By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter

Who is more to blame for divorce ― a husband who keeps contacting his ex-girlfriend via cell phone text messages, or a wife who monitors the husband's messages every day?

A court ruled: the husband.

A 31-year-old man, Park, exchanged ``flirtatious messages'' with an ex-girlfriend after marrying another woman, Shin, last year. After the wife found out, he changed the girl's name registered in his cell phone to a male name and kept exchanging text messages with her.

Shin again discovered it, and Park stopped. However, Shin began to keep an eye on her husband. She created a folder in their computer named ``husband observation'' and recorded the dates Park came home late, reasons why, also his text message and phone call records.

After roughly six months both filed for divorce, claiming the other was responsible for the broken marriage.

A court handling family affairs in Seoul ruled Monday that the husband had a bigger responsibility, ordering him to pay 40 million won in compensation to the wife.

``Park broke the trust between husband and wife by not severing relations with his former lover. Shin's monitoring of Park's life was a consequent countermeasure to uncover the husband's extramarital affairs,'' the court said in the ruling.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr