AIBU - Pastor’s Wife and expectations

[Pastorswife]

This is my first post of MN after reading for several years. I’ll try and give as much info as I’m really seeking some wisdom here.

I’m a pastor’s wife, mid-30s, 2 DC (DS aged 4, DD aged 5 months). I have just returned to work as a teacher and HoD after maternity leave and work 4 days per week (5 days condensed into 4) and manage my small subject department. I do not receive a salary from church, only my husband is employed there. I’m not located in the UK.

I’m increasingly finding the expectations on me as a Pastor’s wife impossible to fulfil. Beyond my intense, sometimes stressful job, we open our apartment 3 evenings a week to church members, which can be a single person, or a group of 10. I manage the kids until their bedtime at 7pm, and also cook for everyone. I also lead once a month on the worship team, or whenever my husband isn’t preaching. We also spend a lot of incidental time with church members, such as meeting on Saturday mornings to get a coffee and go to the playground, etc.

I already find this load overwhelming. My baby still wakes in the night (only once around 3am thankfully!) so I’m doing all this without proper sleep. What’s more, the vast majority of these social interactions are very one sided. It’s people with problems in their lives who are looking for wisdom, care, or simply to vent at you. 90% of my interactions with women from church are making a cup of tea, listening to them and nodding, and then praying for them at the end. I completely understand that this is part of ministry, but it’s very exhausting and none of these people is someone that I’d call a ‘friend’. They often don’t know anything about me at all - I’m just a role, ‘the pastors wife’.
I do have a few close friends, mostly outside of the church, but it’s simply impossible to spend any meaningful time with them as I have no margin in my schedule.

I recently spoke with my DH about stepping down from my HoD position at work, and cutting back to 2-3 days a week to manage everything better. However, we can’t afford this as my job pays well and losing the HoD position would be a big financial sacrifice. We asked our church leadership if my husband’s salary could be increased so I can help him out in ministry more, but the response was that we should be able to survive on his salary.

I was very discouraged this week as, despite doing all this, people complain that I’m not ‘accessible’ enough. For example, when we host people, I like to go to bed by 8:30pm because I’ll be up again at 3am with the baby. I get main course, dessert, tea/coffee and chocolates done, and then I’ll normally say something like ‘well, I have to be up early tomorrow so goodnight everyone. Please don’t take this as an indication to leave.’ However, many people don’t like when I dismiss myself and say ‘goodnight’ because they were expecting that I’d stay up with my husband chatting with them. Sometimes they don’t leave until 10pm or later which is just not possible for me.

So, AIBU to think that these expectations are just too much? Those of you that go to church, what role does the Pastor’s wife play and how active is she in the church ministry? Does she work her own job?

Also, please don’t make this a religion bashing thread. Thanks everyone.

I know it’s easier said than done. My dad was a pastor and I grew up with this constant intrusion and lack of boundaries. It’s horrible. Our home constantly had people coming and going, the phone constantly ringing and sometimes people living with us. People knew everything about our lives and had high expectations of the family and what we could do for them. It was like being famous to a small very unglamorous community!

I really resent it and am such an introvert now. I get really defensive when I suspect people are trying to encroach on me and struggle to have genuine friendships with people.

I strongly advise putting in boundaries now to protect your children. Also be aware that child abuse is rife in religious communities because of lack of healthy boundaries.

One church I attended as a student had a rule for all members of the congregation that for 1 year after getting married or having a baby, you step down from all leadership roles in the church (leading a Bible study group, being a church warden etc) because family life is so important. Could you use that as a starting point, and make your congregation aware that after prayerful consideration with your DH you've concluded that raising your children in a Christian family needs to be your focus for the next 7 months and you will naturally need to step back. Then when baby turns one you can decide what if anything you add back in.

I would suggest you stand up in church, explain to the congregation that after much prayer/religious counsel etc you have realised you need to take a step back from all church work while the children are small and you are working so many hours. Move all social events to the church or ask someone else to set up a rota for people to provide a house/food etc. Do not apologise, suggest the congregation look on it as an opportunity to discover their gifts/vocation in the spirit of the early church. Ask the congregation to support you in this by going to the appropriate person in the ministry for their needs and to spread the word to anyone not in church.
Do nothing extra at all for at least 6 months, preferably a year. Promise nothing.

I'm a Catholic so we don't have married clergy. Most of my friends and experience with married clergy is in the Church of England. They definitely don't expect heavy involvement from the spouse as you've described. My best friend is a CofE priest, her husband is a semi-regular church goer and has no involvement at all in her ministry (the Church also protected her maternity leave very well in terms of not expecting any contact or continuing ministry while she was off, and put boundaries in place when she returned to work). Another friend is a priest married to an atheist, so she clearly contributes nothing to the running of the church, besides occasionally baking a cake. Another couple of friends the wife is quite involved, but she already was a very committed Christian before they married and I think she would be involved on her own account even if her husband weren't the vicar.

