"Husband Gave His Working Wife a 300,000-Won Monthly Allowance While Losing Money on Stock Investments... Is That Grounds for Divorce?" [The Law]

[Financial News]  A story has emerged about a wife who entrusted the money she and her husband earned over eight years to him and lived on a monthly allowance of just 300,000 won. She was left shocked after checking her husband's bank account.

YTN Radio's "Attorney Jo In-seop's Counseling Center" recently featured the story of a dual-income couple who had been married for eight years and had one elementary school-aged son.
According to the account, the husband, who had a science-track background and graduated from a prestigious university, had been good with numbers and calculations since they were dating. After they married, he said he would manage the money himself.
The wife, who lacked confidence with numbers, thought it would be better to entrust control of the household finances to her husband.
Throughout the marriage, the wife sent most of her monthly salary to her husband, but he gave her an allowance of only 300,000 won a month.
She had to cover all her lunch, transportation and clothing expenses with that money. Her husband also scrutinized her card transactions, asking, "Why do you drink coffee so often?" and "Who did you eat with?"
When she gave her mother a 200,000-won bag for her birthday, her husband reportedly became furious. He said she had no right to spend household money without his permission.
Yet the husband himself did not properly tell his wife how he was spending the money.
Frustrated, the wife recently checked her husband's account and was left deeply shocked. Almost none of the money they had earned through their dual-income work over the previous eight years remained in the account. It turned out that her husband had invested the money in stocks and cryptocurrency without consulting her, suffering substantial losses.
She also discovered that he had taken out personal credit loans to invest. When she confronted him, asking, "Why did you do this without consulting me?" he became angry and retorted, "How dare someone who can't manage a single penny try to take control of the finances?"
The wife, who had been unable to freely use her own income and had to walk on eggshells even when meeting friends or caring for her parents, said, "I feel so suffocated that I don't think I can continue living with him." She wondered whether her husband's financial control and unilateral management of their assets could constitute grounds for divorce.

Attorney Im Hyeong-chang said, "Even if there has been no infidelity or physical abuse, prolonged financial control and unilateral management of marital assets can constitute grounds for judicial divorce if they damage trust between the spouses to the point that it is difficult to restore."
He added, "If the husband managed even his wife's salary, invested in stocks or cryptocurrency without consulting her, and borrowed money to incur losses, the matter may be considered during the division of marital property depending on the scale of the losses. Even if most of the assets are registered in the husband's name, they may still be subject to division if they were accumulated jointly by the couple."
[email protected] Ahn Ga-eul Reporter