly told him.

"My wife treats me like a money-making machine," A said, asking for legal advice on whether the situation constituted grounds for divorce.

Attorney Yang said that if there is evidence of repeated excessive spending, along with insults directed at a spouse or derogatory remarks about family members, those could be cited as grounds for a fault-based divorce.

However, Yang cautioned that people who have endured such treatment for a long time often fail to preserve evidence along the way. "If evidence is insufficient and the other party does not consent to a divorce, there is a high likelihood that a court-ordered divorce will not be granted," she said, stressing the importance of securing documentation in advance.