I've always thought Rob and Laura Petrie had one of the more appealing marriages on television.
They were affectionate, funny, attractive, and genuinely seemed to enjoy being married to each other.
Rob, played by Dick Van Dyke, worked as the head writer for The Alan Brady Show. Laura, played by Mary Tyler Moore, managed their home, raised their son Ritchie, and occasionally reminded her husband that being a talented comedy writer didn't necessarily make him an authority on everything else.
Which was fortunate.
Because Rob could be remarkably foolish.
And there's one episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show that demonstrates just how foolish an otherwise loving husband can become when he lets his imagination interfere with his trust.
It's called "The Two Faces of Rob," and it aired October 3, 1962.
In it, Rob disguises his voice, pretends to be a charming Italian doctor, and telephones his own wife to see whether she'll recognize him.
At first, it's simply an experiment for a comedy sketch.
But then Laura flirts with the mysterious stranger.
And suddenly Rob isn't particularly amused.
He begins wondering whether she really recognized his voice.
What if she didn't?
What if his wife was actually attracted to another man?
And what if the charming Italian doctor she's so interested in happens to be her own husband?
Now, I have to laugh.
Rob Petrie managed to create a romantic rival out of thin air, become jealous of that rival, and then blame Laura for making him feel insecure.
That's quite an accomplishment.
But underneath the comedy, I think there's a worthwhile lesson about marriage.
Sometimes people become so determined to find out whether their partners can be trusted that they create situations in which trust becomes almost impossible.
They test.
They investigate.
They interpret every reaction.
And eventually they become suspicious of behavior they helped provoke in the first place.
I don't think Rob was a bad husband.
But I do think he was wrong to play this particular game.
And I appreciate that the episode allowed him to discover just how ridiculous his behavior had become.
It Started as a Comedy Sketch, Not a Plan to Catch Laura Cheating
Rob, Buddy Sorrell, and Sally Rogers are having trouble coming up with material for The Alan Brady Show.
They're tired.
They're frustrated.
And the jokes aren't particularly inspiring.
Then Rob suggests a sketch involving a husband who wants to play poker even though his wife has planned a dinner party.
The husband needs an excuse.
Perhaps he could telephone his wife, disguise his voice, and pretend to be someone else.
Buddy and Sally think that's ridiculous.
A wife would recognize her own husband's voice, wouldn't she?
Rob isn't convinced.
He believes a sufficiently good actor could disguise his voice and fool almost anyone.
And because this is Rob Petrie, he decides the best way to settle the argument is to conduct an experiment on his wife.
Without telling her.
Now, I don't think Rob begins this situation hoping to discover that Laura is unfaithful.
That distinction matters.
His original objective is to prove that a husband can disguise his voice convincingly enough to fool his wife.
He's thinking like a comedy writer.
And perhaps like a man who's slightly too impressed with his own acting abilities.
But the moment he decides to use Laura as an unwitting participant, he's creating a problem.
Because Laura hasn't agreed to participate in the experiment.
She doesn't know there's an audience of writers listening to her conversation.
And she doesn't know that anything she says may become the subject of discussion in her husband's office.
I don't particularly like that.
A husband can tell jokes about marriage.
He can tease his wife.
And couples can certainly enjoy harmless practical jokes.
But turning your spouse into an unwitting subject of a test is different from sharing a joke with her.
One is something you're enjoying together.
The other is something you're doing to her.
And Rob discovers that distinction much too late.
Enter Dr. Benno Benelli, the Most Dangerous Man in Rob's Marriage
Rob telephones Laura using an elaborate Italian accent.
He pretends to be a physician who has dialed the wrong number.
Laura is polite.
She offers to help him find the telephone number he's looking for.
And the imaginary doctor begins flattering her.
He compliments her voice.
He recites romantic poetry.
And before long, the conversation becomes considerably more flirtatious than an ordinary wrong-number call.
Laura seems amused.
She responds warmly.
And Rob hangs up feeling triumphant.
He's done it!
He's fooled his wife!
His brilliant acting has apparently convinced Laura that she's been speaking to a charming Italian stranger.
Well, congratulations, Rob.
Except now something rather unfortunate occurs to him.
If Laura believed he was a stranger, why was she flirting with him?
And if she enjoyed the attention of a man she'd never met, what did that suggest about her feelings toward other men?
Suddenly the experiment doesn't seem like such a wonderful idea.
