Kim Jong-guk, married one year, calls emotional texting with another person grounds for divorce

"That is infidelity" — no meeting required

Singer Kim Jong-guk married last September. On September 10, he sat down with divorce specialist lawyer Park Min-chul for a YouTube video on 박민철 변호사의 미치고. They discussed real consultation cases and where the line falls between acceptable and infringing behavior between spouses.

The scenario: a spouse exchanged messages with someone of the opposite sex. "I will marry you in the next life." "I really miss you." "Should we go to Busan tomorrow morning?" No actual meeting. No physical contact. When the case was read aloud, Kim Jong-guk exhaled an audible "Aish" before declaring flatly, "That is infidelity."

Park Min-chul clarified that the spouse never went to Busan and nothing physical happened. Kim held his position.

"Even so, it is infidelity. This is grounds for divorce," Kim said, drawing a hard line.

His reasoning centered on emotional priority, not physical contact. "Those messages are saying 'you are someone I depend on emotionally more than my spouse,' aren't they?" he said. Physical transgressions were different in his mind. "Physical mistakes are not something I'm okay with either, but in reality many people overlook such things and continue their marriage." Emotional betrayal, he argued, was harder to move past.

What the law actually says

Park Min-chul backed Kim's instinct with case law. "The key standard in case law is whether emotional exchange was shared with a person of the opposite sex," the lawyer said. Such a relationship "can be judged as a much more serious form of infidelity and can be grounds for divorce."

Kim announced his marriage to a non-celebrity woman last September and held a private ceremony with family and close acquaintances only.