Hana Chan

She views everything through the lens of what will make herself happy and cannot grasp that other people might want something different. It has been painfully obvious from the instant she first laid eyes on the Duke and getting Gladys to marry had zero to do with wanting her daughter to be happy and everything to do with her endless social climbing. In her mind, Gladys is a silly girl who doesn't know what she wants because if she did, then she would want the exact things that Bertha wants. The wedding night was full of ick feelings, but it wasn't unexpected. The marriage had to be consummated in order to be legitimate and avoid any chances of being annulled so I'm not surprised that the Duke pushed to get it over with. He didn't seem particularly eager (as in, he was so overcome with passion that he couldn't keep his hands off his wife). It was just another chore to be taken care of before he could get some sleep. And like most women of her time, Gladys had to do along and do her "wifely duties" because that was what she was expected to do. For a girl who was barely allowed to even talk to young men her won age, let alone have any kind of relationships, that had ato be a pretty disheartening introduction to the marriage bed.

Well, color me mildly dissapointed that the show followed the Consuelo Vanderbilt story and Gladys married the Duke. I had been holding out that she would balk at the last second and run away, leaving the Duke and her parents humiliated. Then we could have had the fun of watching the Duke try to sue the Russels for breach of contract, Bertha is left socially ruined and Gladys could go off to marry a cattle rancher in Wyoming and find her own happiness. And whatever affection I might have had for Bertha and her drive is now replaced with disgust. She watched her daughter being all but dragged down the aisle in tears, looking about as miserable as possible, and her response? "Let me enjoy this." Whatever facade of wanting her daughter to have a prominent place in society and being able to actually accomplish something meaningful is wiped away because Bertha can't help but reveal that this was all about herself. Her place in society. Now her daughter is a duchess, but what good is that actually going to do for Bertha? As for George, he betrayed his daughter in the worst way possible. He broke his one promise to her and did nothing to stand in Bertha's way. So now his daughter is trapped in a marriage that she doesn't want and is now far from whatever support she could hope from her family and Bertha gets to bask in all of her glory. My hope is that she starts to get some real blowback over this marriage, because no one watching that ceremony could come away with any illusion that Gladys wasn't absolutely miserable. And that Bertha sold her daughter for nothing more than some bragging rights. I'm hoping that this is finally the step too far for Bertha and she suffers some real consequences because this does feel like the dog finally catching the car kind of moment. As for Marian and Larry... yeah, there is no way that Bertha isn't going to not cause problems for their relationship. Yay for Jack making a real fortune (and side eyeing Larry for getting 50% for doing nothing more than opening a few doors for Jack, but he is his father's son). I totally get why Jack isn't quitting his job immediately. Let the check clear and let him take some time to decide what he wants to do moving forward. He's now got the security to live comfortably and hopefully spend time creating new inventions. He's clever at figuring things out and improving on what has already been developed so he's got a lot of potential. But good on him for taking a few moments to decide what his next steps are. As for Peggy and her handsome hot doctor suitor, she is dealing with a real potential monster-in-law. The colorism and snobbery from the black elite is fascinating and there is so much internalized racism - I could write a thesis on the subject. But it's obvious that they see the closer they are to whiteness, the better and Peggy's father, who accomplished so much after being emancipated, is looked upon with derision and not respect. And as bad as it is with Peggy's independence and political activities being looked down upon, it's going to get even worse when the truth about Peggy's first marriage and her son is revealed. Hope that hot doctor has some real balls because thus far, he hasn't shown that much. Ada continues to grate on my nerves and now we get the medium. I have the feeling that Agnes is going to have to save her sister from being conned out out every last penny.

Except that under common law in England (and the US) at that time, men had nearly complete control over whatever property was owned by the couple. Any property owned by the wife during or prior to the marriage technically was controlled by the husband and the wife had limited rights to the property. So while George fully wants these funds to be for Gladys, there is nothing under the law to prevent the Duke from taking control over the funds if he wished.

One thing that I was learning about is that cultured pearls really didn't become a thing until around 1893 when Mikimoto was able to start mass producing pearls, so most pearls that we see earlier than that were natural. That made them infinitely more expensive since it was rare to be able to get enough pearls of similar size and color to make jewelry like Gladys's choker. It is entirely possible (and more likely probable) that Gladys's necklace was a fake. It would be interesting to see a storyline focusing on the women that society decided were no longer suitable to socialize with. We've already seen how Mrs. Chamberlain was treated and we know that Aurora is likely to become a social pariah with her pending divorce. Agnes is starting to be shut out and if Gladys defies her mother and refuses to marry, she also might find herself socially ruined. I would love to see some focus on these women going on and picking up the pieces and finding happiness free from the judgement of that bunch of snobs.

