[Getty Images Bank]
[Getty Images Bank]

A man married for 10 years has sought legal advice after his wife left the family home with their child, taking nearly all the household appliances, furniture and valuables with her.

The man, identified as A, appeared Monday on YTN Radio's legal advice program "Jo In-seop's Counseling Office" to describe how he came home one day to find his wife and 7-year-old son gone — along with most of the home's contents — and to ask whether she could be charged with theft.

A runs a small Korean home-style restaurant in his neighborhood. Business fell sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving him in debt, and he has since struggled each month to cover bank interest payments and living expenses.

"I kept going, working from dawn until late at night, telling myself it was all for my wife and son," he said. "But through all of that, my relationship with my wife gradually fell apart."

According to A, his wife complained that he was consumed by the restaurant and paid little attention to her and their child. The couple initially tried to work through their differences, but the conflicts kept recurring and eventually talk of divorce entered the picture.

Then one day, A returned home from work to a shock.

"My wife and child were nowhere to be seen, and most of the appliances and furniture — including the TV and refrigerator — had disappeared," he said. "The wedding rings and our son's first-birthday ring were gone too, and even the toilet paper and towels had been taken."

"At first I was genuinely startled — I thought we'd been robbed," he said. "I found out later that my wife had called a moving company and had everything hauled away."

He said he felt some relief upon learning his son was safe, but his anger toward his wife only grew after that.

"I don't want to just let it go — she took our child and moved out all the household belongings without my consent," A said. He also asked whether he could pursue criminal charges, and whether changing the front-door passcode or selling the home, which is in his name, could work against him in future divorce proceedings.

Attorney Kim Su-jin said pressing theft charges would be difficult in principle. "The wife also holds a shared stake in the marital property, so it is hard to establish that she had the intent to unlawfully appropriate it," Kim said.

Kim added that pursuing criminal theft charges over the wife taking jointly owned household appliances was "realistically very difficult," and that resolving the matter through a property division claim in divorce proceedings would be the appropriate course.

Kim also said that even though the wife left with the child, charges of abducting a minor would be hard to sustain absent special circumstances such as violence or threats. If it was clear the wife had taken all the belongings and effectively abandoned the residence, Kim said, changing the door passcode was unlikely to pose a legal problem.

Kim noted that while the titleholder could sell the property independently, any asset built up jointly during the marriage could be subject to division in a divorce. The wedding rings and the child's first-birthday ring, if recognized as marital property, could also be included in the division, Kim said.


yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com