Buddy and Sally try to reassure him.
They believe Laura recognized Rob and was simply playing along.
And I think that's an entirely reasonable possibility.
After all, Rob's exaggerated accent isn't exactly the sort of thing that would necessarily fool a woman who has been married to him for years.
But Rob can't stop thinking about it.
Part of him wants to believe his performance was convincing.
Another part desperately hopes it wasn't.
Rob wants to win the argument about his acting ability without accepting what winning that argument might imply about his marriage.
That's where the comedy becomes psychologically interesting.
He can't have it both ways.
Either Laura recognized her husband and enjoyed the joke, or she may have believed she was flirting with a stranger.
And Rob, who created the situation, is now terrified of the answer.
Laura Prepared an Italian Dinner, and Rob Still Couldn't Figure It Out
When Rob returns home, Laura has prepared a romantic evening.
She looks lovely.
There's a special dinner.
And the menu is Italian.
Now, if I were Rob, I'd consider that a fairly substantial clue.
A strange Italian doctor calls my wife.
He flirts with her.
Then I come home to discover that she's suddenly enthusiastic about Italian food and romantic expressions.
Hmmm.
Perhaps she's onto something.
But Rob can't decide whether Laura is teasing him or has genuinely become infatuated with someone she thinks is a stranger.
He keeps looking for clues.
He questions her about the dinner.
He becomes suspicious when she answers the telephone.
And he reacts nervously when she uses Italian expressions associated with the call.
The poor man is practically conducting a criminal investigation in his own dining room.
Meanwhile, Laura seems perfectly comfortable.
And I think that's what makes Mary Tyler Moore's performance so funny.
She doesn't have to make grand declarations.
She simply allows Rob to become increasingly uncomfortable with his own experiment.
The audience can see possibilities that Rob refuses to settle on.
Maybe Laura knows exactly what he's doing.
Maybe she's enjoying the chance to tease him.
Maybe she likes the romantic attention and is responding playfully.
But Rob is so preoccupied with determining whether she's been fooled that he barely seems capable of enjoying the affectionate dinner she's prepared.
I find that revealing.
His wife is right in front of him, making an effort to create a romantic evening, and he's too busy worrying about an imaginary rival to appreciate it.
Good grief, Rob.
You invented the man.
You even supplied the accent.
At this point, you should probably be grateful Laura isn't asking you to invite him to dinner.
The Joke Turned Into a Test of Laura's Fidelity
The next day, Rob is still obsessing over the telephone call.
Buddy and Sally are growing tired of the subject.
They insist that Laura is playing along.
Rob isn't certain.
And eventually the idea arises that he should call her again.
This time, as the Italian doctor, he can ask her for a date.
Then he'll know whether she'd consider meeting another man.
Now, this is where I think Rob's behavior crosses a more serious boundary.
The first call was a foolish prank.
The second becomes a test of his wife's loyalty.
And even Rob recognizes that continuing the deception would be mean.
He announces that he's going to call Laura, confess what he did, and apologize.
Excellent.
Finally, a sensible decision.
Unfortunately, when Laura answers the telephone, Rob slips right back into his Italian accent.
Oh, for heaven's sake.
He had one job.
Tell the truth.
Instead, Dr. Benelli returns.
And now the imaginary physician wants to meet Laura at an Italian restaurant.
Laura agrees.
Not at the time he originally suggests, mind you.
She has her own schedule.
But she can make it a little later.
Which means Rob has just persuaded his own wife to accept a date with a man who doesn't exist.
And he's horrified.
I have to admire the absurdity of it.
Rob is jealous because Laura has accepted a date with Rob.
He's upset because another man has apparently attracted his wife.
Except there is no other man.
And the only person who has knowingly introduced deception into the marriage is Rob himself.
When you manufacture a romantic temptation and then become angry about the response, you have to examine your own role in creating the problem.
That doesn't mean every possible response would be acceptable.
If Laura genuinely believed she was arranging a secret romantic encounter with a stranger, I would have concerns about that.
But Rob doesn't know that's what she believes.
And instead of asking her, he keeps trying to trap her into revealing something.
That's the part I don't approve of.
A Loyalty Test Doesn't Necessarily Reveal the Truth
Here's what bothers me most about this kind of behavior.
People sometimes imagine that testing a romantic partner will provide certainty.
They create a fake identity.
They ask a friend to flirt with their spouse.
They pretend to be someone else online.
