Learning Marriage Life from K-Drama 'Tomorrow With You'

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how will my future be. I’m asking my self, who will I be? What will I do after this? What kind of job will I do? Also… who’s going to be my housemate with a long life contract?

Many things happened in such a short time. Times fly, friends leave, but life doesn’t stop for anybody.

You know, I principled not to date before getting married because in my religion that ‘dating’ things are prohibited. In this kind of condition (well, I am in my early 21 years old and some of my friends are getting married), I tend to be lonely sometimes and also curious about ‘namja’. Guess what? Since February 3^rd up until now, I’m having difficult times to move on from recent Koran drama titled “Tomorrow With You” because mainly that drama was talking about marriage life. Apart from the fantasy aspect, I bravely give five stars for this drama for it's marriage life lessons!

 Aren't they matched so well?

This time I just wanna share some thoughts of mine, my buddy from Soompi forums, and lessons I got from a great fiction about the drama. Well, you all probably know Lee Je Hoon and Shin Min Ah right? Them as the main casts of the drama, being a married-couple in just a brief period because of the time traveler reasons. This drama has a fantasy-romance-comedy genre that will caught up  your attentions, guys. But as we know, the rating wasn’t very high because… I don’t know, Korean netizens might be not that interested about problematic yet real life. I do think that they want a drama just…. be a drama, that isn’t happening in reality. They’re more amazed by a drama with too much miracle things such as “Strong Woman Do Bong Soon” (Actually, I also watch this drama but not as much as I enjoy TWY).

So, I won’t tell you many things about the story line or the recaps (I usually read here) but I will re-write some review of many fans of Tomorrow With You drama. Well, I haven’t been so addicted to a k-drama before these. I was extremely loved watching “My Lovely Girl” because I love the pairing of INFINITE L & F(X) Krystal, and today I’m more excited seeing Lee Je Hoon and Shin Min Ah’s chemistry in the drama. They are just… how can I say it, made for each other! The lovey-dovey actings were beyond my imagination, though I know that Shin Min Ah already has boyfriend. But I just can’t ignore my good feeling for Yoo So Joon (Lee Je Hoon) & Song Ma Rin (Shin Min Ah). It’s undeniably great with the two main casts which I expect to be in a real-ationship and being married someday HAHAHA they look good together~~

Okay, stop with these unnecessary things. I’m being serious now, I also want to let the PD-nim (Yoo Jae Won ahjussi), all the TWY staffs, actors and actresses, to know that many people (actually, international fans) loved the drama a lot! The drama was so rich of lessons, marriage course, and true love of newlyweds little family. If I have to resume the drama with one line, I just want to say “Live your life, guys.” Because the drama’s talking about a man who can travel to the future in order to change things, I’m really convinced by only one thing : “Appreciate the nows that lead to the tomorrow.”

Yoo So Joon is childish and arrogant man that is so future-obsessed. He’s actually well educated, having well manner, and also rich guy who’s over confident about his life just because he’s a time traveler. He acts like God and thinks as if he can do and change everything. While, Song Ma Rin is a nice and beautiful photographer with worst drinking habit. She was a child actresses who couldn’t fulfill her Mom’s dream and always overshadowed (also overthinking) by her past. Both of them met in train and miraculously saved from accident together. By this chance, the two are having same destiny in the future and would die in March 25^th 2019. In order to avoid that kind of fate, So Joon was trying so hard to make their relationship grow from stranger to lover. He doesn’t hesitate to ask Ma Rin if she willingly marry him in a hurry, because he has seen in the future that he will be her husband 3 months later.

Right, I remind you that mostly romance k-dramas are finalized​ their episode in wedding scene or something similar. They don’t show you how is the after-party effects of that wedding things. It seems like the couple will live happily ever after because they married. Well, haven’t I said that it might probably become otherwise?

So, in a brief 4 episodes.. they’re getting married. Within couple of weeks, they changed into a husband and a wife. When we see Ma Rin’s efforts to make her newlywed life become better.. for So Joon, it’s the opposite. He thinks people marry and live the way they did while respecting each other’s style, so he thinks it’s unimportant to tell her wife his secret-full life. As time goes by, they get to know their personal issues, they fight, they make up, they argue again, just like how reality hits us. It’s usual for a new couple to do that because I do believe to blend 2 heads under one rooftop called household is NOT easy (even though I haven’t married yet, I know that it will take forever to fully understand your partner in life). Sometimes she’s yes and he’s no, and vice versa. They don’t always agree with each other. There are times when she’s too ego to apologize. There are times when he’s too ego to give in to her. The are times when you just don’t get along even though you love each other. But, the good thing is, when they fight they don’t go straight to screaming at the top of their lungs. Instead, the make spaces for themselves for a moment, and when they’re ready for it, they’ll talk. And they glad they manage to work it out together.

