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I have a problem with Molly Flynn's advice to her sister Victoria.
And for once, it has nothing to do with the two women arguing over something ridiculous in their mother's house.
In the Mike & Molly episode "Gone Cheatin'," Victoria confesses that she's been unfaithful to Carl McMillan, a man who absolutely adores her.
Molly is furious.
She knows Carl is a good man. She knows he deserves better. And she doesn't hesitate to tell Victoria how badly she's behaved.
So far, I'm completely on Molly's side.
Then Victoria asks whether she should tell Carl the truth.
And Molly tells her absolutely not.
Excuse me?
You just told your sister that Carl deserves loyalty and honesty, and now you're advising her to hide the fact that she slept with another man?
Molly's reasoning is that confessing would relieve Victoria's guilt while breaking Carl's heart. If Victoria promises never to cheat again, Molly believes the kinder thing is to keep quiet.
I understand the argument.
I even understand why someone who loves both people involved might be tempted to make it.
But I don't agree with it.
When someone betrays a relationship, who gets to decide whether the truth would be too painful for the other person to hear?
The person who cheated?
The family member who knows about it?
Or the person whose trust was violated?
Because Carl wasn't given much opportunity to make that decision.
And what's even more interesting is that, toward the end of the episode, Carl seems to sense there might be something he doesn't want to know.
He chooses not to ask.
Now we've got ourselves a genuine moral dilemma.
And I think it's far more interesting than the fishing trip everyone was supposed to be enjoying.
Carl Just Wanted to Take His Girlfriend Fishing
"Gone Cheatin'" aired on CBS on December 29, 2014, as the fourth episode of Mike & Molly's fifth season.
The episode begins with Mike Biggs, played by Billy Gardell, preparing for his annual fishing trip with Carl and their friends.
It's supposed to be a guys-only weekend.
No wives.
No girlfriends.
Just fishing, drinking, and the usual nonsense that seems to accompany these men's outings.
Then Carl, played by Reno Wilson, announces that he's bringing Victoria.
Mike isn't pleased.
And when Molly discovers that Victoria has been invited while she hasn't, Mike finds himself inviting his wife to avoid an argument.
Vince ends up bringing Joyce, too.
Before anyone has even started fishing, the men's weekend has become a couples' outing.
And Carl couldn't be happier.
He's head over heels for Victoria.
He wants to spend time with her.
He talks about her affectionately, even when the other men make fun of him for being so sentimental.
I actually find that sweet.
Carl can be sarcastic, immature, and occasionally rather obnoxious. But when it comes to Victoria, he's trying to make a real relationship work.
He isn't hiding his affection.
He isn't pretending he's too masculine to care about a woman.
And he isn't embarrassed that he wants her around.
Meanwhile, Victoria has a secret.
A rather significant one.
She tells Molly that she slept with an ex-boyfriend.
And suddenly the cheerful little fishing trip becomes a nightmare for the only two people who know what happened.
Because Carl is excited about spending the weekend with the woman he loves.
And the woman he loves has just betrayed his trust.
Victoria's Sunglasses Were Apparently Worth More Than Her Judgment
I have to give the writers credit for coming up with one of the most ridiculous explanations for infidelity I've heard.
Victoria, played by Katy Mixon, tells Molly that an ex-boyfriend contacted her about a pair of sunglasses she'd left behind.
So far, nothing unusual.
People occasionally leave belongings at a former partner's home.
But this man didn't simply send a polite message saying he'd found them.
He sent Victoria a suggestive photograph involving the sunglasses and a part of his anatomy.
And Victoria went to retrieve them.
One thing led to another.
And she slept with him.
Good grief, Victoria.
Those must have been some extraordinary sunglasses.
I realize the story is intended to be funny.
Victoria is impulsive, sexually adventurous, and frequently makes decisions without thinking through the consequences.
That's part of her sitcom personality.
But I don't believe being impulsive excuses being unfaithful.
