Photo not related to article. [Getty Images Bank]
Photo not related to article. [Getty Images Bank]

A woman who confronted her husband after discovering evidence of an affair says he responded not with remorse but with defiance, insisting their marriage was already over.

According to YTN Radio's "Jo In-seop's Legal Clinic" on Wednesday, a woman identified only as A met her husband through an introduction by her father's acquaintance, and the two married.

The couple later became a weekend-commuter pair after the husband relocated his factory to a provincial city.

At first, A and the children made the trip to see him every weekend, but as the children grew older and their schoolwork became more demanding, the visits gradually tapered off. Eventually, the couple found themselves spending most weekends apart unless the husband came to Seoul to see the children.

"One weekend, one of the children suddenly fell ill and I had to rush to the hospital," A said. "I took my husband's car in a hurry and got into a minor fender-bender in an alley. To deal with the accident, I checked the dashcam footage — I had no idea that would be like opening Pandora's box."

"I saw footage of my husband being affectionate with an unfamiliar woman," she said. "The physical contact and the nature of their conversation were far too intimate for them to be mere acquaintances."

She said that when she confronted him, his attitude was startlingly unapologetic. "He admitted he was seeing another woman, but said we had been living apart for a long time and that the marriage was in effect already over — so he bore no responsibility for seeing someone else," she said.

"I, too, had felt over the years that our relationship was not what it used to be," A said. "But I never gave up on our family. I raised the children on my own and tried my best to hold the household together as a wife and mother."

She went on to ask whether a marriage could legally be considered dissolved simply because a couple had lived apart for a long time, as her husband claimed, and whether she could seek damages if his conduct was recognized as infidelity.

'Living apart alone is not enough to prove a marriage has broken down'

Photo unrelated to article. [123RF]
Photo unrelated to article. [123RF]

Kim Ji-yeon, an attorney at Shinsegae Law, who reviewed the case, said a weekend-commuter arrangement is a practical choice couples make to sustain a marriage, not a voluntary abandonment of it, and is fundamentally different from a marital breakdown. "The Supreme Court also holds that mutual agreement to live separately does not, by itself, constitute a breakdown of the marriage," she said.

Kim said that under Supreme Court precedent, if a marriage had already broken down irreparably at the time of the infidelity, the affair would not be considered its cause and a damages claim might not be available — but that the burden of proving such a breakdown falls on the husband. "The mere fact that they lived apart for a long time is not enough to establish a marital breakdown," she said.

She added that if the infidelity is found to have occurred before the marriage broke down, a claim for damages is entirely viable. "The husband's attitude — admitting the affair while trying to dodge responsibility by claiming the marriage was already over — could actually work against him when the court calculates the damages award," Kim said.

She also explained that asset division is based on each spouse's contribution to jointly accumulated marital property and is recognized regardless of whether the couple lived apart. "Particularly if the woman was the primary caregiver for the children and managed the household, her contribution in supporting her husband so he could focus on his work would be assessed highly," she said.


yul@heraldcorp.com