Wife After Love | Things take time, communication is key.

As I continue my journey down the romance webcomics, here I am with another. This time “Wife After Love“. This webcomic in particular stuck out at me because of the premise itself. An arranged marriage that didn’t work out (naturally). As you’d expect, you only enter into marriage if you know that the love and admiration you have for one another is deep and genuine. Otherwise it’s bound to fail.

What pulled me into “Wife After Love” was that they meet years later, however, unlike before, something is different. In what way? Allow me to tell you about it.

Yurae and Muwon used to be all business because they were in an arranged marriage until Yurae asked for a divorce. She moved out of the country and returned three years later for a brief work trip. She’s different now and more confident in how she lives her life. But fate—and Muwon—won’t let her get away that easily. Now that she has to oversee her company’s deal with Muwon, will it be easy for them to separate their business and private lives and leave the past behind?

Wife After Love
Tapas Media

---

The story

The story follows Yurae and Muwon, a divorced couple of three years. Muwon, the President of a Corporation, while Yurae is a Sales Representative for a clothing company trying to establish itself in Korea. They meet one day due to business; Yurae trying to secure the future of the company she represents in Korea by urging Muwon to reconsider their position on the company she represents.

There were a couple of things that appealed to me while reading this webcomic. The first being, although the story is told through both the eyes of Yurae and Muwon. It felt like the story was more so from the perspective of Yurae, which was something I liked. The second being, it’s not everyday where you have a story where you have a divorced couple rekindle their relationship.

To add to that list, from the first couple of chapters, you could tell that despite their previous marriage being one of purely business. You could tell that these two people carried about each other, even though during their marriage they were pretty much strangers to one another. It makes you wonder what would have happened if they met naturally without the pressure of businesses being involved and everything relating to that weighing on Yurae and Muwon.

In essence, that is what this webcomic explores, what their relationship would have looked like if business had not gotten in the way and both Yurae and Muwon were allowed to meet naturally.

At first, I will admit, both Yurae and Muwon do not get off to a great start; as you’d expect from a divorced couple. However, what is made abundantly clear is that Muwon doesn’t quite understand why Yurae wanted a divorce. So everything he does to either protect her or things of that nature come off as him toying with Yurae, in some ways you can say that Muwon is a stalker because he keeps budding in and things like that.

Their previous marriage was one of pure business because they seemingly don’t know anything about each other. Nor do they know how to communicate with each other even when in relation to business because their personal life slowly creeps in. While Yurae tries to keep their relationship solely about business, Muwon inability to keep things business even after three years apart and divorced is a point of conflict between the two. Watching these two characters sort through that mind field of business and personal.

The theme for the story is communication.

The negatives though…

Throughout the chapters if you do decide to pick up this webcomic, you’ll notice that Yurae and Muwon are terrible at communication. There wasn’t a moment when I wasn’t metaphorically banging my head against the wall because their communication was what held them back.

Not to mention, I also thought there were times, Muwon’s inability to read the situation whenever he’s there with Yurae was times were extremely frustrating. Often times, he did things on his own accord without any consideration from Yurae. Yurae is also partly to blame (as I see them both as fault) because she spends the majority of the story very much closed off, refusing to express her own feelings and her displeasures at Muwon.

Even when Muwon starts trying his best to understand and be considerate of Yurae, many a’ times it felt one-sided because while Muwon was doing his best, Yurae was still closed off from him keeping her distance; denying her feelings.

But I understand it, when you marry someone like Muwon and the baggage he brings due to his upbringing. It’s hard to adjust because there is a sense of pressure and expectation that placed on your shoulders. Especially when the relationship itself was purely business at first. Once you’ve experienced that and the trauma that comes with it, you’re hesitant. You don’t know whether or not that’s a life you’d like to experience again.

But even so, you’ve got to communicate that so that way both sides know whether the other one is coming from.

---

For sure, the story was frustrating at times, yes. There were parts that I did like, parts that I thought were questionable. But there were also times when I saw myself smiling and thinking “we’re making progress”. For me that was where I found the most joy. Watching this couple work through their feelings, their likes and dislikes was very fun. The enjoyment of watching a previous relationship which was only about business turn into a newfound relationship of love and admiration was fun to watch and read.

The Characters

You can make the argument that the worse part about “Wife After Love” apart from our characters inability to communicate are the characters themselves.

