The first month I was a minister’s wife, we went to a Christian bookstore where my husband received a discount because he was a minister. The checkout clerk chatted with me as he filled out the forms. “My father was a minister,” she told me. “You will find that the best thing about the ministry is the people, and the worst thing about the ministry is the people.”

She could not have been more correct in that statement. As a minister’s wife, I really did love the people I helped to serve. At the same time, I never felt so isolated in my entire life, and I am one of those people that requires very little social interaction to be happy. The people whom I loved often made my life miserable. I have been accused of being too sensitive, and there is a little truth in that. I have a deep, irrational desire to obtain perfection, and if someone tells me I am doing something wrong, I take that seriously. Sometimes, I do take it a little too seriously. When you are a minister’s wife, everyone except the apathetic members of the church thinks you are doing something wrong. Everyone has their own idea of who a minister’s wife should be. Someone thinks the minister’s wife doesn’t need to do anything except be a choir member. Others think that the minster’s wife should teach Sunday school. Yet others think she should do whatever she feels called to do and does not understand why she seems so frustrated. Often, even those who believe a minister’s wife should be treated just like any other member of the church still expect her to show up at every service regardless of her own personal working, family, and school schedule, and be happy about it. Never mind most other people do not do that! A common phrase in the Baptist church is “two for the price of one.” The first church I served wanted two full time ministers for the price of one part-time. (This would not be a problem if they did not have the money to pay, but there is an entire book of stories I could write about how they constantly, purposefully, and needlessly kept things hard on us financially.) This led to some serious depression and discouragement because no matter how hard either of us worked, it was never enough. People were constantly criticizing us, even for things that we had absolutely no control over. If the pianist turned to the wrong page during the service, it was somehow my husband’s fault because he led the music. I cannot think of one thing that we did right in this church’s eyes. Even in hindsight with several years behind me, I still believe that the vast majority of it was unjustified.

The second church where we served as youth ministers, the pastor told the congregation on day one, “This is Bob’s wife. She is not your wife, you are not her boss.” I could have kissed him! This led, however, to a strange apathy in the church toward me. They were nice people, but I knew no one in the town, was several hours away from friends and family, and a pervasive loneliness that could only be filled by real human interaction began to pierce my entire being. Really, there weren’t very many young couples in the entire town. Most of them had moved off. The church still had their expectations, don’t get me wrong, but this church generally kept their mouth shut if they had a problem with me. Once, someone did something rather hurtful, but came to my house to apologize. Even though I have no real problems toward the church, the isolation of raising an infant with no outside support was extremely draining. Between that, post-pregnancy hormones, and the stress from dealing with the last church, I found myself unable to handle it anymore. (And yes, of course I tried relying on God for strength.)

While my circumstances are extreme, every minister’s wife feels discouraged, confused, and isolated at one point or another. Depression is very common. Minister’s wives aren’t perfect, and some do not conform to expectations, which I most certainly did not. My lack of cooking skills made quite a few people mad over the course of my years in ministry! Bob once told me that I had too strong of a sense of self for ministry work, and he was probably right. Not that I was selfish, but that I knew who I was and I knew where my priorities were, and I would not mold myself to what other people wanted just to please them. That was not my goal–my goal was to please God. I did fight very hard to keep some kind of shred of me. People often tend to view the minister’s wife as a mere extension of the minister and forget that they are real people with real feelings who want to serve, but at the same time were not hired by the church. The people of the church forget that they are not the boss of the minister’s wife. They forget about the wife when appreciating her husband, so sometimes she receives the brunt of everything without receiving any encouragement either. People in both our churches made sure to appreciate the minister. When our daughter was born, a few people loved to dote on her. I was left completely out, though. I got to hear all the complaints about Bob and about me, everything we did wrong. But when it finally came time to dish out the encouragement, I was forgotten about. For the longest time, I thought I was just not very likeable and blamed all the ministerial related problems on myself, but now that I am out, I know that is not true. I am still in a serving position as a nurse’s aide, and two days into my job, both my residents and co-workers ask to work with me.  I made friends very easily when I transferred schools. Even in the minisry, churches liked how active I was until it became a formal position (a pastor even used me as an example in a sermon once when I was a mere volunteer!). Then all the work I poured into ministry was expected, and people felt free to pick over every last flaw. While I would never claim perfection or say that I never made a mistake, because I made plenty of them, I still did not deserve the abuse heaped upon me.

Through all the frustrations and trials, you learn. You learn to have thick skin, to be strong. It is where I learned how to care less about what people think of me–to care if I actually did something wrong, but to also realize that if someone does not like me, that is their problem to deal with, not mine. You learn how to plow through, even when the going gets rough. The ministry will either make you feel closer to God and to your husband, or it will rip you apart from both, despite how strong you were before in either relationship.

I confess that I do not regret not having to deal with it anymore. Maybe that means I am going to hell, but so be it. It is the truth. And if you go to church, give your minister’s wife a hug and tell her you appreciate her! You will never know what a difference you made.

Tags: Christianity, discouragement, ministry, minster's wife, religion

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 12:50 am and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.