I used to think a life packed with strange roads, odd jobs, and foreign addresses was a proper pathway to success. That if you stayed open-minded enough, travelled far enough, and kept yourself around enough different kinds of people, you’d eventually arrive at some version of wisdom… or at least stability. And to be fair, expatitude did give me that in pieces. It put me around all sorts of geniuses, wastemen, schemers, saints, and every shade in between. It taught me tolerance, perspective, and how quickly comfort can become temporary. I still rate that path for anyone drawn to it. But I’m also living proof that it doesn’t always land where you think it will. Consider this your warning label.

When I decided to pin my future to the career path of the woman I loved, it didn’t feel like some reckless gamble. It genuinely made sense. The idea of becoming the house husband, the quiet domestic support role behind the big career, suited me more than most men would admit. I never minded the invisible labour, the thousand little tasks that make a home function without applause. And it helped that she genuinely aspired to that hard drinking, work first, Northeast Asian salaryman existence. She wanted the office, the late nights, the obligation dinners, the whole corporate mythology. I thought maybe we were building something balanced.

But balance only works if both people respect the weight being carried. Somewhere along the way, I think she started believing that because she brought home the salary, she was carrying the entire structure. The paid labour became the only labour that counted. Everything else… raising the child, managing the house, became background noise to her office gossip. And if I’m being honest, I think some of that came from the same old misogynist ideas dressed up in modern clothes: that work only matters if someone cuts you a cheque for it. I swallowed a lot of that quietly because, as the travelling spouse, options were limited and compromise was part of the ticket.

Then my daughter was born, and all that theory got tested against real life. Once the breadwinner went back to work, it became impossible to ignore. I wasn’t sat at home on some leisure flex, gaming my days away while my wife stayed out late doing soju diplomacy with coworkers. I was at home raising a child who missed her mother. I was doing the night feeds, the tears, the routines, the thousand tiny negotiations that make up fatherhood. The work became visible to me in a way it clearly never did for her.

And the moment I knew the whole experiment was cracked was painfully simple. When a salary man comes home late after soju and noraebang, he stumbles in, mumbles something useless, and goes straight to sleep. Everyone accepts that. But when my wife came home late from those same nights, she’d wake our daughter up just to say hello. Not for the child… for herself. To satisfy her own guilt, her own need to be seen as present. And then I’d be left dealing with the tears, the broken sleep, the next day’s fallout. That was the moment I understood we were just remixing old selfishness in newer language.

So it went like that. A flawed modern marriage. Maybe that’s all marriages, I don’t know. I’ve only had the one, and respectfully, that’ll do for me. No sequels needed. Mandem retired from that franchise.

I’ve forgotten where I meant to take this, so I’ll leave it here: clichés survive for a reason. Even a broken clock gets its moment twice a day. If you’re putting all your eggs in one basket, just make sure when that kitchen gets hot, you’re not the only one standing there holding the pan.