Or they engineer a situation designed to reveal whether the other person will behave faithfully.
And then they interpret the response.
But what exactly are they measuring?
If the other person recognizes the trick, the entire experiment becomes meaningless.
If the other person suspects something is wrong and responds sarcastically, that reaction may be misunderstood.
If the person reacts politely rather than rudely, the suspicious partner may interpret politeness as romantic interest.
And if the relationship already has trust problems, the test itself can make those problems worse.
That's exactly what happens with Rob.
He can't establish whether Laura recognizes him.
So he keeps inventing increasingly elaborate ways to find out.
And the more elaborate the experiment becomes, the less he trusts the results.
I think that teaches us something valuable.
You can't reliably measure trust by creating a situation in which you aren't being trustworthy yourself.
Now, I wouldn't suggest that spouses should ignore genuine warning signs.
If someone is behaving dishonestly, there may be legitimate reasons to ask questions.
But Rob doesn't begin with evidence that Laura has been unfaithful.
He begins with a comedy sketch.
Then he transforms the sketch into a marital investigation.
There's no actual Dr. Benelli.
There's no independent romantic rival.
And there's no established affair.
There's simply a husband who has become frightened by his own imagination.
I don't think that's a particularly healthy way to evaluate a marriage.
Even when it makes excellent television.
Laura Went to the Restaurant, and Rob Couldn't Believe It
Eventually, Rob returns home expecting to find Laura.
But she isn't there.
And Ritchie doesn't provide much reassurance about where his mother has gone.
Rob begins worrying that Laura has actually gone to the restaurant to meet the Italian doctor.
Of course, the doctor isn't going to appear.
Because Rob is the doctor.
And Rob is standing in his own house, becoming increasingly upset because his imaginary alter ego has apparently stolen his wife's attention.
I have to laugh.
If the situation weren't so ridiculous, I'd feel sorry for him.
When Laura finally returns, she's dressed for an evening out.
Rob demands to know where she's been.
And Laura indicates that she went to the restaurant.
Now, Rob finally has to explain himself.
He admits the call began as an experiment for a comedy sketch.
He acknowledges that the joke got out of hand.
And he apologizes.
I appreciate that.
Because for all his foolishness, Rob is capable of recognizing when he's behaved badly.
He doesn't insist that Laura was somehow obligated to participate in his experiment.
He doesn't continue pretending that his deception was entirely harmless.
He acknowledges that it became an ugly practical joke.
And he knows she has reason to be upset with him.
That's a meaningful moment.
Being a decent husband doesn't require never making a foolish mistake. It does require recognizing the mistake and accepting responsibility for it.
I think Rob deserves credit for that.
But then he makes another mistake.
He wants reassurance.
Desperately.
He wants Laura to tell him that she knew it was him all along.
Because if she recognized his voice, then everything is fine.
His marriage is safe.
His wife was only teasing him.
And he can stop feeling jealous.
Unfortunately for Rob, Laura isn't particularly interested in supplying that answer.
Laura Refused to Give Rob the Certainty He Wanted
Laura doesn't provide the clear explanation Rob is begging for.
She lets him wonder.
And I think that's one of the cleverest aspects of the episode.
Because Rob has spent the entire story trying to control the information.
He decided when to telephone.
He decided what identity to use.
He decided what questions to ask.
He decided how far to take the joke.
And he expected Laura's responses to tell him exactly what he wanted to know.
But now Laura has control of one important piece of information.
Whether she recognized him.
And she isn't giving it up simply because he's uncomfortable.
I can understand why she might do that.
He put her through an unnecessary test.
He made her the subject of an office prank.
And he became irrationally jealous over a situation he'd created.
Perhaps she thinks a little uncertainty will discourage him from repeating the experience.
I wouldn't encourage couples to prolong genuine emotional distress as a punishment.
But I can appreciate the comic justice here.
Rob wanted to see whether he could fool his wife.
Now he's the one who doesn't know what's going on.
And the episode doesn't require Laura to provide a neatly packaged answer so that he can feel clever again.
Sometimes the person who insists on testing someone else's trustworthiness discovers that the real problem is his own need for reassurance.
That's what I think happens to Rob.
He doesn't merely want Laura to be faithful.
He wants proof.
And he wants that proof to arrive in precisely the form he's decided will satisfy him.
But marriage doesn't always provide that kind of certainty.
At some point, people have to decide whether they trust the person they've chosen.
