Downton Abbey, My Lady, and Me

It was a Sunday night in February 2013, and I’d been conked out for nearly an hour when Renee’s outraged cry jolted me awake. A scream in the house usually means there’s been an accident. There had been, and it was severe.

Matthew had just been hit by an oncoming truck en route from his wife and beautiful newborn son, leaving the estate’s financial affairs in question since he had been such a stabilizing influence, and adding untold pressure to Lady Cora and Lord Crawley’s already tenuous marriage which was recovering from his poor judgment which may well have led to his daughter’s tragic post-childbearing death, placing new weight on reliable Bates’ already burdened shoulders, having just been released from prison where he suffered under trumped up charges, and possibly causing Edith to reconsider her growing bond with poor Michael who cannot remarry given his wife’s insanity, all of which coincides with Jimmy’s tentative friendship with homosexual Thomas who may well have evil plans for Sarah who set him up for a mortifying encounter, but since all that happened downstairs one wonders if it really matters.

Did you get all that?

Well, of course you did. It’s from the Downton Abbey playbook, and anything happening on D.A., which I began calling Downer Abbey after that night, is common knowledge. Renee was reacting to the shock of one of her favorite character’s accident which, as you remember, had most of the Western world buzzing for quite a while. We said goodbye to the PBS series two nights ago, and yeah, I’ll miss it. It was terrific entertainment and a boatload of fun to watch.

But honestly, I never could take it as seriously as Renee did. Especially that night.

“We need a Downton Abbey Facebook page” she declared the next morning, “where we can demand he survive! How can they, a public supported program, take his life without our input?”

I made an off the cuff remark about contract renegotiations, suggesting that maybe the actor had asked for a raise so they decided to cut expenses. Wrong move.

“That isn’t funny, and even if you’re serious they don’t just kill people who ask for raises, and he’s a critical part of the plot, and what’s going to happen if Lord Grantham goes back to handling the finances if Matthew’s out of the picture and nobody else recognizes that in this economy you have to cut back?”

I wasn’t stupid enough to point out that these folks weren’t dealing with our current gas rates. But I was stupid enough to be flippant when somber mourning over Matthew was obviously called for.

“Have them bring Shirley MacLaine on for another episode. She’ll channel them all back to one of her past lives, and they’ll start over again as Little Downton on
the Prairie.”

Icy stare, mad wife, dumb husband.

Dumb not because I saw humor in such reactions to televised fiction, but dumb because part of my job as husband – a big part, no less – is to validate. Renee wanted to be heard, and that’s not a “woman” thing, because so do I and, I suspect, so does everyone. In fact, a sign hanging on my office wall says “What People Need is a Good Listening To.”

I’ll vouch for that. When something matters to me, I want my wife to care, even if the thing itself seems silly to her. We want our experience validated by our spouse, who is the one person whose response to our hurts, hopes and peeves should be constant and clear. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, was there a sound? Great and debatable question, but on a more personal level, if my wife feels something deeply and no one reflects, empathizes, or processes with her, then did her feelings count?

That’s the point. An assignment we’re given when we vow to love, honor, and cherish, is validation. When you married your spouse, whether you articulated it this way or not, you said “I will be here to validate what you experience, and you will henceforth never be alone in your pain, joy, bewilderment or outrage. I’ll be your audience, your witness, united with you in whatever you experience.”

That’s a job description which means more, not less, as the years pass. The last shot of the final episode, showing D.A.’s Lord and Lady gazing at each other with appreciation while promising to enjoy the coming years, was a lovely reminder of what we can reap if we’ll only sow.

And part of what we sow into our partner’s life, if we’re smart, is an ongoing reminder that whatever they deal with in life, they’ll never have to deal with it alone. If it matters to my wife, then it will matter to me.