Pete Campbell - Marriage and Relationships

Marriage and Relationships

Pete marries Trudy Vogel (portrayed by actress Alison Brie), a young woman from a nouveau riche family, in March 1960. It is implied that Pete does not know her very well before he marries her; after their honeymoon, he tells his coworkers that she is much funnier than he imagined her to be. The two purchase an apartment on Park Avenue in New York City's Upper East Side. Pete's parents refuse to help the couple pay for the apartment, but Trudy's parents eventually pitch in, much to Pete's discomfort. Trudy's parents also begin to pressure the couple to begin trying to have a baby, something Pete is reluctant to do.

After 18 months of trying to conceive, the two attend a fertility clinic, where it is discovered that Trudy has fertility problems. Trudy and her parents pressure Pete to look into adoption. Pete is at first uncomfortable with the idea, but agrees to think about it, and mentions this to his brother. Bud tells their mother, who disapproves completely, stating that people of Pete's social status should not be picking from "discards." When Pete finds out that Trudy has put their name on a list to meet with a prominent local adoption agency, he shouts at her, throws the dinner she cooked off their balcony, and declares that they are absolutely not going to adopt. This leads to a rift in the marriage. Trudy decides to stay at her parents' house during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Pete refuses to go with her, stating that if he is going to die, he wants to die in Manhattan.

What Pete and his mother did not know is that Pete has already fathered a child with his co-worker Peggy Olson (portrayed by actress Elisabeth Moss). Pete initially met Peggy on her first day as Don Draper's new secretary, in March 1960. A lower middle class Catholic from Brooklyn, Peggy tells Pete that she has just graduated from Miss Deaver's Secretarial School. Pete makes rude comments about her dowdy appearance, for which Draper scolds him. Later that night, however, after his bachelor party, Pete shows up at Peggy's apartment drunk. Despite his offensive remarks earlier that day, the two sleep together. Months later, Peggy and Pete again have a sexual encounter on Pete's office couch, early in the morning before the other employees arrive. Though Peggy begins to arrive early for work regularly, the two have no further sexual liaisons. During the Season One finale, it is revealed that Peggy — who has put on a considerable amount of weight over the course of the season — is in labor with Pete's child. She gives birth to a boy.

Early in Season 2 (episode 6, "Maidenform") Peter meets Susie (portrayed by actress Sarah Wright) after a casting call for Playtex and they talk in the elevator. Much to Pete's surprise, she lives with her mother but that doesn't stop them from sleeping together. Peter then goes home and seems to feel very accomplished. During the Season Two finale, when everyone in the office has left for the day, Pete asks Peggy to come sit down with him. Pete tells Peggy that he thinks she is "perfect," and then confesses that he is in love with her and wishes that he had married her. This declaration prompts Peggy to finally admit that she had his baby and gave it away two years before. After Peggy reveals this, Pete sits in shock. Pete is last seen sitting alone in his dark office, holding a rifle on his lap. It is the same rifle he bought on store credit in Season One, when he returned a ceramic chip-and-dip he and Trudy received as a wedding gift.

At the start of Season 3, which takes place about six months later, Pete and Trudy seem much closer: he immediately calls her when he discovers he is to be promoted, and there is no mention of adoption. They seem like a very happy couple doing the Charleston dance at Roger Sterling's garden party, and Harry Crane's wife is jealous of them. When Trudy goes out of town weeks later, though, Pete feels very lonely and pressures his neighbor's young German au pair into sleeping with him, to which she ultimately consents, despite initial reluctance; some viewers construed this as rape, but actor Vincent Kartheiser denies that is what the scene portrays. The man she works for comes over to confront Pete in their apartment. When Trudy kisses Pete after returning home, Pete is noticeably distraught, and he later tells Trudy, "I don't want you to go away anymore without me."

By the end of Season 3, it is apparent that some form of fence-mending has taken place between Pete and his father-in-law (revealed in Season Four to be Trudy's doing) as he is able to bring the Clearasil account to the newly-formed firm of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and Pryce. This is an account Pete had previously lost for Sterling Cooper due to his refusing to consider adoption, thus upsetting his wife and angering his father-in-law. In Season Four, Clearasil is dropped by the agency because of a conflict with another account, but Pete is able to manipulate his father-in-law into giving him several larger accounts from that company.

In the Season 4 episode "The Rejected," Pete finds out that Trudy is pregnant, much to his delight. Trudy gives birth in the eleventh episode of the season to their daughter Tamsin Vogel Campbell, known as "Tammy" (an obvious gesture to his father-in-law).

In the early years of their marriage, Pete had trouble reconciling his own ambitions with that of his wife's. Pete was a domineering husband, such as when he scolded his wife for signing up for an adoption agency without his permission. Also, he was angry at Trudy for not sleeping with her ex-beau, who, now a publishing executive, could have gotten a story Pete published in a prestigious publication. Pete engaged in at least three extramarital affairs in the first years of their marriage. However, after being caught by a neighbor, Pete confesses his infidelity to Trudy. After a short period of tension their marriage seemed to improve, something that aligned with a corresponding improvement in Pete's work status. However, in seasons four and five, Pete seemed to lose his dominance in the relationship, such as when Trudy "forbids" him to give their money to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

By the start of Season 5, Pete and Trudy have moved with their baby daughter to a new home in Cos Cob, a village in the affluent commuter city of Greenwich, CT, which sits on the New Haven Line. Having never learned to drive, Pete commutes by rail to the city. By July 1966 he has enrolled in a driver education course in order to gain a license. Living in Greenwich has a negative effect on the Manhattan-raised Pete, who begins to feel restless in his marriage, homelife and career. He begins an affair with Beth Dawes (portrayed by actress Alexis Bledel), the unhappy wife of a co-commuter, which ends after she has a round of electroshock therapy to cure her undiagnosed depression and, as a result, forgets who he is.

In the season 6 episode "The Collaborators", Pete indulges in a fling with a neighborhood woman, whose husband finds out resulting in the woman being beaten up at the Campbell's doorway. As a result, Trudy tells Pete she knew all along about his casual philandering and whoring, and therefore let him have a bachelor pad in Manhattan, so he would have his affairs there, and not in their home turf. She throws him out, although she refuses to divorce, deeming such thing as acknowledging failure. However, in a later episode, "For Immediate Release" Pete loses his father-in-law's account after they run into each other at a brothel. In revenge, Pete tells Trudy what he saw and she tells him that they're done and to get his things.