Written by Katie
I’ve been a pastor’s wife now for over a decade. It’s a beautiful privilege and heavy responsibility. It is a role that comes with many joys and sorrows, benefits and sacrifices, unexpected gifts and unstated expectations from others. That last one is often the hardest dose.
Your pastor’s wife is in a very unique position. What she does (or doesn’t do) affects her husband’s ministry. For those of you who are married your behavior, your spiritual growth, your words, your involvement in church has no bearing to your spouse’s job security.
Just last month a pastor’s wife friend shared that her husband, an interim pastor, (who had previously served the church for years in another role), was not offered the permanent pastorate job because they thought his wife wasn’t pulling her weight.
Bottom line, so many people have tightly held opinions on what the church, the pastor, and his family should be/look/act like. Some realize it. Some don’t. Because of these realities, your pastor’s wife most likely feels that she cannot be herself. Consequently, she often finds herself with an armload of her own secrets. Here are a couple.
“I Am Not Perfect…But I Feel Like I Need To Be.”
Your pastor’s wife lives with the constant pressure of living up to the expectations of the congregation. Most churchgoers expect her to be more mature and knowledgeable than they are. All of this, alongside her desire to be an encouraging role model for the women in the church, leads her feeling a massive pressure to be perfect. However, she is far from perfect. She messes up all the time. She is likely trying to live up to the pedestal on which she’s been placed yet, at the same time, she wants to be authentic and real.
If she shares too much, she fears that your opinion of her will change (or worse…you’ll use this against her when a conflict arises, and thus her and her husband’s ministry effectiveness is damaged. However, if she never shares her junk, you will accuse her of being unapproachable and stand-off-ish (at best) or an arrogant snob.
IT IS VERY HARD FOR YOUR PASTOR’S WIFE TO LET YOU KNOW WHAT SHE REALLY THINKS AND FEELS.”
“My Church is Not Perfect…But I Feel Like I Need to Pretend That It Is.”
There are things about your church she dislikes and is disappointed in. There are processes she wishes she could change, traditions she wants to undo, and people she would love to quiet down.
Ironically, though the congregation typically expects more from the pastor’s wife, her voice for change is often smaller than the average church member. She often doesn’t have an official place in the leadership of the church. Sure, she has the pastor’s ear at home, but beyond that, she has to be careful with her comments. Much of what she suggests is misconstrued as self-serving.
He motives are often in question. She can’t simply have an opinion about how something is run because many churchgoers take it as her just trying to get her husband elevated.
Even More Secret Thoughts
Here are even more secret thoughts your pastor’s wives may be thinking.
“I am friends with everyone and no one.”
“I can’t help with every ministry.”
“Parenting in the pew on display for the whole church is the hardest ‘ministry’ I engage in every week.”
“I’m more than the pastor’s wife and my kids are more than ‘the pastor’s kids’. These titles do not encapsulate us…we are real people also.”
“I want friends who want to do fun things, people who don’t see me as eternally ‘on the clock’ as a pastor’s wife. Let’s just hang out eat pizza.”
“My children and my marriage do not belong to you. Please don’t feel the freedom to demand information or offer ‘advice’ that wasn’t solicited for and give me the freedom to not follow it.”
“It’s hard for us to accept help/gifts. I don’t know if it will be used against us later.”
“I may not know everything that is going on in your life. Please don’t assume that I do.”
“I thought we were friends and then you left the church without telling me. It really bothers me.”
“I’m lonely. It may look like there’s a lot of people around us on Sundays, but during the week people don’t reach out unless they need something. This fuels the lie that “I’m only useful/needed based on what I can give you.”
“Trying to use me as a voice to speak to my husband or other leaders is annoying and not useful. I am not their secretary, administrator, or adviser.”
These are actual comments from pastor’s wives I interviewed recently. Can you hear the hurt, loneliness, discouragement, and exhaustion behind these comments?
Here’s the bottom line:
It is very hard for your pastor’s wife to let you know what she really thinks and feels.
HOW CAN YOU HELP YOUR PASTOR’S WIFE
Pray, pray, pray for her to experience the freedom of being her real self, even if just to a few trusted women in the congregation.
Think about how your words affect your pastor’s wife. I’ve had ladies tell me my job as a pastor’s wife is (personally visiting church members in their homes, with freshly baked pies in tow), make comments on what I should or should not wear because I’m the pastor’s wife. Ask me where I was at some church event I was unable to attend (and it wasn’t because they were concerned that I was sick.). None of these comments would have been verbalized if I was not the pastor’s wife.
Allow her to be a normal church member, and don’t expect more from her just because she is the pastor’s wife. YOU HIRED HER HUSBAND, NOT HER. She has her own jobs to take care of.
Pray again for your pastor’s wife; that her significance would be rooted in her relationship with God. That her moments would be continually dependent on the power of His Spirit. That her heart would be renewed through the promises of His Word. And that all this would lead to resiliency and grace to navigate this unique role she’s been called to.
P.S.
Did you notice how many times we used “Pastor’s wife” in this article to identify this lady. How would you like to be identified as ‘mechanic’s wife, or say as ‘account’s wife”? Maybe we could work on something to call this woman her own identifier.
