'The World of the Married' is a roller coaster of emotions since the very first episode. The amount of times I deeply held my breath throughout the whole drama is countless. We have a group of the most realistic and flawed characters ever, I believe everyone who watches this drama can agree and say that they know at least one person for every character portrayed here. I wouldn't know how to start getting deeper about this masterpiece with this review, but I think the most important thing is to start by the main characters.

We have Ji Sun Woo as a very strong and independent woman who got to be an associate director of the most important clinic in her city and got a huge house and somewhat stable marriage all by herself and her strong personality, who found out about her husband cheating and realized that everyone around but her knew. This is such a strong first episode that got me in shock for hours, great start. We see her at her best and worst, all while trying to keep her son and getting back at her husband, or simply trying to get back on her feet despite all the things she had to go through because of a cheating husband. What I admire the most about her is that no matter how much she hit rock-bottom, even at her worst she was still able to stand up for herself and defend herself against anyone trying to humiliate her or her son. She was truly the strongest character in the whole drama, while being amazingly flawed as well. Something that I can never excuse her about is how bad of a mother she was as well (pre getting Joon Young back). Because she worked too much, she forgot that she also needed to be a caring mother and the physically emotional support for her son; financially providing isn't everything in a family, especially not for a teenager who had to go through his parents' divorce in such a dramatic way. Blaming Joon Young for his attitude through the drama is very shallow, considering how awful his parents were.

Lee Tae Oh managed to be the worst character in K-Drama history all through the end. I hated every bit of his personality, how selfish and pathetic he was, the fact that he came back to Gosan just to make his ex-wife's life miserable, when he was living well by himself and she was barely starting anew. He proved how delusional cheating men can be, especially after finding out that their ex-lover may be moving on with their lives. It's funny to think that LTO is not even a reach of a character or fictional at all; cheating men are the first to try to get back at their ex-lovers and not find peace once again in their lives. I remember pausing episode 7 or 8 multiple times when Sun Woo went to Jenny's welcoming party and how Tae Oh tried to ridicule her continuously and actually succeeded at that moment. This man really proved himself to be the worst man in history.

Lee Joon Young was obviously a brat and an incredibly annoying teenager and I could rarely understand his anger. Of course we know he was the biggest victim of their parents' mess and his attitude was simply a collateral of everything his parents did to him, directly or not. But one thing that was hard for me to get was the hatred and disgust he showed to his mom. Sun Woo was definitely an annoying mom during those 2 years for what we saw after the time slip, and I get that he must've been very annoyed at her overprotective self, but whenever he told her that he was embarrassed about her, that she was the talk of the town and he hated it, I just couldn't justify him. He grew up the closest to his dad, so it's obvious that he would be trash too, but no matter how messy his life got he really shouldn't have made his mom feel like that when all she ever did was trying to provide for him and take him away from all the mess. Of course, her love was flawed and she was unstable, but he got on my nerves so much. Though after he came back from Da Kyung's house, I definitely understood his actions more since they were a lot more rational. Overall, he was the most pitiful of every character here.

Yeo Da Kyung was my second favorite character here. Yes, the first one is Sun Woo and Da Kyung is right there. She got on my nerves a big lot in the first episodes because of her shameless attitude and how she tried to act all worthy and offended when Sun Woo told her parents about her cheating and pregnancy, but till the end she was the second strongest of everyone here. I'm not going to romanticize cheating with this statement at all, cheating IS wrong and is never excused. That's why I think that Da Kyung was such a strong lady because she put up with everyone's criticism and managed to lead a family born from breaking another family and succeed at it. Of course her family's wealth played the biggest role and it showed that even if you break a family, as long as you're rich all will be good. But her personality was still impressive, how she faced Sun Woo with her head up every time, how she held the worst in and acted like all was good when she was dying inside; even how she managed Joon Young's attitude was pretty impressive. She was quick to read through him and understand him better than his parents all his life, but still, what she did was definitely wrong and she paid the consequence of that: if someone cheated with you, they will cheat on you.

Let's get to Je Hyuk and Ye Rim. I must confess I liked Je Hyuk a lot a bit after the beginning even when he was a cheater and basically trash and I kind of supported his sleeping with Sun Woo, mainly for her but also for him and I blame myself for this, of course. He was trash at the beginning and again, he showed how cheating men only realize what they lost after they lose it and find themselves trying to get it back no matter how. Ye Rim was also very strong but I also believe her strength came a bit from lack of self-love. She knew her husband was cheating way before Sun Woo but she still put up with all that, probably because she thought she didn't deserve anything better. After time passed and they got back together, I was again rooting for them because they did look cute together and Je Hyuk did show a drastic change, so it looked like he was sincere about her. But I guess I am satisfied with the ending of these two, since rebuilding trust is a really, really hard process that takes a lot of regression and effort. I'm just a little annoyed at the portrayal of a man moving on and getting a young lover because he's hot and handsome, while the woman simply tries to live her life working for herself because she's old and can't date anyone new.

Dr. Kim Yoon Ki was the strangest character in this show. I never figure his role and I think there are a lot of people who feel like this too. We thought he would be Sun Woo's love interest and although he was definitely there for her, his feelings were never reciprocated as she never showed more emotions than a comfortable friend to hang out with. Then I thought he was there to betray her (after the conversation with Chariman Yeo) but that wasn't the case. Also thought that he may then be there for Joon Young as his permanent psychiatrist and become like a new father for him but that wasn't the case either, so at the end his character was just there as an accessory of the plot whenever it was needed. It's kind of a huge waste of a character since he had all the potential to start something with Sun Woo, even if it was just a softly hinted romance. At the end of the day, he did save her life and took care of her a lot, but she never even thanked him, nor did we get any romance line between them, so until the end I never understood his real role on the drama, so I feel like his character was just a huge waste.

The second worst character after Lee Tae Oh in this drama is Seol Myung Sook. She was selfish, hypocrite, shallow and all the worst things from a person and a friend and I don't understand why Sun Woo kept her around until the end. I don't think we even got a proper explanation about why she was such a huge hypocrite and how she kept informing Tae Oh about everything Sun Woo did, or how she didn't show any type of support for Sun Woo during the women's association meetings. I don't think a few drinks at one's house could solve all the damage she actually provoked to Sun Woo and how much she sucked whenever she was on screen. She was Sun Woo's closest friend but she never even told her about his cheating, seriously? I don't think Myung Sook ever got punishment either or something that would make her snap from her ridiculous world.

This drama had so many more remarkable characters but I don't want to make this review too long, so I'll just say that Da Kyung's parents were the worst type of parents: they support their children's decisions (good) without ever reasoning with them (bad) and then try to make up for their children's mistakes (terrible). Scolding isn't reasoning, so the fact that Da Kyung's mom scolded her a lot and tried to talk her out of that relationship with Tae Oh, they never really punish her for anything and it showed on her ability to do whatever she wanted without thinking of the consequences. I would've liked an ending that wasn't so settling for her parents, but I guess it's nice that they didn't even show them at the end.

Anyway, now to conclude this review, this drama is certainly a no-miss for people who enjoy more mature dramas, with real life situations that can teach you a lot and make you open your eyes a lot regarding marriage and many other deep topics in life. I'll definitely give it a 9.5 and anticipate most actors' future works.