The bigger question is why would we really want to side with any of these people? Why is one group of sickeningly wealthy people better than the other group of sickeningly wealthy people? George didn't earn his fortune bloodlessly. He left a lot of ruined lives in his wake. And the Astors hands aren't exactly clean either. Bertha, IMO, was always destined to reach this point because there is no "enough" for her. It was never going to be enough to be the top dog of the NY social scene. There was always one more prize to strive for and no limits to what she would go to in order to get what she wants. With the measures she had taken to control Gladys, it's not unbelievable that she would go to the lengths she has in pushing for this marriage. The only question is if Gladys will have the backbone to stop this runaway train that she's trapped on. George is also plagued by the "never enough" flaw, in that against good advice he is staking his entire fortune on his venture that has a high probability for failure. He and his wife may learn that there are some mistakes that you can't escape the consequences of.

A wife only has what influence that her husband permits her to have. The way things are set up now. Gladys will have very little power in this marriage. She might have the freedom to engage in some frivolous social activities, but with Duke working a way to have complete control over all the money (including the allowance that George wants set up for her use), she'll get to do only what the Duke permits. If he wants to keep her stashed away at one of the countryside residences while he keeps busy in London, she won't have any real power to push back. Bertha has a tremendous amount of power in her marriage because her husband respects her (though with the way this whole thing played out, it can be argued that she has too much power). We have seen with what is happening with the Fanes that without the willingness of the husband to support his wife, things can be very unpleasant in the end.

To be completely fair, that was due to Bertha. She kept Gladys socially a child for quite a while longer than her peers and even after her debut, kept her daughter on an extremely short leash. Gladys wasn't permitted to socialize with people her own age except under very tightly controlled conditions. We know that the instant anyone was daring enough to make a courtship overture towards her, it was ruthlessly snuffed out. And to be fair, I don't blame her suitors for being intimidated by her parents. Each time she had a serious suitor, they were threatened with being financially ruined by either George or Bertha and both these young men were not in social or financial position to tell the Russels to go pound sand. However much either of these young men might have loved Gladys, they weren't going to risk their futures over picking a fight with her parents.

I think that Ada is working through a lot of resentment she had in how Agnes had lorded over her for so many years. Being beholden to a sibling for financial support has to be painful and she probably has a lot of issues over not marrying younger and having the chance for her own children instead of being the spinster sister. Not that Agnes doesn't have just as much right to be resentful right now. She didn't marry for love, but out of a sense of obligation to help herself and Ada survive. Unlike Ada, who had the privilege of getting to wait until she had a real love match, Agnes felt that she had to marry wealth in order to ensure that they didn't end up on the streets. And she did protect Ada from suitors that were only interested in whatever money she might bring to a marriage. Now she was the one left in financial distress and Ada is the one holding the purse strings and holding that largess over Agnes's head. The thing is that while I understand where Ada is coming from, and I'm not downplaying that Agnes wasn't on her high horse every waking moment, Ada's behavior since their roles were reversed is pretty bad. There's no gratitude that Agnes provided for her for many years and now it's her turn to carry the load. There's no sympathy that Agnes's fortune was lost due to no fault other than trusting her son and that if Ada's husband hadn't left her money, Agnes still would have tried to provide for her by selling the house and whatever other valuables she had. Instead of allowing Agnes to maintain some dignity by sharing responsibilities and authority in the household and (as others had proposed) allowing her an allowance so that she could personally support her causes and not funnel everything through Ada to avoid the kind of social erasure she fears, Ada just marches on as the new lady of the manor. And if Ada had some competence in handling the household, I wouldn't have so many issues. She wonders why the staff don't seem respect her in the way they do Agnes, and she misses the point that Agnes respects the boundaries of what is appropriate to ask of her staff. She doesn't involve herself in their personal lives outside of work unless that impacts how they do their jobs. Ada keeps pushing her temperance pledge and doesn't recognize that this puts the staff in a very difficult situation. Either they bend to her wishes, or they might find their employment at risk. It was one thing for her to ask them once and after they rejected the idea, let it go. But she's like a dog with a bone. I'm not at all surprised that the only member of the staff to sign was Ms. Armstrong because we did get a small glimpse of what her life was outside the home. Having an abusive parent (who likely had been a drinker) would make temperance very appealing.