And that decision shouldn't depend on winning a game they invented.
Then Another Stranger Called—and Rob's Game Backfired Again
The episode has one more surprise.
After all this confusion, Laura is speaking with Millie when the telephone rings.
She thinks Rob is playing another practical joke.
And a man with a foreign accent begins talking to her.
Laura assumes it's her husband disguising his voice again.
So she plays along.
She flirts outrageously.
She even jokes about getting her husband out of the way so the caller can come over.
Except this time, the caller actually is a stranger.
Rob isn't on the telephone.
And when Laura realizes the man isn't behaving as she expected, she becomes offended and ends the call.
Then Rob arrives.
And the misunderstanding becomes clear.
Laura thought she was speaking to her husband.
But she wasn't.
Now, I think that's a particularly clever ending.
Because it demonstrates the very problem that made Rob's experiment unreliable from the beginning.
A person can respond to a situation based on what she believes is happening.
And that belief may be mistaken.
Laura's flirtation with the later caller doesn't automatically mean she wants an affair.
She believes she's participating in a joke with Rob.
And the moment that assumption breaks down, she reacts differently.
I wouldn't want anyone to take the episode as proof that Laura was secretly unfaithful.
The story doesn't establish that.
What it establishes is that Rob has created a situation in which neither spouse can confidently interpret every response.
And he has nobody to blame for the original confusion but himself.
When you disguise the truth, you shouldn't be surprised when other people's behavior becomes difficult to interpret.
That's what the final joke demonstrates.
And I think it's a much better lesson than simply suggesting husbands should be suspicious of their wives.
Was Rob Being Jealous, Controlling, or Just Plain Foolish?
I wouldn't automatically describe Rob Petrie as a controlling husband because of this one episode.
That's too broad a judgment.
He and Laura have an affectionate relationship.
They joke with one another.
They argue.
And they're both capable of making mistakes.
I don't think this incident establishes that Rob spends his marriage trying to monitor Laura's every movement.
But I do think the specific behavior deserves criticism.
He deceives her.
He tests her.
And then he becomes angry and insecure when the test doesn't produce the reassurance he expected.
That's unfair.
And I think it's particularly unfair because Laura didn't ask to participate.
Rob created the situation without her knowledge.
Then he expected her reactions to resolve his anxieties.
I don't believe that's a reasonable expectation.
If he had genuine concerns about their relationship, he could have spoken with her.
If he wanted more romance, he could have arranged a romantic evening himself.
And if he believed Laura was losing interest in him, he could have asked how she was feeling.
Instead, he invented a charming Italian physician.
Apparently that seemed easier.
I can appreciate the comedy.
But I wouldn't recommend the method.
If you want to know whether your marriage is secure, pretending to be someone else isn't nearly as useful as learning to communicate as yourself.
And I think Rob finally understands that he's taken the joke too far.
The Funny Part Is That Laura Seemed to Enjoy the Romance Rob Created
There's something else about the episode that I find interesting.
When Laura receives the first telephone call, the mysterious doctor flatters her.
He compliments her voice.
He quotes romantic poetry.
And he treats her like an intriguing woman rather than simply someone managing a household.
Then Rob returns home to find that she's created an Italian-themed romantic evening.
Now, I don't want to invent motives the episode doesn't establish.
We don't receive a definitive explanation of everything Laura was thinking.
But the situation raises an interesting possibility.
Perhaps Laura enjoyed the romantic playfulness.
Perhaps she recognized Rob and decided to extend the joke.
Or perhaps she simply enjoyed the novelty of being spoken to in such a dramatic way.
Whatever the exact explanation, Rob's response is revealing.
Instead of considering whether his wife might enjoy a little more romance, he becomes obsessed with whether she's attracted to somebody else.
That's a missed opportunity.
Because even happily married people can appreciate feeling attractive.
They can enjoy flirtation.
And they can benefit from a spouse making an effort to keep the relationship lively.
That doesn't mean a marriage is failing.
It means affection shouldn't automatically become less important simply because two people have been together for years.
Rob could have looked at that romantic dinner and thought about how much fun it might be to surprise Laura with an evening of his own.
Instead, he spent the evening wondering whether she wanted to run away with a doctor who didn't exist.
I think there's a lesson there.
Sometimes people become so concerned about whether their spouse still loves them that they overlook opportunities to demonstrate love themselves.
And I suspect that's more common than we'd like to admit.
