A Very Ordinary Marriage
An interview with ordinary couple who loves extraordinary marriage
Seonggap Jung and Gahee Won successfully crossed the threshold of marriage after 1 year of dating. They were quite bewildered when they discovered that the person they married was the opposite of the person that they had thought they were. They claim that it is almost impossible to know what someone is like while dating them. But isn’t that the case with most marriages? It can’t be easy to find an intersection in the myriad of elements that make up a person such as personality, taste, habits, and financial sense. Here is the cheerful story of a very ordinary couple’s journey in bringing together their two universes to create one family.
Seonggap Jung/ Hubby/ CEO of Hanjum Gallary Clip / 44yrs
Gahee Won / Wifey/ Co-founder of Suki / 41yrs
How did you spend your 14th anniversary?
(Gahee) I couldn’t help but laugh at the flower he picked from our garden wall as my anniversary present, but he later wrote on his social media that I looked disenchanted. The flower was sitting between a bag of food trash and a tuna can, and I grinned as I imagined him moving it all the way to the dining room table to try and get a god shot of it. I think watching my husband live his show and tell lifestyle is one of the joys in life (laughs).
(Seonggap) The wild flower was only the prelude. I had another main gift prepared. I remembered my wife mention in passing that she wanted a small simple ring, and I thought she’d like it if I got her one. But when I gave it to her, she said, “Was this the nicest design they had?” She ended up going back to the store herself to exchange it (laughs). Now that I think about it, this year was pretty special. I built my first house and quit my job after 16 years.
I heard you had a huge fight while building the house. Could you explain what happened?
(Seonggap) It was a huge undertaking since we were demolishing the old house and building on top of it, but I got busy at work so I wasn’t able to pay much attention. We’ve had a few arguments recently too, so I’m currently walking on eggshells around my wife.
(Gahee) My husband is a writer and I love reading his work. But that’s the only thing he’s good at. He ends up breaking things he’s supposed to be assembling or fixing, and I have better snap judgement than he does. I know my way around the house so I do fine on my own, but I found that I was now in charge of building the house. We were building a 23m2 3 storey house on a 60m2 plot of land, and it was difficult because it was in a remote area and we had a tight budget.
We were lucky enough to meet a trustworthy construction manager that had built numerous small houses in the area, so construction went smoothly. The initial design of the house was a skip floor structure, but we found that the foundation was all rocks after demolishing the house. We had to change some of the design and had a rough time breaking through the rock to install the septic tank. That’s why we’re still waiting to pass the inspection. I’m just grateful that the construction manager was able to build us such a great home despite all the circumstances.
What happens to the construction cost in this case?
(Gahee) It just keeps increasing. You always expect the unexpected to happen in construction, but my husband doesn’t get it. I understand because I’m right there on the construction site, but my husband is just sitting in his office, so when he asked me questions, it felt like he was interrogating me. Most of our fights were about how I was never on his side. “Are you the construction manager’s lawyer or something? If you can’t get him to lower the price, at least stop defending him!” But I’m always grateful that he ends up respecting my decisions in the end.
(Seonggap) I became like another client to my wife because of all my nagging and interrogating. But you know, it’s all because she’s a good person. She’s ethical and just and she has a big heart. And of course, my wife always has the last say (laughs).
There are couples that get along because they’re similar, and then there are couples who adjust to each other’s differences. You two seem like the latter.
(Gahee) To be honest, we don’t have much in common. We usually start at different starting points and try to meet in the middle. Things that seem like common sense to me aren’t to him. Even our standards of what is common sense is different. For example, when it came to the calculation of the construction costs, I was of the opinion that we should trust the people we’re working with, but my husband thinks negotiating and bargaining is just common sense. Oh, and my husband likes big houses but I like small ones.
(Seonggap) Why would you like small houses? They’re constraining, and even now I get a headache if I have to organize anything in the house. Big houses are the best! We bought a nice apartment when we got married, but my wife still said she preferred rooftop houses. But please make sure to make the house look bigger when you take your photos, so we don’t look like we’re too poor (laughs).
Your two daughters are different too.
(Gahee) My second one is just like her dad in that she exaggerates everything and brags about the smallest things. She mumbles that she feels bald after getting a haircut. Luckily, she also got his adorable puppy like qualities.
(Seonggap) My second daughter still thinks daddy is the best, but my eldest, who is now in 5th grade, sometimes tells me off for not knowing anything. She’s grounded and tough, just like her mom.
Did you ever go through a rough patch in your marriage?