And I don't accept the explanation that something simply happened.
She received the message.
She decided to visit her ex.
And she participated in what followed.
Those were decisions.
She might regret them afterward, but regret doesn't mean she had no control over what she was doing.
What makes the situation worse is that Victoria isn't even claiming Carl has treated her badly.
She tells Molly how kind and attentive he is.
She knows he cares about her.
And she admits she cares about him, too.
So this isn't a story about a woman trying to escape a cruel or frightening relationship.
It's about someone who has a good boyfriend and makes a selfish decision anyway.
Molly understands that immediately.
She doesn't tell Victoria that Carl deserves whatever happened.
She doesn't defend the old boyfriend.
And she doesn't pretend that Victoria is an innocent victim of circumstances.
She knows her sister has done something wrong.
Which makes her next piece of advice so difficult to defend.
Molly Thinks Silence Will Protect Carl
After Victoria begins feeling sick with guilt, Molly reminds her that Carl deserves love, loyalty, and honesty.
I agree.
That's exactly what he deserves.
Then Victoria asks the obvious question.
Should she confess?
Molly immediately says no.
Her argument is that telling Carl would make Victoria feel better while making him miserable.
In Molly's view, a confession would shift the emotional burden from the guilty person to the innocent one.
And she doesn't think that's fair.
Now, there's something worth considering in that argument.
A person who confesses wrongdoing can sometimes be more concerned with relieving personal guilt than helping the person who was hurt.
Imagine someone announcing an affair, expecting immediate forgiveness, and then complaining when the betrayed partner becomes angry.
That's not taking responsibility.
That's asking the injured person to make the wrongdoer feel better.
And I wouldn't support that.
If Victoria tells Carl, she shouldn't expect him to comfort her.
She shouldn't ask him to explain why she's still a good person.
And she certainly shouldn't expect him to forgive her simply because admitting the truth was difficult.
She would have to accept that Carl might be devastated.
He might be furious.
He might decide he no longer wanted to be with her.
And she'd have no right to demand another chance.
But here's where Molly's reasoning falls apart.
The fact that a confession may cause pain doesn't automatically mean the person being deceived is better off without the truth.
Carl isn't a child Molly needs to protect from a frightening bedtime story.
He's an adult.
He's emotionally invested in a woman.
And he deserves to make his own decisions about that relationship.
Molly is essentially deciding that Carl should remain happy, even if his happiness depends on not knowing something important.
That sounds compassionate until you consider whose choices are being protected.
Victoria gets to keep her boyfriend.
Molly gets to avoid an uncomfortable confrontation.
And Carl gets to continue believing in a relationship that may not be what he thinks it is.
He's the only person who hasn't been allowed to evaluate the situation.
I don't think that's kindness.
I think it's control dressed up as kindness.
Carl Was Trying to Fix a Problem He Didn't Understand
One of the saddest aspects of this episode is watching Carl realize that Victoria has been acting differently.
He notices that she's distant.
He remembers an outing when he wore a shirt declaring his affection for her, but she didn't wear the matching shirt.
Now, I don't believe couples need matching shirts to demonstrate their commitment.
Frankly, I'd probably refuse to wear one myself.
But Carl is upset because he senses that something has changed.
And he assumes he's responsible.
He tells Mike that perhaps he needs to become more attentive.
Perhaps he needs to listen better.
Perhaps he needs to make a greater effort.
That's painful to watch when we know the real reason Victoria is behaving strangely.
Carl believes his girlfriend is pulling away because he hasn't been a good enough partner.
In reality, she's struggling with guilt over something he doesn't know about.
So he's trying to repair a problem he didn't create.
And that's one of the most damaging consequences of deception.
When somebody knows a relationship has changed but doesn't know why, that person may start blaming himself.
He might try harder.
Become more accommodating.
Offer expensive gifts.