This Wasn't an Emotional Affair Like the Ones Other Sitcoms Explored
We've looked at some much more serious television stories involving romantic boundaries.
On <i>Reba</i>, Barbra Jean became involved with Brock while he was married, and the affair contributed to the end of his marriage to Reba. I’ve explored the consequences in my article about Reba, Barbra Jean, and whether forgiveness should require friendship.
On Young Sheldon, George Cooper and Brenda Sparks developed an emotional connection that placed George's marriage to Mary under strain.
And on All in the Family and Roseanne, Gloria Stivic and Jackie Harris encountered their own temptations while feeling dissatisfied in their marriages.
Those stories raise genuine questions about fidelity, loneliness, and the responsibility married people have to address problems honestly.
But I wouldn't put Laura Petrie in the same category.
Not based on this episode.
There is no established affair.
There isn't even an established real romantic interest.
The supposed Italian doctor is Rob himself.
And the later caller is someone Laura believes is Rob playing another trick.
That distinction is important.
Because I don't want to accuse a character of wrongdoing simply because her husband becomes suspicious.
Suspicion isn't proof, even when the suspicious person is somebody we generally like.
And that's exactly what makes Rob's behavior worth examining.
He doesn't have reliable evidence of infidelity.
He manufactures a situation and then begins treating his own anxiety as though it might be evidence.
That's not the same thing.
And I think it's important that we recognize the difference.
Rob Was a Good Husband Who Had a Bad Idea
One of the reasons I like this episode as a CouchDegree lesson is that Rob doesn't have to become a terrible person for us to criticize what he did.
He's charming.
He's affectionate.
He's talented.
And he clearly loves Laura.
But those good qualities don't make every decision he makes reasonable.
I think that's a more useful way of examining television characters than dividing them into saints and villains.
Sometimes a decent person behaves badly.
Sometimes a loving spouse becomes insecure.
And sometimes an intelligent person comes up with an astonishingly stupid idea.
Rob manages all three.
I also appreciate that his colleagues aren't entirely innocent in encouraging the situation.
Buddy and Sally participate in the original debate.
And the office environment makes the experiment seem like a harmless way to test a comedy premise.
But once Rob begins wondering whether Laura has been fooled, the joke becomes personal.
He's no longer merely trying to develop a sketch.
He's trying to find out whether his wife is attracted to someone else.
That's a different objective.
And it's one he should have recognized as unfair.
The episode allows us to laugh at him while also understanding why he's upset.
He loves Laura.
He doesn't want her to be interested in another man.
And the thought that he might not know her as well as he believes is genuinely unsettling.
I can sympathize with that feeling.
But sympathy doesn't require agreeing with his solution.
A person's insecurity may be understandable without making every response to that insecurity acceptable.
That's what I think makes Rob such an effective character.
His mistakes are human enough to recognize.
And ridiculous enough to make us laugh.
What Jewish Wisdom Says About Trust and Suspicion
There's a teaching in Pirkei Avot 1:6 that encourages us to judge another person favorably.
I don't interpret that as an instruction to ignore evidence of wrongdoing.
People should use judgment.
If someone has repeatedly lied or broken promises, blind trust may not be appropriate.
But I do think the teaching reminds us that when someone's behavior has more than one reasonable explanation, we shouldn't automatically choose the most condemning one.
That's particularly relevant to Rob.
Laura has several opportunities to recognize that the supposed Italian doctor is actually her husband.
Buddy and Sally repeatedly suggest she's simply playing along.
And when Rob returns home to a romantic Italian dinner, there's yet another reason to consider that explanation.
But he keeps returning to the possibility that she was genuinely flirting with a stranger.
He treats that possibility as though it deserves increasing investigation.
Even though he created it.
I think he'd have benefited from exercising a little more charitable judgment.
There's also a teaching in Pirkei Avot 4:1 about the strength involved in controlling one's impulses.
I usually think about that in relation to temptation, anger, or the desire to retaliate.
But I think it applies to suspicion, too.
Sometimes the impulse to investigate every uncertainty becomes difficult to resist.
A person wants reassurance.
Then more reassurance.
Then proof that the reassurance is accurate.
And eventually no answer feels entirely sufficient.
That's when self-restraint becomes important.
Not every doubt requires an investigation.
Not every insecurity justifies a test.
And not every question can be answered with absolute certainty.
To me, being a mensch includes treating the people we love fairly even when our own feelings become uncomfortable.