It seems like the culture and expectations of your particular church are the problem. If you are being expected to fulfil a professional role with them, they need to pay you for it. If they're not prepared to do that, then tell them that you'll have to step back, and as a pp said, it could be a time to invite other church members to consider their own charisms and how they could serve. They can't expect two people working if they only pay one! If you do step back, agree some boundaries with your husband - which people he's going to meet in his office rather than at home; whether he could have a 'surgery' where people can drop in from x to y time on set days, and outside of that they need to make an appointment; that he needs to step up with his share of the chores, and so on.

@Pastorswife what would the congregation's view be on you prepping work? If you excused yourself at 8.30pm because you have to do preparatory work for teaching tomorrow, would that raise fewer eyebrows? you'd still just go off to your room, shut the door and sleep but with better branding

I have a young family and work full time, so I can only imagine how exhausted you are with the additional elements from your husband's parish.

Agree with pp, stop what sounds like the lovely dinner parties and see if numbers dwindle! For the next one, get dh to make a 'fun' announcement...
Invite for a pot luck supper. Everyone makes and brings their favourite meal, you'll supply crockery and that's it! Don't bring anything no eating others food- or is that harsh?!

Our female minister's husband did nothing whatsoever at our church.
He actually attended a different one himself.
Our congregation thought it was a bit odd but it was his choice.

Sounds like the church goes and your husband have have little respect for your health and wellbeing, your kids and your well paid job which allows your husband to be in the job he is

I wouldnt survive, id blow my top

That sounds bonkers but I can well imagine it is not unusual for certain groups to expect this type of commitment. You must have some boundary setting skills from your work though - would it be useful to consider those? What would you do if an insecure new teacher wanted you to spend hours after school every day discussing every aspect of all their lesson plans? Or if a student was constantly asking for extra help with every element of the curriculum? You would quite reasonably say no....

Having grown up in a church environment I absolutely see how much people in ministry sacrifice for being able to support the church members. The church members seem to think that because they are paying the pastor's salary they should be available 24/7, as they sometimes also volunteer. It's a very messed up logic and so unhealthy.

What frustrates me the most in your OP is that you were even willing to give up on your career to support your husband (terrible idea in my opinion anyway) but the church weren't willing to make any concessions on salary. Not many jobs exist where you pay 1 salary and get the working hours of 2 people!

Burnout is real, and doing emotional work whilst having no private time, no boundaries and no support in raising the kids is a recipe for disaster.

My advice: set some boundaries. I would start with 1 night a week that is your night - husband is responsible for DC. Just because he is serving the church doesn't mean he gets to not serve at home or skip father duties. Take that time to see friends, exercise or whatever builds your mental health. Once you have a bit of space it will hopefully give you a chance to think deeper about what other boundaries you and your family need to make.

And for those who are moaning about your availability/bed time: 'I have a full time job, raising the kids with minimal time input from DH and my DC still doesn't sleep through the night. I am making as much space as possible to be available'. Rinse and repeat without any anger or frustration where possible. Ideally get your DH on the same script and present a united front. People will get used to it and/or get bored at some point. And you can't please everyone all the time anyway.

You have limited resources, use them wisely for yourself, your family and your church family.

The wording in this is fantastic, very church appropriate 😁

To answer some more questions, church is medium size evangelical, approx. 200 people on a Sunday. DH is the only pastor + 2 other part time staff members.
Regarding the evenings at home, they are generally:
One night is our small group/Bible study which is 10 of the same people each week. I was cooking because they were coming straight from work. I will change this and either get DH to prepare the crockpot, or people can pick up their own food on the way and eat it at our house.
One night will be dinner with a new family/church member. We are in a large European city that is very transient, so we have a large influx of people every school year, and also lots leaving.
One night will be with a more regular member/members and can be anything from catching up, counselling, prayer etc.

I think that new members can meet my DH during work hours or at church in the evenings, so I’ll stop doing that once a week. The night with regular members is also something I’ll talk to him about - again, perhaps it could just be him and them meeting somewhere once the kids are down for the evening.

I really appreciate the advice on boundaries. I’m not from the UK, but come from an equally polite and reserved culture, so some of the boundary pushing is really hard for me to deal with. I especially find this when we host people at home, people do/say things that shock me. E.g. asking if they can have (meaning: I give them for free) items in my home, like my expensive baby bouncer (that my baby was sitting in). I just couldn’t in a million years ever fathom asking someone that when I’m a guest in their home. As I said, it’s a cultural melting pot, and I’ve learned over the years how different cultures find things acceptable. Perhaps I just need to fight fire with fire and be as assertive as they are being to me.

Anyway, thank you again everyone, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this advice. You’ve put wind in my sails today. Now I’m off to get my kids and… cook dinner for people coming over tonight… THIS WEEK IS THE LAST WEEK!

God bless you

My DH is a vicar at a church, we have two young children and I work full time. I do no where near the amount that you do. We have people over once a week Monday-Friday and for lunch after church on Sundays. That is it (and it is almost always a pre-prepped slow-cooker meal from the freezer that has been bulk made and can go with pasta or rice, dessert is either bought or v simple). DH is in charge of all clear up and after dinner coffees. As a PP said we do a thank you for volunteers once a year but that is all bought from Costco! Plus all of this is my choice and has been built up slowly and with consideration. I also know if I needed to cut back on any of it that would be fine.