Oh, I totally agree that from a business point of view, it made absolutely no sense. George drew his line in the sand, the Duke rejected it and that should have been the end of it. Except then Bertha came along and erased that line. For all her insistence that George handle the business while she handled the family, she inserted herself into a business negotiation and put George in a place where he was negotiating from a much weaker position. He had told Hector what his final offer was, and then Hector was able to counter with Bertha's assurance that he could get more. And I'm endlessly amused at how Bertha kept insisting that Gladys and Hector were well suited (whereas the Delancey girl wasn't). What was her basis to think that? What common interests do they have? Do they share ambitions or goals in life? The only thing that justifies forcing this marriage is that Glady's family has the money that the Duke wants/needs and that Hector has the social status that Bertha aspires to.

Bertha made sure that he was her only option. Somehow, I can't see a man who is so hungry for money that he would be willing to take the allowance that George is arranging for Gladys that would give her a measure of financial independence is going to end up being a good husband.

It seems that it's very possible that the dowery itself that might be the financial bridge too far for the Russels. George has a tremendous amount staked on his new venture and now he has to deplete his resources in order to satisfy the Duke's demands. He's in so deep now that upon viewing a second time, I'm not shocked that he went back on his promise to Gladys. Bertha had her husband cornered and left no choice but to go along with her outlandish plans. As for Gladys, she also was left with no options. Bertha had run off every other suitor who probably would have made more than decent husbands and put her in the situation where marrying Hector was her only option. Sure, he's being pleasant enough to her, and honest to a degree. But she doesn't know that her father wanted to secure her having some kind of financial independence and Bertha just gave that away too. The girl who was kept in an artificial childhood state by her mother so that the biggest debut could be staged is now going to be forced into the "wedding of the century" to appease her mother's hunger for social status. It is rather unusual for the wedding to be happening so quickly, as a relatively long engagement is more the norm during this era. This allowed the couple to socialize and get to know one another, but it also gave the chance for disqualifying information to air before the wedding. Ending an engagement because one partner proved unsuitable was a lot less socially damaging than divorce. But given how reluctant Gladys has been through the whole process, I'm not surprised that Bertha is trying to rush her down the aisle before she has the opportunity to change her mind.

He had no reason to be mean to her, but it was his interactions with Bertha and George that were more telling about his real nature. He's in this solely for the money. If he wasn't going to get it by marrying Gladys, he'd very happily find some other rich family that would. He's got no personal interested in Gladys - she's just a means to an end. Look at his response when George proposed an investment that would provide Gladys her own income. He wasn't at all enthusiastic about that idea and was only appeased when Bertha assured him that Glady's money would be his to use. He's going to take the Russels for every dollar he can, and all he has to do is marry someone that he sees as a silly little girl who could be ignored whenever her presence became inconvenient. The problem is that Bertha has been so obvious in trying to get this marriage arranged that she gave the Duke all of the power when it came to negotiating. She hamstrung George, who is normally very strong in business negotiations, by telling Hector that he can ask for anything he wants. And she made it impossible to pull the plug on the whole thing when the dowry price got too high because she made this such public knowledge. It would have been humiliating for the family if the deal fell though, so George had little choice but to keep shoveling money at Hector until the pile was high enough.

How he appears in public during this kind of negotiation is likely very different from how he is back in England. He wasn't exactly hiding his greed, extracting every penny he could from George and Bertha gave him the means to do so. She's so obvious in her eagerness to marry Gladys off to him that Hector fully understands that he could demand whatever he wants and he's probably going to get it. Even getting assured that the money that George wants to go to Gladys directly will go to him instead, all because Bertha wants to crow about her daughter marrying into English nobility. And Bertha certainly set things up to make it impossible for any of them to back out when she made it public that an engagement was forthcoming. When it almost looked like Hector was seeking greener pastures (and returned only because that patriarch genuinely did care about the happiness of his daughter and less about social advancement), Bertha pulled out all the stops to get Hector to agree to the marriage. She closed off every avenue of escape for Gladys by running off her suitor (who proved that absence makes the heart go yonder) and putting the family reputation on the line. During the hiccup during the negotiations, it was obvious that she was only concerned about any social embarrassment at having the Duke getting away and completely ignoring the relief on her daughter's face. George wins the "wet noddle" award in how he caved in to Bertha. For a man who is so ruthless in business, it's pretty astonishing how he allows his wife to completely roll over everyone including his own children. He broke his promise to his daughter and once that happened, Gladys knew she had no way out. I felt so horrible for her because she was left with no choice at all but to go through with her mother's plans regardless of what she really wanted.