Yurae Lee can be described as timid and very reserved. She always tends to be very unsure of herself especially when it comes to her own feelings for Muwon.

Despite this, Yurae is very determined to do what she thinks is best for herself and the others around her. From an entrepreneurial standpoint she is great, but there were times when you see her make decisions based off her own emotions.

That’s the biggest point of contention for her, sometimes her own emotions get in the way of business. Furthermore, those decisions which are driven by emotion negatively effect her from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Which is honestly weird to say because in a way she has very good situational awareness. Like she knows when things are being said behind her back and about the clothing store she runs.

Yurae also understands the backroom politics and all the outside forces that try to influence certain outcomes and results in the business world. However, when it comes to Muwon, this situation aware that she once had goes out the window. There were several times during the story where Muwon pulled strings behind the scenes because he saw that Yurae was getting overwhelmed or was having a hard time.

During those moments, Yurae doesn’t realize it’s because of Muwon and his influence. Rather, she thinks its because that something is finally going right for her. Until word gets out that it was indeed because of Muwon. She in a way, it feels like she lowers her guard around Muwon during business hours, but when we’re off the clock and we see Yurae and Muwon together, her guard immediately goes up.

It’s honestly quite interesting but also frustrating.

Muwon Choi and be described a stubborn and inconsiderate. Despite those negative traits, he is also extremely caring to a fault.

At the beginning of the story Muwon is pretty much unlikeable. Once he lays eyes on Yurae he cannot get her off his mind. To some extent he was pretty much stalking her, not to mention, Muwon was being inconsiderate towards Yurae. At times it was definitely hard to watch.

The biggest issue with Muwon is that the man is hell bent on getting what he wants, which is why I label him as stubborn.

However as time goes on and the more he interacts with Yurae, barring his own desires. All of his actions especially ones that influence Yurae’s occupation are thought out. In a very crude way, his actions indicate that he still very much cares for Yurae. But he doesn’t go about it the normal way, Muwon does it his own way and doesn’t tell Yurae about it; which as you can probably guess, leads to many disagreements and miscommunication between the two.

---

Honestly with regards to the characters, they are definitely an odd duo. Especially at the beginning because you feel like they are complete opposites of one another and you can understand why they’re no longer together. When I say that they lacked general understanding of one another, I mean it.

My distaste for Muwon was far greater at the start than it was at the end. I found myself being okay with him when it was all said and done. As I mentioned at the start of the blog, I thought that the story was more so told from the perspective of Yurae. So in a way, my dislike for Muwon as a character was because if I was in Yurae’s shoes and was experiencing the same thing she was, I wouldn’t like him all too much either.

But as my title suggests; things take time, communication is key.

As things progressed between Yurae and Muwon, they both make a conscious effort to learn more about each other and to be more understanding of each other’s stance. It took a long time for that to happen because their past relationship was a marriage for business, so you can argue that they never built up that trust.

But they knew that in order for this time to be different, they needed to work on that trust, communication and that love that they felt towards each other. Thus a very long and frustrating journey began which resulted in an ending that I thought was very rewarding.

We go from a couple that was pretty hard to watch and read. Their inability to communicate which was their biggest handicap, becomes one of their biggest strengths. Towards the end of the webcomic, we’re greeted with a couple that is highly supportive, understanding and loving of one another; it’s quite the transformation.

We see the biggest transformation from Yurae.

Someone who is very timid, unsure of herself and her feelings for Muwon. Someone who constantly had her guard up, who has already experienced so much trauma and pain not only from her own family but from Muwon’s. Finally accept and realize that Muwon hasn’t once stopped thinking about her or caring for her and that his feelings for her were still very much genuine was great.

Yurae wanted a relationship where should could feel that trust and love while also knowing that she had someone who she could communicate with openly without fail. To see her finally get all that was very rewarding for me as the reader.

It was like watching a high school couple work through what its like to be an actual couple. However instead of this couple being in their teens, they’re probably in their early to mid thirties.

Is “Wife After Love” for everyone? No. I think the story and its characters take time to appreciate and enjoy. But I think the end result is very rewarding once you’re able to appreciate the story being told. I think that “Wife After Love” is underrated for sure and I think highlights the good and bad that comes with a divorced couple and the emotions and decision that may go along with that.

I definitely think that “Wife After Love” is fairly realistic in my books, and the heartfelt moments our characters share with each other are just beautiful.