The writer (of the drama) is just… extraordinary. The problems that Ma Rin and So Joon are facing right now is realistic to their relationship. These are two vastly different individuals with different up bringing, different styles, different views on life, love, and marriage, come together in love and marriage without knowing anything of one another. The 1^st year of marriage is the hardest. That is when marriage truly begins. You learn how to live and grow with one another as one shared product. You learn to communicate with your partner to be honest. No more of that honeymoon phase your breakfast is really delicious even though you really can’t stand their food. Nope, you learn (in a manner that does not hurt their feelings) to tell this person, “thanks for the effort but sweetie your cooking isn’t good. How about I do the cooking? But since you enjoy it so much you take cooking classes and continue to learn and experiment on me by us alternating how makes other person accepts it”. I mean this, the later, getting to that phase of open communication that is understood and accepted is hard for newlyweds who do know each other, so of course it’s going to be a roller coaster of ups and downs and success and failure for the couple that barely knows each other.

Marriage is more than just cute BBQ moments, winks, and post sex bliss. Most k-dramas tend to show this, the chase, the happy honeymoon phase, then boom a kid at the end. No, what about all the in between bits? The hard stuff like miscommunication of not knowing how to approach your spouse after fight. Walking on egg shells trying to say the right thing but having it be wrong? The part where you want to broach a hard topic like parents death but you also want to be sensitive to your partner’s feelings and want to wait for them to be comfortable or trusting enough with you to tell you themselves and not you have to ask? I want to shop for you and buy your clothes to feel like your wife. These are things I’ve always done for myself. I want you to introduce me to your friends. Our marriage is ours, why do we need to add our friends. Talk to me, tell me everything about you, I want to know you. I talk, you know things. But I still want to keep something for my self. Something I don’t feel you have to know and there are some topics I will never feel comfortable talking to you about) it has nothing to do with my love for you or not) and you just have to accept that. These (and so much more) are hard issues that every relationship goes through (communication and trust) and it makes or breaks a relationship. Most k-dramas don’t touch this. The dramas tend to end before we get to this point (they married, the end).

I love that this drama is taking us into a marriage and kind of get to see it from it’s infancy of ‘housemate, secrets, friction in communication’ to it’s maturity of ‘I love this person so much and yearn for them. They are my everything and I may even die just to be with them or leave them because I’d rather they live’. Basically I’m enjoying watching So Joon grows from this selfish man/boy who thinks of himself more than Ma Rin and couldn’t even imagine dying for her to this guy who right now knows that life with this girls brings misery onto his future but doesn’t seem to want to leave or escape her. We see in the future it looks like he sacrifices so much (his business, wealth, friendship, etc) seemingly for Ma Rin. He’s just really inept at the whole thing –this marriage is his first real adult relationship- and fumbling because of his lack of know how to approach a woman. Ma Rin was on point when she said he knows nothing about women, marriage, or her. So for me cute is all nice and well, but give me the heart ache that leads to learn lesson, character growth, and progress in story. Both Ma Rin and So Joon and their marriage will come out the better for all this. So fight, hurt feelings, make each other cry (so long as they also keep talking, spare feelings, and make each other laugh) that’s healthy and needed in order to grow. It’s all needed if you want to build a bond that time, distance, even resets and mess can’t break.

Being married, they learn, is settling down. They don’t get butterflies anymore since they live together. Their hearts don’t beat so fast anymore. Legs aren’t always intertwining at night. No. instead, everything calms down. Living together makes them feel secure in every way possible. Sleeping at night sometimes would be done by facing different directions, but they’d always find themselves scooting backwards until they bump to each other. Their breathings bring them to comfort. It feels like home.

And, there’re lots of PDAs (Public Displays of Affection). From the most innocent kind of affection to romantic ones. From holding hand to something more intense. Hugs and kisses are always there -there’s ‘I love you’ kisses, ‘thank you for not burning the kitchen’ kisses, ‘I am glad it is you and no one else’ kisses, ‘I am leaving’ kisses, and ‘one more kiss before you go’ kisses- A lot. They make everything seems fun. They fool around between the aisle in the grocery store. They travel. They have many silly pictures together. They dance in the rain. They go for a long walk and get excited for each other.

I’ll end up here. Those above are the thought of mine, someone nicknamed MrSoJiSub from Forum Soompi, and ikonflakes from Asianfanfics. Hopefully this post will give you conception (because this drama really inspire me so much, to the point I want to get married asap!) about marriage or even Korean drama Tomorrow With You. If it does, please let me know. Nowadays I’m starting to write eagerly about things I’m passionate about. See you again :)