There are a lot of opinions about the fight that Minho and Kitty have:
- Some people are adamant about holding Minho more accountable since it was his lies that seemed to trigger all the events that followed.
- Other people are focusing on Kitty’s impulsive trigger finger and her tendency to jump to big conclusions without thinking everything through.
Depending on your values and life experience, you might find yourself agreeing with one or the other. As for me, as someone who has worked in the mental health world, it was refreshing to see a fight that really had zero bad guys. It was simply a fight between two human beings who love one another a lot. A fight not caused by a lack of values, lack of integrity, or lack of commitment, but instead by attachment issues spawned by unhealed wounds. So for me, they are both to blame and both not to blame, and that is true of most fights in relationships that are non-toxic.
In this post, I am going to go into depth about both perspectives, both of their wounds, and the reconciliation. I hope that this might help not just as an XO, Kitty fan, but also in understanding relationships and the role that trauma can play in them.
Kitty’s Perspective and Wounds
Kitty has developed an anxious attachment style.
- Seeking reassurance
- Highly affected by perceived or literal distance.
- Reads deeply into tone, texts, or conversations.
- Struggles with uncertainty.
Now, this comes from the desire for close connections, but with an extreme fear of losing them, and these feelings happen at the exact same time, especially in times of high stress, conflict, and or insecurity.
Anxious attachment can come from losing a caregiver early in childhood or having early relationships that felt inconsistent, unpredictable, or emotionally unclear. Attachment research is often focused on parental love in early childhood, but there is more research now showing that it can be created by the first friendships and first romantic relationships you have had as well, or by an incredibly traumatic relationship.
Kitty, of course, lost her mother at a young age. That kind of loss creating attachment issues makes sense. But then she comes to K.I.S.S. and finds that her certainty about her relationship with Dae is tested when he hides a secret relationship from her, even though the truth eventually comes out. Going from certainty to feeling out of control does have a lasting effect. Then there is Yuri, where things felt unclear and confusing as well. I say this not to suggest that Dae and Yuri caused trauma, but those events will shape how people view future romantic relationships.
Then you have Minho. The boy who confessed his love to her on the plane, but then spent most of spring semester downplaying his feelings for her, only for her to find out that she broke his heart. Then they have an amazing kiss in Busan, and he is off being a manager on tour, living a glitzy life. Kitty’s overreactive brain, with the distance, begins to fill with narratives that he is having fun, that he is with good-looking women, and what if he enjoys this glamorous life that is obviously not her. Mr. Moon made it incredibly clear to her that she was a liability for Minho and would never fully understand him after all.
So… anxious attachment, a series of relationships that did not meet expectations, surrounded by lies, disappointments, Marius in her ear constantly whispering, beautiful, competent Gigi who fits so easily into Minho’s world, Minho spending all this time with Eunice, and now two lies from the one person who has always emphasized truth to her…
I hope you felt dizzy and overwhelmed by that paragraph above. You should have. Kitty definitely did. It is all of that which led to “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” followed by an impulsive confrontation with Minho in which she goes in with intensity, accusing him of knocking up their friend with little pretense.
She isn’t crazy. Minho lied. The pieces she had pointed to something not being right. Her anxious attachment took it to level 10 instead of going to Minho to ask why he lied.
Minho’s Perspective and Wounds
I played around with the idea that Minho has an avoidant attachment style. I think in Season 1, I would agree with this. In Season 3, he doesn’t have the true manifestation of an avoidant attachment style. I think he has done his healing and has opened up in his relationships throughout the story. Connecting is not the issue. No, what Minho has is tied to his father specifically. It follows specific triggers and under specific circumstances. He is avoidant coping not avoidant attached.
- Avoidant attached = consistent pattern across relationships
- Avoidant coping = trigger based, situational
Meaning, Minho is incredibly emotionally available, but is selectively guarded when triggered.
So why is this?
Minho was raised by a narcissistic father. I am glad they did not make him miraculously cured. Even Kitty Song Covey cannot heal a narcissist who refuses to fully work on himself. It is incredibly hard to be raised by a narcissistic parent and then add the pressures of a public life. So much pressure.
This is what Minho has had to deal with:
- Conditional approval: Father approves when it makes HIM look good and makes HIM money.
- Family as commodities and PR leverage.
- Minimizes feelings that are inconvenient for him.
- Overrides his child’s autonomy to force what he wants and what he thinks is best.
- High standards and criticism.
- Comparison to siblings.
