Former Cleo member Chae Eun-jung opened up about conflicts with her husband.
On the 20th episode of tvN's Kim Chang-ok Show 4, Chae Eun-jung and her husband appeared and shared their concerns.
Chae Eun-jung, asked, "Is it true you went on 100 blind dates?" said, "I actually think it's far more than 100. Because I'm not young, if you count all the blind dates I've had in my life up to now, it would be well over 100. I'm the type who meets people first. I might like someone after meeting them. It rarely happens, like in the movies, that you meet once and your eyes meet or you fall in love at first sight," she said.
Chae Eun-jung, who said she also met her current husband through a blind date, said, "Actually, it was our first meeting but I was practicing choreography, so I went in training clothes and bare-faced while he was fully dressed up, and I was late. Over 30 minutes. He only had an hour. We met at 3 and he said he had to go at 4. I thought I could figure everything out in an hour. You can tell at a glance, right? But I really didn't want to go home. We clicked so well that an hour felt like 10 minutes. It was so fun. As I kept seeing him, our dating happened naturally," she said.
But when asked, "Isn't three months into marriage the height of newlywed bliss?" Chae Eun-jung said, "Aren't we in middle-aged dating and marriage? When you open your eyes there's someone there, and when you call 'hey' someone says 'yeah.'" She said, "We are both heading into our mid-40s. So if I'm going to have a child, I absolutely have to have it quickly. It's not that I won't have children. But my husband recently said he specifically thinks five years from now. Honestly, if it's five years from now I'll be almost 50, so why would you marry me when you could marry someone in their 20s? He said things like that. He said, if you want to have a child, have one; if not, it's fine. It felt so irresponsible. Am I going to have and raise the child alone? Is this a declaration that he really won't help? What does this mean? I don't know what his feelings are," she said, revealing the conflict.
She continued, "I think everything should be thoroughly planned: where to send the child, which private academies, and around elementary school which school district to aim for. Expenses vary tremendously depending on whether the child does arts or humanities/science. The difference between a daughter and a son is also big. Because I've seen all this around me, I'm very worried, but my husband has no thoughts. He thinks you can just let the child do what they like and they will grow up fine. We've argued a lot about educational views over a child who doesn't even exist yet," she said.
In response, Chae Eun-jung's husband said, "Because our dating period wasn't that long, I thought if we had a child before building our bond, our relationship might worsen because of the child. So I said let's build our bond and prepare a bit more and maybe after about five years. But she fixated on five years and said, 'How old will I be in five years?' It wasn't a strict 'let's have the child exactly five years later.' Eun-jung plans her days like she has three days in one. She schedules everything without a single free moment. So I worry that those plans would be projected onto the child. If you raise your child that way, the child might feel distressed and lonely — in a way it's restrictive," he revealed.
Hearing the story, Kim Chang-ok said, "As a freelancer, you get called when you're doing well and you might have nothing when you're not. You never know when work will come. So I thought even if entertainers appear on TV and do things, if it's their full-time job it's even tougher. If I had lived like this since my teens I'd be anxious. So you need stability. Maybe your wife has lived a long time without a place to lean on," he asked.
Chae Eun-jung said, "I lacked the kind of love from my mother from a very young age. My mother actually passed away when I was in third grade; she was ill for a long time so we couldn't live together. My father also passed away recently, and he was away a lot for school and study abroad, so I didn't live with him until middle school. Being alone for so long, I thought love was something you give and receive, but I don't really know what it is, so I honestly don't know how to give a mother's love," she lamented.
Then Kim Chang-ok said, "I don't really know what the word father means. My father was hearing impaired so we never had what you'd call a conversation until he passed away. As you get older, it's like a black hole, and at worst the end of that is longing. I haven't experienced it, but there's a longing for the root of humanity, an emptiness. So from your wife's point of view, she wants to build a wall to protect herself. She had no boundaries when she was young. She lacked the warm embrace of a mother and the time with a father, so she needs that. She thinks I have to be fully alert and build this wall. Decide which elementary school, if in middle school the child will do arts then prepare like this. But from the husband's view, he asks, will the child be able to breathe if you do that? I can't have a child like that," he analyzed.
He said, "From your wife's perspective, what does that mean? Haven't I lived too anxiously? Haven't I had no walls? No fences? So planning like this wasn't to suffocate the child but to build a protective wall around an anxious life and set boundaries to protect that child. So I think now is not the time to have a child but the time to care for and meet the child inside your wife. Even if I'm in my mid-40s, there's a child inside me who wants a mother to be warm to me. So talk together, within the possible range with your husband, how you used to live, what it was like then; when you're sad cry together and care for the child inside you. If that child's loneliness eases, then naturally the readiness to have a child will come," he advised.
Hearing the story, Chae Eun-jung's husband said, "Honey, I want us to further develop our relationship, strengthen our bond and unity, and become good parents," he said.
[Photo] tvN
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