Familiar Wife First Impression

A newly released Wednesday Thrusday korean drama, Familiar Wife, achieves highest rating on tvN, which make me curious as how the story unfold. The main cast is Ji Sung and Han Ji Min.

The story tells a banker who get married with his girlfriend but find his marriage life gets even harder to live together and one day, he got transported back to the day when his life could be entirely different.

Cha Joo Hyuk (played by Ji Sung) has been married to Seo Woo Jin (played by Han Ji Min) for 5 years. Joo Hyuk works at a bank and Woo Jin works as a massage therapist. They have two young children. Due to having to pay off their apartment and supporting both of their parents, Joo Hyuk and Woo Jin have a hard time financially. Joo Hyuk thinks his wife is a bad wife as well. He is even scared of her. Meanwhile, Woo Jin is stressed from taking care of their young children and working at the same time. She has a hard time controlling her anger. Both of them are not happy with their current situation. One day, Joo Hyuk meets his first love from his college days Hye Won (played by Kang Han Na). She tells him that she liked him back then.

Later, Joo Hyuk helps a man on the subway and the man gives him two coins. These two coins causes Joo Hyuk to travel back in time. When Joo Hyuk wakes up, he finds himself in a totally different situation. He is married to Hye Won not Woo Jin.

Familiar Wife is a little darker than I anticipated, but I like the setup so far, which feels realistic and painful with its depiction of Joo Hyuk’s dissatisfaction at how his life has turned out. I appreciate that the show isn’t making light of the misery and regret Joo Hyuk is feeling. He’s kind of a terrible husband, though it’s not deliberate and I think he believes he’s doing his best, but that’s the beauty of it all — he has no idea how much he’s contributed to his current situation. I can’t wait to see the horror on his face when he realizes how much of his life is his own dumb fault.  I fully expected this show to present Joo Hyuk as a well-meaning man who works hard to be a good husband, but whose picky, shrieking wife never gives him the benefit of the doubt. I’m happy to see that things are a lot more complicated than that. Joo Hyuk is a good guy, and he does his best as he understands it, but he’s not as thoughtful or helpful as he could be (example — his only taking care of himself and leaving Woo Jin to get the kids and herself ready for the day). On top of that, he’s got pretty unrealistic expectations of what it means to be a family… he truly believes that his wife should take care of the kids, work a job of her own, AND have dinner waiting on the table for him at the end of the day. I don’t blame Woo Jin one bit for turning shrewish and screamy under those circumstances, because she’s doing most of the work and still being judged lacking. Neither of them are bad people, or even necessarily bad spouses, but they just get angry and fight instead of sitting down and talking about expectations versus reality.

Woo Jin is certainly no saint — her anger may be justified, but she’s definitely out of control, and it’s never okay to scream in someone’s face or throw things at them.

She gets angry in situations that don’t call for such an extreme reaction, and treats Joo Hyuk terribly in public. But I also notice that she used to be bright, cheerful, and happy, and while Joo Hyuk hasn’t changed much since college, Woo Jin is practically a different person.

She doesn’t even tell him about her mother’s mental illness, which tells me that whatever is wrong in their marriage, it’s been wrong for quite some time if she feels she can’t lean on her husband. Maybe I identify with Woo Jin a little too much because I’ve been where she is (in my case it was a mountain bike, not a game console), but I definitely don’t agree with her destroying Joo Hyuk’s console. First of all, it was just cruel, and second, it was stupid to ruin it when her complaint was the money it cost — she could have just had him sell it like the first owner.

I do think Woo Jin was unfair to be so angry with Joo Hyuk over buying the console without even asking him about it, and I felt he was justified in telling her to stop talking over him all the time and let him explain. Like he said, he saved for it for years, and it’s not like Woo Jin has been honest with him about their expenses… she must have been aware for quite some time that her mother would need a nursing home eventually, but she hasn’t even told Joo-hyuk about her mom’s illness, much less her looming financial needs. But Woo-jin is already worried about money and her mother’s mental decline, and she’s so conditioned to fly into a rage at everything Joo Hyuk does, that she goes too far.

At this point in their marriage I think that divorce isn’t too drastic of a solution, so I’m very curious to see how Joo Hyuk’s apparent good fortune at landing Hye Won as his new-timeline wife changes things. I anticipate the answer to that to be: not much. Having a different wife won’t change Joo Hyuk’s fundamental nature, and although it looks like they have a slightly nicer home and likely no children, that doesn’t mean that Joo-hyuk’s irresponsible nature and unrealistic “man of the house” expectations will be any different. But for now, everyone seems happy — Joo Hyuk has the wife he wants and what appears to be a beautiful home, while Woo Jn looks healthy and contented. Right now the switch seems like it’s put everyone in a better place, so I’m very eager to see the truth that makes Joo Hyuk change his mind and wish for his old life back.

This show takes quite much thought in my opinion. It is not about who is right and who is wrong. Or what kind of attitude is right and which one is wrong. I guess, marriage is all about being considerate. What kind of sacrifice you would want to do or even willing to compromise. I guess how we put aside our anger, emotional management and also selfish-ness. Marriage is not always about you, but two people. And this shows successfully scares me of how heavy the word marriage is.