Trust involves giving someone the benefit of the doubt when there's no sound reason to believe they've betrayed it.
And if we do have legitimate concerns, honesty is usually a better place to begin than deception.
I think Rob could have saved himself considerable embarrassment by remembering that.
Although, admittedly, we wouldn't have had nearly as entertaining an episode.
What I Would Have Told Rob Petrie
If Rob had come to me with this idea, I would have asked him a very simple question.
What exactly are you hoping to accomplish?
Are you trying to write a funny sketch?
Or are you trying to find out whether your wife would flirt with another man?
Because those are different things.
If it's about writing the sketch, I'd suggest using his imagination.
He's a professional comedy writer.
Surely he can invent a scene without experimenting on Laura.
And if he's genuinely worried about his marriage, I'd suggest talking to his wife.
Not pretending to be an Italian physician.
Not arranging a fake date.
And certainly not becoming suspicious because she responds to a situation she didn't know he'd created.
I'd also tell Rob something else.
Laura doesn't owe him an elaborate demonstration of fidelity every time he feels insecure.
They've built a marriage together.
They're raising a child.
And they appear to have a loving relationship.
Those things should count for something.
If Rob needs more reassurance, he can express that need.
But he shouldn't expect Laura to spend her life proving that every man who compliments her is less interesting than her husband.
And I would remind him that the desire to feel attractive isn't automatically a sign of infidelity.
A married woman can enjoy a compliment.
She can appreciate romance.
And she can have a sense of humor.
That doesn't mean she's planning to abandon her family.
A confident marriage leaves room for two people to be individuals without treating every outside interaction as a threat.
I think that's a healthier lesson than constantly testing one another.
And it's one Rob eventually has the opportunity to learn.
My Verdict: Rob's Biggest Mistake Was Turning Love Into an Experiment
I still like Rob Petrie.
I like his humor.
I like the affection he shares with Laura.
And I appreciate that The Dick Van Dyke Show didn't portray him as a flawless husband who always knew exactly what to do.
He could be jealous.
He could be insecure.
He could become carried away with an idea.
And sometimes he needed Laura to remind him that he wasn't nearly as clever as he believed.
"The Two Faces of Rob" is a wonderful example.
He begins with a harmless-sounding argument about whether a husband can disguise his voice.
He decides to prove his point.
He telephones his wife.
And within a matter of minutes, he's created an imaginary romantic rival.
Then he becomes jealous of that rival.
And rather than stopping to recognize the absurdity of the situation, he continues the experiment until he's convinced that his marriage might be in trouble.
I don't think that's admirable behavior.
But I do think it's recognizable.
People sometimes create the very anxieties they later struggle to resolve.
They ask questions they don't want answered.
They test people who haven't given them reason to doubt.
And they become so preoccupied with finding certainty that they stop appreciating the relationship they're supposedly trying to protect.
That's what Rob did.
He had a loving wife who prepared a romantic dinner for him.
But instead of enjoying it, he spent the evening worrying that she might be interested in a fictional Italian doctor.
A doctor he invented.
A doctor he portrayed.
And a doctor who apparently had better luck flirting with Laura than Rob believed he did as himself.
I have to laugh.
But I also think the episode makes a serious point.
If you believe your spouse is trustworthy, don't manufacture a betrayal just to see whether you can catch one.
And if you genuinely have doubts, address them honestly.
Don't create a fictional stranger and expect the resulting confusion to provide clarity.
The best part of the episode, to me, is that Laura never has to provide the definitive answer Rob wants.
She allows him to live with some uncertainty.
And the final telephone misunderstanding demonstrates why his experiment was never a reliable way to judge her behavior in the first place.
People respond according to what they believe is happening.
Rob deliberately made that belief uncertain.
And then he became upset because he couldn't understand the responses.
At fifty-one, I think that's a remarkably useful lesson about relationships.
A marriage needs affection.
It needs consideration.
And it needs enough trust that one person doesn't have to keep proving loyalty through ridiculous tests devised by the other.
That doesn't mean ignoring genuine problems.
It means recognizing the difference between evidence and imagination.
Rob's wife wasn't the one who introduced a mysterious Italian man into their marriage.
Rob did.
And then he spent the rest of the episode trying to get rid of him.
Perhaps that's why I find the story so funny.
The only man threatening Rob Petrie's marriage was Rob Petrie.
And the one person he needed to outsmart wasn't Laura.
It was himself.