She's never had to run a household, so mistakes are to be expected. But pressing her personal beliefs on the staff is not that kind of error. These people depend on their employment to survive and gathering the whole staff and trying to press them into signing a pledge is taking advantage of her position. It's not a big stretch for her to make signing the pledge a condition of their continued employment, and they would have no recourse since labor laws were pretty non-existent at this point. I'm not totally surprised that out of the staff, only Mrs. Armstrong signed as we've already seen that she would be in pretty destitute shape if she lost her job. As far as the rest Ada's attitude, it's already wearing thin. Self-righteousness is never a good look and it's already starting to really grate on me. Looking forward to when Agnes reaches her "no fucks left to give" moment with Ada.

The thing is that Bertha is so focused on social climbing that I don't she would really care about any of these potential flaws, because none of them would impact Gladys being able to take her place in English society. If anything, she might see flaws like that as a means for Gladys to be able to control her husband. What we likely will find out (and not until after it's too late) is that the Duke is flat broke and that the only reason he was willing to marry Gladys was her dowery. Even that would not be likely to deter Betha, because the Duke's economic situation would have nothing to do with his social status.

Bertha may think that she's in control of this situation and that she is making the Duke an offer that he won't refuse, but I don't think that he's going to be satisfied with just Gladys and whatever dowery that the Russels might be willing to offer. Showing up with a lawyer means that he's come prepared for some very hard negotiations and is going to try extract every penny he possibly can from them. Bertha has already made it clear that she's willing to sacrifice her daughter's independence and potential happiness for whatever social advantage she thinks that having her marry into English nobility might bring, but it's becoming clear that this match is going to cost her and George a great deal more.

Well this episode was quite a ride. Lots of interesting things happening. The Russel Household Yes, we all saw the writing on the wall that Gladys's beau was going to fold like an old lawn chair the instant he was confronted with having to fight for his intended. He might love Gladys, but just like her last suitor, Billy is not going to risk his economic future for her. Not only was Bertha promising to ruin Billy's prospects, but to cut off her daughter completely. Not a surprise that she was able to strongarm Gladys back home and ready to gift wrap her for the Duke. George seemed to get his business house in order (for now), but he failing at home. Bertha is not telling him the truth about her dealing with Hector, and she's drawn her line in the sand that she has total control over her children's lives. Note, she said "children" and not just Gladys, which bodes ill for Larry's romantic prospects. Curious to see what it's going to take for George to start standing up to her on their children's lives and how this is going to affect their own marriage. The Van Rijn/Forte Household Well, for now Ada runs the roost but she's clearly showing a side of her that I'm not really liking. Besides being dismissive of her sister (who had financially supported her for so long), she's also intrusive on the private lives of the household staff. Asking them to sign a temperance pledge was inappropriate to say the very least, and she seems to be enjoying her power over Agnes a bit too much. While she holds control now, I don't think this little power struggle is over. Marian continues to be... there. And nice to see Peggy having a potentially healthy relationship with the handsome doctor. I'm hoping that we're going to start seeing more of what upper-class black society was at the time since Peggy clearly comes from a very well to do family. The Fanes I hereby nominate Charles Fane for "Asshole of the Year". Parading his mistress around to deliberately humiliate his wife in public so he can force her hand into filing for divorce? Obviously he doesn't care what happens to Aurora, or even his own social status (though as a man, he's going to suffer far less than other of the two women in his life). And with Mrs. Astor seeing what is going on and making her opinion known by walking out of the charity function, it's clear that Aurora is aready on her way to being ostracized.