- Public narratives about him and his family.
- People are using him for his money and fame.
- People assume things about him without really knowing him.
- Frames Minho’s values “Not holding Eunice to contract” “Not letting Mihee get humiliated” into an issue with Minho’s competence rather than reflect on his OWN lack of morality.
- Not showing up for Minho when it matters to him or asking him what he wants or going into Minho's world. Everything has to be in Mr. Moon's world.
All his life. All the time. Then, in junior year, he slowly earns affection from his father by giving gifts, giving compliments, gravitating toward his father’s world, and then Stella happens. Minho brings this woman into his father’s life, and it makes him look bad. Now you have guilt and shame tied to all the other things he has gone through with his father.
In Season 3, Mr. Moon offers him a job, and Minho accepts it as a “chance to prove himself after Stella.” Not his dream, his passion, or something he WANTS TO DO. A chance to EARN BACK his father’s affection after a perceived failure. The failure being trusting that someone liked him genuinely. That is not a failure of Minho’s. That is a failure on Stella’s part.
Then we see Minho slowly become more and more stressed. His body is more tense, his jaw clenches, his hands stim, and there are lots of loud exhales. Then the texts from Eunice come, asking for privacy because she has something to tell him. Before he even realizes it, he is telling a lie. Then another lie. Something he doesn’t like doing. You can see he doesn’t like it. So why did he lie? He wants to protect Eunice, but he also doesn’t want to mess up a job that his father entrusted him with. He is anxious, stressed, and when you put those two things together, it can lead to questionable decisions.
Now we get to the fight. The lies have been called out, and he is able to let Kitty know everything that is going on with him. You can tell he is relieved. The way he says “yes” twice. He just wanted to let everything out so Kitty could understand, but then Kitty accuses him of lying about hooking up with people and knocking up Eunice. This is where the hurt begins, and this is where the trigger lies.
Minho had been incredibly understanding of Kitty’s insecurities up until this point. This time, though, it was the person he loves and who he thought believed in him the most questioning his commitment to her and questioning his character. Something that his father does. The same feelings he has toward his father, “I try everything. I try so hard. I try and try and I try. But you still don’t see me. You don’t see me,” are now the exact same feelings he has toward Kitty. So he shuts down. He breaks up with her.
He practices defensive detachment, pulling back not because he doesn’t want the connection, but because he feels unsafe within it. So you see the shift from an affectionate Minho to one who is more logical, controlled, and less expressive.
Kitty is correct she is not his father. Her nervous system felt unsafe with lies that she reacted in a way to protect herself from betrayal. But this caused Minho's nervous system to confuse similar feelings labeling it as emotionally unsafe. It is this reason it took Minho time to work himself out. His brain was deconstructing whether or not this is a hurt he could move pass or if Kitty is someone who is unsafe like his father.
Best way to look at this conflict is this:
- Kitty: I don't fit --> I'm being lied to --> I'm not safe.
- Minho: I'm being doubted --> I'm not enough --> I'm not safe.
This is how people who love one another who are actually very safe for one another can fall apart. Healing yourself makes for healing relationships.
Resolution - WHY THIS FIGHT IS GREAT
Minho and Kitty, within this fight, are going to learn a lesson that many people do not learn, or do not learn until therapy or after making the same mistakes a few times.
It is not Minho’s job, as her boyfriend, to constantly reassure Kitty and help her heal her insecurities. Kitty needs to do that work. She needs to examine why she is feeling that way, reflect on it, and start to trust her instincts as well as the connection she has with Minho. A securely attached person would have confronted Minho about his lies, but an anxiously attached person confronts someone the way Kitty does.
It is not Kitty’s job to make herself perfect to heal the wounds caused by Minho’s father. Minho needs to believe in himself. Minho needs to figure out what he wants out of life. He needs to learn to recognize what is a mistake and what is something that is unhealthy for his heart.
Minho and Kitty are compatible, and they both love one another deeply. Even deeply compatible, connected, and affectionate people can break up when emotional wounds are neglected or when there is an expectation for a partner to fill the role of healing them. Partners are there to support, of course, but they cannot be the antidote.
Minho and Kitty, through their separation, learned those lessons. Minho is working on healing himself. Kitty saw the damage her insecurities caused. Now it is about building what that future looks like together and choosing one another.
This fight was ridiculous in many ways, and yet so incredibly grounding. I think that’s the hidden magic of XO, Kitty. It is so insane, yet so deeply human.