DH is generally out of the house another two evenings a week but tries to organise it for after the childrens' bedtime.

I truly think you will burn out at your current level of activity so I am glad to hear that you will be looking into boundary setting.

I also think if you and your DH pick up too much of the pastoral burden of your congregation the other church members won't have a chance to be channels of God's blessing in that way. As another PP said, you stepping back will be an opportunity for others to develop their gifts. Service is part of discipleship so you won't be doing others a favour if you deprive them of this (of course they need to be taught about boundaries and safeguarding too!)

My DH and I have done the emotionally healthy courses by Pete Scazzero. You can do these online from all over the world. He wrote the courses after he and his wife ended up burnt out and really rather isolated from each other while in ministry. I recommend the courses and materials highly.

Just thinking about the teaching example of boundaries again - saying no to those unreasonable expectations/requests makes you a more effective teacher/manager, because it enables you to spend your time and energy appropriately.

Also I would take time to read through Bible passages about boundaries (the ones where Jesus goes off on his own to pray, Mary and Martha etc). If you are burnt out you wont be able to spend time with God in a way that you are called to as a disciple. I find that focusing on that primary calling gives me the courage to get my priorities straight and the motivation to say no more frequently. It also doesn't harm, when explaining your new boundaries to others, to say that God has brought to your attention how exhausted you are and that you feel the Lord is calling you to take some time to rest/be more reflective/focus on your family etc etc. Which I believe to be true - your feelings are valid and are likely to be the Holy Spirit encouraging you to take action!

@AnnaBegins - the rule for stepping back after a baby sounds like a good idea.

OP - your work as a mother, teacher, friend are every bit as important a part of Christian witness as being a church member and wife of a pastor. It is impossible to do everything. As people have said - you need to have time to dedicate to these other parts of your life as well as REST and pray - just as Jesus did (everyone wanted to hear him speak - but sometimes he needed to get away too). Blessings - I hope your husband can be loving and supportive and you can have a better balance in your life!

Another thought: I wonder whether you need to give yourself permission to not be as involved as you were pre-kids. It sounds like you and your husband have built this ministry over ten years which is great, but what you could contribute in terms of time, energy, headspace and everything else is not the same now with two small children as it was when it was just the two of you. And that's OK, and you're allowed to say that to other people.

I wonder whether it's helpful to you to think in terms of callings - you perhaps feel called to some of the ministry you are doing (or if you don't then that's a whole other conversation), but you are also called to be a mother, a wife, a teacher (again if it feels that way). The way those different callings balance will change over time, and it sounds like at the moment your calling to motherhood is getting squeezed. I wonder whether that sort of language might help others understand the boundaries you need to put in. (It may not in which case ignore me!)

I don't envy you the cross-cultural stuff, but frankly if people are cheeky enough (in my cultural understanding which may well not be theirs) to ask for your stuff then there's probably an expectation of a robust response and if there isn't then they deserve one anyway! Not rude, but clear. That may well go for a lot of this, although obviously I don't know your context.

Good luck, OP!

The church have employed your DH not you. Your involvement need not be any more than any other church member, IE voluntary and what they feel fits around family and work commitments. You should politely point this out when there are complaints about availability.
The days of two-for-the-price-of one with pastors wives are long gone.

My DH was employed by a church for a while, I was working FT in another job. You need clear boundaries. Also it helps to have friends/support outside the employing church, for privacy.

Christ on a bike. You're not being anything for this. Your h is employed by the church so he should be doing ALL this. You're going to burn yourself out.

Can you reduce the amount of time that random members of the congregation are in your house? That sounds like joy thieves, and if they're just there for spiritual guidance, pass them on to your h.

And stop cooking for them!!

What does your h think about all this?

Good luck @Pastorswife!! Word it like it's a fun, positive thing for the whole church community and it'll bring everyone closer together! Any parables that have this? (Not the loaves and fishes I'd assume!)

How about Hebrews 13:16?
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.?
I'm more of a lapsed Catholic so not sure if would apply to your church?!

I wouldn't get rid of the new members' meals at your place, because if we didn't have the new people round I would never get to know any of them. But you could reduce it to every fortnight and lower your expectations of the sort of dinner you are going to produce (so keep it as simple as your usual family dinner).

Definitely get the pastoral visiting out of your house. DH prefers to see people at their place anyway, so they are more relaxed and he gets more of a glimpse into their lives to be help them better.

I'm encouraged to hear that you are going to do something about your workload. Think of it as a plan for this season - in a few years time things will change in family life and your commitments can change with them. And it is vital - and a blessing to you - to be hospitable (Heb 13:2), but hospitality can take different forms depending on your stage of life.

PS BTW, the church should've paying you enough that you don't have to work full-time. And I think you should get an allowance for hospitality, or at least be able to claim it back as expenses.

@thepastorswife

Ummm no, the church shouldn't be paying spouses and undermining their careers.

The OP is 100 percent in the right to work full time and protect her financial independence, she's not a satellite to her husband's job!!!

It's remarkable the number of posters on this thread failing to recognise that OP is the critical key worker in this relationship with a job that is vital to society, whereas her husband has a niche interest role.