{"id":1152,"date":"2013-04-06T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomrainer.wpengine.com?p=1152"},"modified":"2021-02-26T12:23:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T18:23:51","slug":"seven-things-pastors-wives-wish-they-had-been-told-before-they-became-pastors-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-pastors-wives-wish-they-had-been-told-before-they-became-pastors-wives\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Things Pastors\u2019 Wives Wish They Had Been Told Before They Became Pastors\u2019 Wives"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am especially grateful to have the opportunity to hear from pastors\u2019 wives since much of my focus is on pastors. In an informal survey, I simply asked the open-ended question: \u201cWhat do you wish you had been told before you became a minister\u2019s wife?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank you to the pastors\u2019 wives who were willing to give us such great feedback. And thanks to Chris Adams for doing the survey and to Amy Jordan for assembling the data.<\/p>\n

The responses are in order of frequency. A representative comment follows each response.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I wish someone had told me just to be myself.<\/strong> \u201cI am a people-pleaser by nature, so for me, not being prepared to handle being a pastor\u2019s wife with my personality was a heavy burden to carry early in our ministry.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. I wish someone had prepared me to deal with criticism of my husband and me.<\/strong> \u201cIt was hard to deal with negative experiences, conflicts, or criticisms, especially in relation to my husband and our area of ministry. So I would harbor feelings of resentment when it came to ministry and my man.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. I wish someone had reminded me that my husband is human.<\/strong> \u201cI wish someone had told me that my husband could not be God for me. I was disillusioned at first to find out that he indeed is just a man.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. I wish someone had told me that others were watching us (the glass house syndrome).<\/strong> \u201cEven though they are watching us, we don\u2019t need to be controlled by what they expect of us.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. I wish someone had told me there are some really mean people in the church.<\/strong> \u201cI was really surprised. I had to learn not to pay too much attention to them or they would get me down.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. I wish someone had told me how much my husband needs me to build him up.<\/strong> \u201cI need to be his cheerleader. Dealing with critics in the church is difficult. He needs to hear that I respect him now more than ever.\u201d<\/li>\n
  7. I wish someone had told me that my schedule will never be normal again.<\/strong> \u201cYour husband will be very busy. Expect that. But come alongside him in the areas of time management and organization.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One pastor\u2019s wife told us that her role was like getting a job for which she never applied. She wrote this funny script in her response:<\/p>\n

    Husband<\/strong>: \u201cHoney, I got you a job today.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Wife<\/strong>: \u201cReally? Okay, but I wasn\u2019t looking for a job. I have plenty to do here running the household and raising the kids. That was our plan, right? Me stay home with the kids so you could fully dedicate yourself to the ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Husband<\/strong>: \u201cYeah, yeah. But I really need you take this job for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Wife<\/strong>: \u201cWell, okay, just tell me what to do and when it needs to be done by, and I will do everything I can to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Husband<\/strong>: \u201cWell, right now there are no specific responsibilities. Basically, it\u2019s just doing anything at church that no one else steps up to do or wants to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Wife<\/strong>: \u201cOh my, that is a tall order. Okay, I\u2019ll do it. I guess we could use the extra money anyway. Things are always tight around here on a pastor\u2019s salary.<\/p>\n

    Husband<\/strong>: \u201cWell, actually honey, there is no salary . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

    What do you think of these seven responses? What would you add?
    \n<\/strong><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am especially grateful to have the opportunity to hear from pastors\u2019 wives since much of my focus is on pastors. In an informal survey, I simply asked the open-ended question: \u201cWhat do you wish you had been told before you became a minister\u2019s wife?\u201d Thank you to the pastors\u2019 wives who were willing to…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,190,177,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-family","category-lead","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSeven Things Pastors\u2019 Wives Wish They Had Been Told Before They Became Pastors\u2019 Wives | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/seven-things-pastors-wives-wish-they-had-been-told-before-they-became-pastors-wives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven Things Pastors\u2019 Wives Wish They Had Been Told Before They Became Pastors\u2019 Wives | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am especially grateful to have the opportunity to hear from pastors\u2019 wives since much of my focus is on pastors. 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