(Gahee) We lived in my mother in law’s house for 22 months right after we got married while we waited to move into our first house. My eldest had just started walking and it was just too much to bear. My mother in law was glad when we told her we were moving out so I’m guessing it was hard for her too. Most men want to solve the problem when it comes to in-law conflict, but lending a listening ear is usually enough. My husband would listen attentively and be on my side, which was why I was able to get through that rough time. I think the biggest problem we had was that we weren’t independent yet.
(Seonggap) I think husbands should always be on their wife’s side. That’s the only way you can adjust things. Of course, I love my mother, but there were times when even I thought she was being too hard on my wife. I’m grateful for my wife and that gratitude and trust makes me want to be better to her.
Did things get better after you moved into the apartment?
(Gahee) My husband loved the fact that we were moving into a name brand apartment in an up and coming neighborhood. He thought moving in would automatically make us happy. But we moved in, and I wasn’t happy at all. There happened to be a small storefront available in the apartment complex arcade and the rent was only 200,000 won. It was cheap and I thought I could do something with the space so I asked if my husband could get an advance on his severance to pay for the deposit. I wanted to open a fruit shop. They’re so pretty to look at.
(Seonggap) Her deflated mood didn’t get better over time. I wanted to respect her need to emotionally connect to the space and neighborhood she’s in, so we decided to sell the apartment and move to a traditional Korean house that my wife found in Nuhadong. The apartment had cost somewhere in the high 300 millions when we bought it and we sold it for 10 million less than what we had paid for. It’s now worth double that amount.
A family is an economic community and there are families that have been thrown into crisis because of financial loss.
(Seonggap) We’d already be divorced if we took the money we’ve lost on real estate into account (laughs). I met some close friends yesterday and they joked that we should do an internet search to see exactly how much money I had lost on that apartment. I’m materialistic so it still pains me to think about it and I can’t sleep. You need to be able to express negative feelings like that to resolve them, but my wife tells me off for bringing up something that’s all done and behind us when I try to talk to her about it.
(Gahee) I tell him every time “But you enjoyed every single moment we were in that traditional house. Having BBQs with your friends in the yard and looking up at the stars at night…” I learned an important lesson during the 22 months I was waiting to move into that apartment. There is no happiness in the blueprints of the future. The future doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t happy now. The one principle I live by is to choose to do what makes me happy now. I think the time we spent in the traditional Korean house made our lives that much richer. Financially speaking, Korea is an apartment kingdom. But I wanted to break free from that mold. We were truly happy and we had two happy healthy children.
(Seonggap) We would have had kids if we had stayed at the apartment too (laughs). I spent my day taking care of the house doing things like sweeping the yard and checking the heater when it snowed. I watched it rain from under the eaves and felt the breeze. All that physical activity helped me draw a distinction between life and work and I felt healthier. Just like old man Vincent said in <Useful Population>, it’s really nothing but that nothing is what gets you through life.
Is your book <Yard Memories> that was published in 2015 about that house?
(Gahee) Yes. But my husband was the one that enjoyed living in that house the most. I get extremely attached to spaces. It was the same with Suki. I got so excited when I saw the little storefront in Hyojadong. I wasn’t even considering it because it was so expensive, but my husband provided the 50 million won I needed for the deposit. I couldn’t have been more grateful for a husband that liked to save. That’s how I joined forces with a close friend to open Suki.
I would sit in my store thinking about how nice Hyojadong was, when one day, I noticed the traditional Korean house across the street was up for rent. The 92m2 house was going for the ridiculously low price of 200 million won, and what’s more astonishing was that the toilet was outside. My husband came up with the down payment without even looking at the house after seeing how much I wanted it. We spent two years using a toilet with ceilings so low that you couldn’t even stand up straight. Now that I think about it, why do you always let me have my way?
(Seonggap) Because I love you (laughs). Because I know better than anyone that you’ll do what you please no matter what.
What attracted you to each other?
(Seonggap) She was really cute and affectionate when we were dating. She may look all feminine, but every time we went to get our fortunes read after we got married, they’d say she had the fortunes of a man. They’d say she’s decisive, loyal, to the point, and patient… Now that I think about it, she really is all of those things. I guess I was completely duped.
(Gahee) I think my instinct to want to start a family made me all affectionate back then. I sincerely apologize for that (laughs). But my husband became very different after marriage too. He turned out to be a chatterbox who couldn’t keep anything in. He’s lucky I actually enjoy that side of him (laughs).
What kind of mindset are you in after 14 years of marriage?
(Seonggap) There aren’t any people who are a perfect match after 10 years of marriage. It would be unnatural if they were. I think marriage is like a roulette. It’s almost impossible to know what someone is like by just dating them. There’s always a twist. Just like there was for us (laughs). You may be very surprised by the differences you discover between dating and marriage. Those differences may turn out to be deal breakers for some, so we should never assume anything about someone else’s divorce or marital woes. I think those of us who are able to maintain a loving relationship for a long time are really lucky. Of course it take effort, but I want to say that luck still plays a bigger role.
