800,000 won for a hair appointment vs. boyfriend's 'total failure' in stocks: The sense of reality of a couple

A man who has become accustomed to losing his entire fortune instead of growing it met a woman who continues to consume by even breaking her savings. While both are in economically unstable situations, their conflict deepened as they constantly demanded changes from each other. Ultimately, their relationship issues went beyond simple personality differences and spread to the realistic question of "how to view money."

On the JTBC entertainment program 'Love War' broadcast on the 5th, the so-called 'resting couple' Park Han-ul and Jeong Seo-u, who are currently not working, appeared and shared their conflicts surrounding job seeking and spending habits. Park Han-ul, who worked as a fitness trainer for six years, had resigned due to burnout after enduring a drop in self-esteem caused by sales pressure and low performance. He said, "At my lowest, my monthly income was as low as 500,000 won."

The problem was the choice after resigning. After quitting his job, Park broke his savings and invested about 18 million won in high-risk stock products. After experiencing a bear market for the first time, he engaged in so-called 'averaging down' to recover losses, and eventually even invested the money his girlfriend entrusted to him. The amount entrusted by Jeong Seo-u was 2.8 million won. Jeong explained that she did not know much about stocks but entrusted the money because her boyfriend said he was confident. The result was disastrous. That investment also recorded a loss of about 70%.

However, Park, who suffered great losses from his own investments, strongly demanded job seeking and savings from his girlfriend. While demanding extreme frugality, such as sharing a single bottle of beverage to reduce dating costs, he repeatedly pressured Jeong regarding the issue of her not finding a job. Jeong lamented, "Whenever he brings up the topic of job seeking, I feel like I'm going to cry. It felt like I was being embarrassed rather than being with a partner." Watching this, Lee Hyo-ri pointed out, "It's exhausting. I'd rather be criticized. Everyone should worry about themselves."

However, it was difficult to explain the conflict solely through Park's attitude. Jeong was also unable to reduce her spending despite having no stable income. She revealed that she had broken her savings as many as five times, and not only receives nail art every month, but also recently spent 800,000 won on hair extensions. As it was also revealed that she hindered her boyfriend's additional training for a qualification exam out of competitiveness, the couple's problem expanded beyond economic concepts to issues of anxiety, inferiority complexes, and competitiveness within the relationship.

In particular, when it was revealed that Jeong's entire fortune was only 5 million won, Seo Jang-hoon's criticism became even harsher. He pointed out, "Is it right to spend 800,000 won on a hair appointment when that is all the money you have saved?" and "You can do nails and hair, but you aren't making any profit anywhere, and while not working, you only engage in actions that continuously spend money." He continued to emphasize that both people need a sense of reality, saying, "The boyfriend lost one-third of his entire fortune through stocks and the girlfriend lost one-fifth, and they are okay with each other."

A more fundamental problem is that both are postponing the future in different ways rather than solving their current instability. For Park, stock investment functioned as a desire to overturn his situation all at once following his failure in the labor market and burnout, whereas for Jeong, managing her appearance and spending appeared as a way to forget the unstable reality through immediate satisfaction. Of course, an individual's consumption and investment choices cannot be judged simply as right or wrong. However, the behavior of repeatedly breaking savings and concentrating assets in high-risk investments while having no income carries the same problem from the perspective of economic independence, just in different forms.

When Jeong said, "I like coffee, so I want to open a cafe," Seo Jang-hoon reacted even more strongly. He pointed out that a cafe is already a highly competitive industry, saying, "What an elementary school-like idea," and Lee Hyo-ri also mentioned her husband Lee Sang-soon's experience running a cafe, saying, "There was a huge craze with people lining up, but the profit was not large. Cafes are truly dangerous."

The reason their conflict draws attention is not simply that one person wastes money and the other loses money through stocks. It is closer to a realistic landscape in that the social phenomenon of 'resting,' youth employment instability, the investment craze, self-management consumption, and vague illusions about starting a business were all revealed simultaneously within the daily life of one couple. Ultimately, what is important in a relationship is not just who earns more and who spends more. Whether one shifts responsibility to the partner when facing an unstable reality or coldly reflects on one's own choices can be an important criterion that determines the sustainability of the relationship.