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The story of a couple considering divorce has come to light after a wife who became the sole breadwinner following her husband's accident was found to have been working at a hostess bar to make ends meet.
A video titled "My wife secretly worked at a bar while I was injured — should we divorce?" was posted Sunday to the YouTube channel of attorney Yang Na-rae.
The man, identified only as A, is in his mid-30s and in his fourth year of marriage. He said the couple had been a dual-income household, working together to pay off student loans and a jeonse deposit loan.
A was injured in a motorcycle accident on his way to work in the early morning hours, suffering a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. The accident left him facing a lengthy rehabilitation, placing the burden of supporting the family entirely on his wife.
"She told me to focus only on my recovery and that she would take care of everything," A said, adding that she had cared for him with great dedication.
His wife then told him she had taken a job at a logistics center that offered night-shift pay. Over time, however, A grew suspicious when he repeatedly noticed the smell of cigarettes and heavy perfume on her.
She explained that a coworker smoked frequently and that she wore perfume to cover the smell, but his suspicions did not go away.
A ultimately asked a friend to check where his wife was actually going when she left for work. The friend found she was not heading to a logistics center but to a hostess bar.
The friend recorded footage of the wife serving drinks to customers, chatting with them and singing — hostess work typical of such establishments — and sent it to A.
A said he was deeply shocked by what he saw. He had thought of his wife as someone who did not drink and had nothing to do with that kind of venue.
After much deliberation, A confronted his wife with the footage and asked whether it was true. She broke down in tears and told him everything.
"I had to cover your student loan, my student loan, the jeonse loan and hospital bills on top of everything," she said. "At first I really did work at the logistics center, but my body couldn't keep up."
"I was just trying to find a way to survive, and that was the only option I could see," she said, adding that it was not something she had wanted to do. She has since returned to her parents' home, according to the account.
A said he was seeking advice on whether the situation constituted legal grounds for divorce and whether divorce was actually the right course of action.
Attorney Yang said that if the wife's work involved pouring drinks or physical contact with customers, it could potentially be recognized as grounds for divorce.
However, Yang said the case was difficult to judge on the basis of fault alone, given that the wife had made the choice under severe financial hardship in order to support the family, and that the marriage had had no particular problems before the accident.
"Her actions cannot be unconditionally justified, but there is also the aspect that she made a drastic choice in order to take responsibility for the family after her husband's accident," Yang said, advising the couple to have a thorough conversation and think through their path forward together.
choigo@heraldcorp.com