Or accept treatment he ordinarily wouldn't tolerate because he assumes he's somehow responsible for the tension.
That's precisely the situation Carl is drifting into.
At one point, he surprises Victoria with a turquoise necklace worth $218.
He wants her to feel special.
He thinks she's wonderful.
And Victoria becomes even more uncomfortable because she knows how badly she's treated him.
The necklace makes her guilt worse.
But it doesn't give Carl any information about what happened.
He isn't knowingly deciding whether to forgive her.
He's trying to make his girlfriend happy.
I think that's terribly unfair.
If Victoria wants to repair their relationship, she should be taking responsibility for her choices.
Instead, Carl is the one making an extraordinary effort to fix what he believes must be his own shortcomings.
And all the while, Molly is encouraging Victoria to let him continue.
Then Molly Starts Keeping Secrets From Mike
There's another problem with Molly's advice.
Once she agrees to protect Victoria's secret, she finds herself concealing information from her own husband.
Mike notices that the sisters are behaving strangely.
He asks questions.
And Molly tries to avoid answering them.
Eventually, Mike begins suspecting that Victoria has been unfaithful.
Molly refuses to confirm it.
There's a funny exchange in which Mike tries to get Molly to answer through blinking instead of speaking.
The scene is ridiculous, and Melissa McCarthy and Billy Gardell make it entertaining.
But underneath the comedy is a problem.
Victoria's decision has now placed Molly in a position where she feels obligated to mislead Mike.
And Mike is Carl's friend and police partner.
He isn't an uninvolved stranger.
He cares about Carl.
So Molly's decision to keep the affair secret doesn't merely protect Victoria from Carl.
It also creates tension between Molly and Mike.
Now, I wouldn't suggest that spouses are automatically entitled to every secret entrusted to one another.
People have legitimate privacy interests.
If my sister confided something personal in me, I wouldn't assume I had to tell my husband simply because we're married.
There are plenty of circumstances in which respecting a family member's confidence is the right thing to do.
But this particular confidence involves someone's ongoing deception of another person.
And Molly is being asked to help preserve it.
That's a very different responsibility.
She could have told Victoria that she loved her and wouldn't spread the story around town, while also refusing to help her maintain the deception indefinitely.
She could have insisted that Victoria confront the problem herself.
Instead, Molly becomes increasingly involved in keeping Carl from learning what happened.
And that illustrates how one dishonest decision can pull other people into the situation.
Victoria cheated.
Molly decided to conceal it.
Mike began suspecting something was wrong.
And Carl remained the person with the least information.
All because Victoria didn't want to face the consequences of her behavior.
But Wait. Were Carl and Victoria Actually Exclusive?
Here's an important detail that complicates the episode.
Near the end, Victoria approaches Carl intending to say something serious.
She has been struggling with her guilt, and his affection only makes her feel worse.
But instead of confessing, she suggests that they should stop sleeping with other people.
In other words, she proposes that they be exclusive.
Carl is surprised.
He thought they already were.
Oh, boy.
Now we have another issue.
Had the two of them explicitly agreed to an exclusive relationship before Victoria slept with her ex?
The episode doesn't clearly establish that they had a formal conversation about it.
Carl certainly believed they were exclusive.
Victoria apparently hadn't approached the relationship with the same understanding.
That distinction deserves attention.
Because if two adults have genuinely agreed to a nonexclusive relationship, having sex with someone else isn't necessarily cheating.
But if one person believes the relationship is exclusive while the other behaves as though it isn't, there's a serious communication problem.
And Victoria doesn't simply tell Molly she had sex with another man.
She describes it as something she did wrong.
She's guilty.
She knows Carl is devoted to her.
And she doesn't try to present the encounter as an innocent exercise of a freedom they'd mutually agreed upon.
So I don't think it's reasonable to wave the entire incident away by saying they hadn't officially established exclusivity.
Carl's understanding matters, too.