The reunion between Sae-byeok's brother and their mother likely was facilitated by the money that Gi-hun left when he brought the boy to Sang-woo's mother. I doubt that In-ho had anything to do with No-eul's potential reunion unless he knew that she had survived and broken away from the games. While I do think that in-ho is changed by Gi-hun's sacrifice (and the knowledge that when presented with the exact same choices that he was chose differently), he's still with the games. The box that he presented Gi-hun's daughter had the game logo on it and he was riding in one of the game SUVs, so he's still part of the system. But the shift is there. He wanted to prove t0 Gi-hun (and to himself) that under the right circumstances that all people would throw anyone else under the bus (or stab them in the back). He wanted Gi-hun win and to join his outlook. Instead Gi-hun proved that he would not give up his basic humanity. So when the next games roll around and In-ho has to watch desperate people risking their lives for the chance to dig themselves out of impossible economic holes, I'm not sure that he will see the games in the same way. And maybe he won't stand by to see the next Gi-hun die.

As a writer (and a student of political science), this ending made perfect sense to me. While I was hoping that Gi-hun would survive a second time, I knew from the beginning that this was not likely to happen. The whole point of the series is an indictment on capitalism and how it has affected society (South Korean society in particular, but all societies in reality). There is no escaping the game. Even if you "win", you don't get out. There is no getting out of the system that we all live in. You either just go along and hope to survive, or you become an active participant with full awareness of what being in this system entails. You either try to play without harming others, or you don't care so long as you benefit. And there are those at the very top, the 0,0001% who have no caring at all for the rest of society and just want to hoard even more wealth while flaunting their lavish lifestyles. Look at the Bezos wedding happening at the same time, where the estimated $55 million being spent could have been used to help any of a number of good causes. But we know that people like Bezos and Musk don't care about people. They just take and will happily feast on our bones when there is nothing left. At the end of season one, when Gi-hun was confronting Il-nam, they had a bet over whether humanity was good or self-serving. Gi-hun now had bet against the Front Man if even those playing the game were human and asserted his own humanity by sacrificing himself to save Jun-hee's daughter. When even the baby's own father was ready to kill her for the prize money, Gi-hun chose to die for her. In the end Gi-hun, a man who had been a tortured victim of a capitalist system that nearly destroyed him, gave up everything for the child of a stranger. His story ended as a poignant rebellion against the system that urges focusing on one's own desires and ambitions regardless of who else might suffer as a result. Gi-hun won in the sense that he saved Jun-hee's child and ensured his own daughter's financial security. He knew that it was the only way he could "win" because in this game, even when you win, you lose in the end. He recognized that despite all his efforts he couldn't break the system so he "won" in the one way he could. And the series ends with the games going on. The perpetrators - the VIPs - get away with their crimes. The Front Man, who was once in Gi-hun's shoes and now fully indoctrinated into the system, goes on as their tool (though maybe with a trace of his humanity restored). And the games continue, not just in South Korea, but around the world. We are all just players, whether we like it or not, and the system is set up against us at every turn. We have no choice but to play. What we get to decide is if we're going lose our humanity in the process.

An interesting twist, making the players directly responsible for the deaths of one another (rather than having the deaths be incidental as a result of just winning the game). Most of the players (at least the ones we are supposed to sympathize with) are not the kind to actively try to harm others but this now makes them directly complicit. And it took relatively gentle characters like Myung-gi and make them killers. Even if these players were supposed to survive, they would have to live with actively taking a life. Gi-hun's hunt for Dae-ho was positively chilling and while I agree that leaving a baby in the game is meant to shock the audience, that was entirely the point. We are really supposed to see the worst of humanity and the idea that a game that would take the most economically desperate people and make them risk their lives isn't going to shy away from putting a baby into play.

And if Aurora's husband decided to just carry on with his mistress and split his time between her and his wife, she probably would have been upset but would not have considered ending the marriage. She would have lost too much if she complained, so she would have held her nose and closed her eyes and just focused on her own life.