(Gahee) I’m quite independent so I need my space and time. Marriage and childbirth are extremely important events in a person’s life, but I never really got to think about them in depth. I always thought that getting married and having children was just what people did, but I only discovered myself later on in life. So I now go through life thinking that it would be nice to be a little more independent in my family life. But this is difficult to achieve without help. My husband isn’t patriarchal and he ignores traditional gender roles.
As a mother of two daughters, I couldn’t ask for a better husband. I can talk to him about anything and he’s always in a good mood. His cheerfulness is a breath of fresh air to my cynical heart. But there are things that I can’t stand about him too. I hate it when he uses the words signature and objet whenever he goes to a café.
Did you ever go through any rough patches as you approached middle age?
(Seonggap) I think it was when I was around 40. I was going to walk when I suddenly started weeping. I realized I was getting weak as I watched a cleaner sweep up the autumn leaves. I’m super cheerful by nature so it didn’t last long. I’ve been happily working at the same place for 16 years but I could see it coming to an end. And I was at that age where it was a little difficult to start fresh or attempt anything new. I loved being an editor.
I think my love for my job actually shortened its lifespan. I think I missed opportunities to rest because I was so engrossed in work. I spent all those years interviewing people and writing stories, but now that I’ve moved to a digital contents company, I spend most of my time behind a desk. And digital changes so quickly. I sometimes wish that I could just focus on doing the things I love.
What was the most memorable interview you’d conducted?
(Seonggap) I was extremely nervous about interviewing Oyoung Lee so I prepared a detailed list of questions to ask, but I remember being so engrossed in what he had to say that I just listened to him talk the whole time. I was writing for <Luxury> at the time, and what he said was right on theme. “Inconvenience isn’t luxury”, “Luxury isn’t something you can buy with money. It’s about living in a story.” The things he said in that interview shaped my life in many ways.
I tend to have a one track mind, but being an editor opened up my ears and my heart and I think it helped me to understand my wife more too. There was another interview I did with professor Min Jung who wrote <You Have to Be Crazy to Be Crazy>. He said “You have to spend a part of your life studying like crazy. Your whole being with be shaken if you don’t.” I think that was what enabled me to say “Life is long. I’m going to spend it doing what makes me happy,” when I quit my job.
What are your plans for after you quit?
(Seonggap) I want to spend time working on myself. At first, I wanted to tell my own story after spending so much time telling those of other people, but I’ve now realized that being an interviewer and a moderator is my identity. My hands are too clumsy to make something of my own anyway. I want to meet as many people as possible and connect them to a certain theme and write a book about them. Since I’m interested in being a creator, one of the themes I’m thinking of is Conversation Skills of Successful Creators. How to Succeed as a Freelancer and A View with Handicrafts are some others.
I think solidifying my place as a writer that draws out and writes stories with depth about people and objects is the most realistic career path for me at this point in my life. I’m thinking of writing a book of essays about the everyday lives of fathers too. We recently opened a small gallery on the first floor called Clip, which is named after my adopted cat Pin, and I’m thinking about what to do with the space going forward.
What is the reason you’d chose to stay with your spouse no matter what?
(Seonggap) My trust in her. I think it is that deep trust that keeps us together more than love. She didn’t even ask me why when I told her I wanted to quit my job out of the blue. Despite the fact that we have 2 school children, she told me to quit straight away since people can adjust to live within their means. She has more nerves than I do and she’s gutsier than I am. I think I depend on her more than she does on me.
(Gahee) My husband isn’t your normal everyday guy. He’s chatty and he’s also more sensitive and emotional than I am. We talk all the time which is why we’ve been able to remain so close over the last 14 years. Accepting your spouse the way they are is the key to a functional marriage. You don’t necessarily need to understand them. I get perplexed that we run into the same issues over and over again, but now that I have a few years under my belt, I find it somewhat amusing. I wonder how we can stumble over the same thing time after time, but I also think we’ve resolved a lot of those issues through conversation.
Finally, do you have any tips for maintaining a happy marriage?
(Seonggap) Men are really bad at accepting criticism. They shut themselves off for days and days. But my personality doesn’t let me do that. I get frustrated, especially when there’s so many everyday things you need to talk to your spouse about. I think I’m the first to apologize 99 times out of 100. I once even got on my knees (laughs). I may raise my voice while we’re fighting, but then I look at my wife and her cuteness sometimes makes me laugh. And when I think about it, I messed up too, so I apologize first. I guess you could say that my secret to a happy marriage is to swallow my pride, stop sulking, and apologize straight away if I’ve done something wrong.