If Victoria believed she was free to sleep with other men while Carl believed they were committed to each other, the responsible thing would have been to discuss the difference before acting.
Not afterward, once she was frightened of losing him.
A relationship can't operate fairly when one person thinks the rules are understood and the other person privately follows different rules.
That doesn't require every couple to sign a contract.
But it does require enough honesty to understand the kind of commitment both people believe they've made.
And Victoria's sudden proposal of exclusivity doesn't erase what happened before it.
It simply gives her a way to move forward without explaining why she's making the proposal now.
Carl Says He Doesn't Want to Know. Does That Change Everything?
This is the moment I find most interesting.
When Victoria proposes exclusivity, Carl initially seems pleased.
Then he begins to wonder why she's suddenly raising the subject.
Did she do something?
For a moment, it looks as though he's about to ask the question we've been waiting for.
But he stops himself.
He tells Victoria he doesn't want to know.
Now, I have to admit, that changes the moral calculation.
If Carl genuinely prefers not to hear about what happened, perhaps we should respect that preference.
Not everybody wants every intimate detail of a partner's past.
And some people choose to remain in a relationship even when they suspect that something unpleasant may have happened.
They may decide that knowing every detail wouldn't help them.
I wouldn't automatically tell those people they're wrong.
Adults can make different decisions about the amount of information they want.
But I would distinguish between refusing unnecessary details and agreeing to remain uninformed about a serious betrayal.
Carl doesn't know exactly what he's choosing not to hear.
He hasn't been told that Victoria recently slept with her ex.
He hasn't been given an opportunity to think through what that means for his trust in her.
And he hasn't been asked whether he's comfortable continuing their relationship under those circumstances.
He simply senses something uncomfortable and decides he doesn't want to pursue it.
Maybe he's afraid of losing her.
Maybe he genuinely prefers not to know.
Or maybe he's so eager to make their relationship work that he's willing to ignore a warning sign.
The episode doesn't give us enough information to decide which explanation is correct.
But I wouldn't treat his brief refusal to ask questions as proof that Victoria's concealment has become ethically harmless.
At the same time, I wouldn't force a person to hear graphic details he's explicitly said he doesn't want.
There's a difference between disclosing the essential truth and insisting on describing every painful aspect of an encounter.
If Carl had clearly said, after understanding what Victoria was offering to disclose, that he preferred not to know the details and wanted to move forward, I would respect his decision.
But he hasn't reached that point.
He's making a choice without understanding its significance.
And that, to me, is the weakness in Molly's argument.
Carl can decide what to forgive.
He can decide what information he wants.
He can even decide that an incident of infidelity isn't worth ending the relationship.
But he should be the one making that decision—not Victoria and Molly making it for him.
Why I Wouldn't Automatically Tell Carl Myself
Now, I want to explain something because I don't think Molly should have simply run to Carl and announced the affair.
He's not her boyfriend.
He's not her husband.
And Victoria is her sister.
Family loyalty is a serious consideration.
If my sister came to me and confessed something shameful, I would want her to feel that she could speak honestly without having her private life immediately broadcast to everyone.
I wouldn't humiliate her.
I wouldn't turn the incident into entertainment.
And I wouldn't contact every member of the family to explain what she'd done.
That's not compassion, either.
But keeping a confidence doesn't require approving of the conduct behind it.
I think the better response would have been to tell Victoria that she needed to decide whether she was prepared to have an honest conversation with Carl.
And if she wanted to continue the relationship, I would strongly encourage her to disclose the betrayal.
Not because I'd enjoy watching her suffer.
But because Carl deserved the opportunity to decide whether he wanted to remain with her.
I also wouldn't promise to participate in a permanent cover-up.
There's a difference between saying, "I'm giving you an opportunity to handle this yourself," and saying, "Don't worry, I'll help you keep him in the dark forever."
Molly chose something much closer to the second option.
And I think she was wrong.
That doesn't mean I consider her a bad person.