I agree that she would. In her mind, there is nothing worse than be be plunged into poverty, and to be fair even as a young woman she would have been ill equipped to survive being penniless. We saw how utterly helpless Marianne had been when she found that her father had squandered everything and left her with barely enough to just get to NY. Maybe Agnes and Ada could have found employment as lady's maids, but given their deep connections with society, it would have been difficult to find anyone willing to hire them and it would have been profoundly humiliating. They were all raised to be rich, pampered women and when the money ran out, they didn't have the skills to survive. So marrying a terrible husband? Even one that was abusive? Definitely preferable to being destitute. I'm looking at this from how a woman of that era would respond. Thankfully Agnes outlived her husband and was able to enjoy her well-earned wealth in peace (until Oscar fucked thing up). Her relationship with her sister is a complex one and I'm not totally surprised that there is some measure of resentment on both sides. Ada seems to be enjoying her newfound power in the household and putting her sister in her place, while Agnes is understandably upset that this change in fortune was not due to her doing, but she now is as indebted to Ada as Ada was to her at one point. For Gladys, it's a different story. She's not looking to marry someone that would be considered unsuitable by pretty much anyone else in society. Her suitor is wealthy and from an old money family and he's not that much older than her. But her mother is looking to push her into marrying someone who is only interested in her for the money that she would bring in exchange for a title that would end up being nothing more than another trinket to feed her mother's ego.

The show never went into too many details but Ada had described him as someone "you did not want to be alone with", which makes it pretty clear that at best, Agnes had a very difficult time and was probably quite relieved to be a self-sufficient widow. I would love to see a conversation between Agnes and Bertha about the perils of marrying for status and wealth vs love and what Bertha may be setting up her daughter for. Bertha is so fixated on status that she is ignoring her daughter's wishes at every turn. She said it herself that a bad marriage can be a prison and she doesn't see that she is setting up her daughter for just such a fate. She is still operating under the assumption that her daughter is a silly little girl who doesn't know what she wants and will be made happy with status and not seeing that all the status in the world will mean nothing when your husband has no use for her. And I'm curious if we're going to see real marital problems between the Russels (possibly over this issue) and all the status that Bertha has wrested for herself means nothing in the end.

Possibly, but I think it's more a case of him just having one foot firmly out the door and just not caring what his wife thinks. He's done with the marriage and it doesn't matter to him that his wife was taken by surprise and hasn't had an instant to process his intentions outside of the knowledge of how this will affect her directly. He was trying to push her to act quickly, taking advantage of her shock and making it clear that she had no choice in the matter. It was pretty cruel and cold-blooded of him.

I think that this is going to be a huge issue moving forward for Ada. She has never had to be responsible for managing the kind of wealth she has at her disposal and she is inclined to try to see the best in people. We saw how easily Oscar was taken in and conned, and Ada would be seen as an even easier mark. Every charity is going to court her benevolence and she doesn't have the experience (or even just the basic street sense) to suss out which are the ones that aren't serious and just about the money. Agnes is a bit more suspicious of peoples motives because she has seen some of the worst in behavior and has steeled herself as protection. I don't totally blame her for being suspicious about Rev. Forte and not approving of the relationship because, as you said, Ada had previously been taken in by gold diggers and it's to her good fortune that Rev. Forte didn't have any ulterior motives and did genuinely love her. Ada was very, very lucky (even with losing her husband so quickly). Or maybe that wrapping up the legal issues of dissolving the marriage would be easier there out of the clear sight of the rest of society. We know how quickly news of any kind spreads and doing it before the whole of the upper crust decamps from NYC for the summer would give them a chance to get through the courts without too much attention. I've been really considering the nuances of this issue, because while Aurora has the most to lose socially, her husband and his new perspective bride won't get off totally free either. Divorce is more socially damaging for the woman, even if she has the moral high ground (as in this case) which is entirely unfair and is the reason that women would prefer to stay in bad marriages rather than escape. For the men, it's easier but if Aurora's husband insists on marrying his mistress, that's another whole can of worms. We saw in season one how the woman who married the man she had had an affair with was treated and the same would likely happen in this situation. And while men aren't as focused on being invited to dinners and getting a box at the opera, there are consequences for them to (just not as great) in a normal divorce. It's the marrying of the mistress that would make things difficult both socially and professionally for a man, because it would show low moral character. It's one thing to remarry after the end of a marriage or the death of a spouse (in fact, men were encouraged to do so as quickly as possible). But it's entirely another thing to marry a woman of ill repute. Again, its unfair that the woman must shoulder the responsibility since both of them were in the relationship and he gets the guilt by association. And he might eventually recover socially and professionally, while the woman never does. Aurora, of course, could fight this and simply refuse to file for divorce and do what women had done historically when faced with her husband's infidelity. Turn a blind eye, let him do what he wants and go on with their separate lives. But since he seems determined to marry his mistress, this can get very ugly. One tactic he might use to try to force her compliance is to cut her off financially, so hopefully she's got funds of her own to survive until one of them relents.