Molly is protective of her family.
She knows Victoria can be impulsive.
And she clearly doesn't want Carl to be hurt.
But good intentions don't automatically make advice wise.
Sometimes our desire to protect people causes us to interfere with decisions they should be making themselves.
And when we conceal important information to prevent another person from reacting badly, we may be protecting our own comfort as much as theirs.
Molly didn't want Carl's heart broken.
I believe that.
But I also suspect she didn't want the complications that would follow if he learned the truth.
And those are two different motivations.
Jewish Wisdom: Peace Without Truth Isn't Much of a Peace
There's a teaching in Pirkei Avot 1:18 that says the world stands on justice, truth, and peace.
I think all three belong in this conversation.
Molly is trying to preserve peace.
She wants Carl to remain happy.
She wants Victoria to stop feeling guilty.
And she wants everyone to continue getting along.
But what happens to that peace when it depends on concealing a betrayal?
Carl believes he's in a faithful relationship.
Victoria knows something he doesn't.
And Molly is helping Victoria preserve the appearance of that relationship.
The situation may look peaceful from the outside.
But the people involved aren't living with the same understanding of what's happening.
I wouldn't call that genuine peace.
The teaching doesn't place peace above truth.
It names both as values.
And I think that's important because honesty can be uncomfortable.
Sometimes the truth causes arguments.
Sometimes people are hurt when they discover something they didn't know.
And sometimes a relationship ends because the truth reveals that the people involved have different expectations.
But avoiding that discomfort doesn't automatically create a healthier relationship.
It may simply postpone a necessary decision.
There's another teaching in Leviticus 19:17 about correcting someone who has done wrong.
The idea isn't that we should humiliate people or appoint ourselves judges over every private mistake.
It's that caring about another person can involve confronting misconduct rather than pretending we haven't noticed it.
Molly does confront Victoria.
That's to her credit.
She makes it clear that cheating on Carl was wrong.
But then she advises a solution that allows Victoria to avoid taking responsibility to the person directly affected.
And I think that's where her moral reasoning becomes inconsistent.
If Victoria truly regrets her behavior, remorse should lead to a change in how she acts.
It shouldn't become an excuse for arranging things so she never has to face the consequences.
Jewish ethical teaching also recognizes the possibility of teshuvah, genuine repentance and return.
But repentance involves more than feeling ashamed.
It requires acknowledging wrongdoing and changing one's conduct.
And when another person has been harmed, the relationship with that person cannot simply be repaired through a private promise to oneself.
Victoria can decide never to see her ex again.
That's a good beginning.
But she can't decide on Carl's behalf that the relationship has been repaired.
He hasn't even been told there's something to repair.
I wouldn't pretend that religious ethics supplies one simple rule for every complicated situation involving private information and relationships.
Confidentiality, dignity, honesty, and preventing harm can sometimes pull in different directions.
But I do think the principles encourage us to take the injured person's interests seriously rather than focusing entirely on relieving the wrongdoer's guilt.
And in this episode, Carl's interests are largely being decided by other people.
Mike & Molly and the Problem With Protecting a Cheater
We recently examined a different kind of romantic betrayal in my article about Reba, Barbra Jean, and the difficult business of forgiveness.
In Reba, Brock's affair with Barbra Jean destroys his marriage to Reba.
Reba has to confront the betrayal and decide how she's going to deal with people who remain connected to her family.
It's painful.
It's complicated.
And forgiving someone doesn't mean pretending nothing happened.
The situation in Mike & Molly is different.
Carl and Victoria aren't married.
And the precise understanding they had about exclusivity is part of the episode's ambiguity.
But both stories raise a similar question.
Can a relationship recover from betrayal when the people involved aren't honest about what happened?
And does forgiveness have meaning when the person being wronged hasn't been given an opportunity to offer it?
I don't think so.
Forgiveness is a choice.
It belongs to the person who has been hurt.
The wrongdoer can apologize.
Can express remorse.
Can promise to behave differently.
But the wrongdoer can't demand forgiveness.
And a relative can't secretly arrange forgiveness by deciding that nobody needs to know about the misconduct.
Molly seems to believe she's preventing unnecessary suffering.
But she's also removing Carl's chance to respond honestly.
If Carl learned the truth, he might forgive Victoria.
He might decide the relationship was worth preserving.
He might even acknowledge that their expectations about exclusivity hadn't been clear enough.
Those are possibilities.
He could also decide to end the relationship.
And that would be his right.
The fact that Molly prefers one outcome doesn't entitle her to eliminate the other.
I don't think protecting someone's happiness should require taking away his ability to make an informed decision.
Especially when the decision concerns his own relationship.
My Verdict: Molly Was Protecting Victoria More Than Carl
I understand why Molly didn't want Carl to know.
He's a good man.
He adores Victoria.
And Molly realizes that telling him the truth might cause tremendous pain.
But here's what I can't get past.
Carl is already suffering.
He knows Victoria is behaving differently.
He's worried that he's losing her.
And he's trying to improve a relationship without understanding why it has become strained.
He believes the problem may be something he's done.
Meanwhile, Victoria knows exactly what she's hiding.
And Molly is advising her to maintain the deception.
I don't believe that's fair.
The episode's ending, when Carl chooses not to ask whether Victoria has been with someone else, adds an important complication.
He may prefer not to know.
And I wouldn't dismiss that possibility.
But I'd want that decision to come from a genuine understanding of the situation, rather than a frightened impulse to avoid hearing something unpleasant.
If he wants to forgive Victoria, let him forgive her.
If he wants to continue the relationship, let him continue it.
If he wants to walk away, let him walk away.
But give him a reasonable opportunity to decide.
I also think Molly's advice places the wrong emphasis on Victoria's guilt.
She tells her sister to stop cheating and never mention the incident again.
That's certainly one possible way to avoid another argument.
But it isn't the same as taking responsibility.
Victoria doesn't become trustworthy merely because she promises Molly that she won't repeat the behavior.
She has to demonstrate that commitment through her choices.
And if she's serious about building a future with Carl, she needs to understand that his feelings and expectations are as important as her own.
I don't believe every mistake in a relationship requires public humiliation.
I don't believe couples should be encouraged to interrogate each other endlessly.
And I don't believe that a person who has been unfaithful is automatically incapable of changing.
People can make terrible decisions and still become better partners.
But the possibility of change doesn't justify ongoing deception.
At fifty-one, I've come to believe that one of the most important forms of respect is allowing people to make decisions about their own lives, even when we don't like the decisions they might make.
Carl might have forgiven Victoria.
He might have broken up with her.
And Molly might have found either outcome difficult to witness.
But it wasn't her decision.
It wasn't Victoria's decision alone, either.
They were two adults in a relationship.
And both deserved to understand what kind of relationship they were actually in.
That's the lesson I take from "Gone Cheatin'."
Sometimes telling the truth is painful.
Sometimes hearing it is worse.
And sometimes a person genuinely prefers not to hear every detail.
But you can't call it protecting someone's feelings when you're also protecting yourself from the consequences of what you've done to that person.
Victoria made the mistake.
Molly helped conceal it.
And Carl was left wondering what was wrong.
For a sitcom, it's an entertaining mess.
For a real relationship, I'd call it an awful way to build trust.
And if Victoria truly wanted to prove that Carl was the man she loved, she could have started by treating him like an adult who deserved an honest choice.
Instead, she got a beautiful necklace, a boyfriend who adored her, and a sister willing to bury her secret.
I suppose that's one way to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.
But I'd have preferred Molly to give her sister some different advice:
If Carl is really such a wonderful man, stop worrying about how to keep him.
Start worrying about how to deserve him.
Sources and Further Reading
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