{"id":2254,"date":"2014-02-15T06:59:59","date_gmt":"2014-02-15T12:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomrainer.wpengine.com?p=2254"},"modified":"2021-05-17T22:13:13","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T03:13:13","slug":"12-reasons-pastors-wives-are-lonely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/12-reasons-pastors-wives-are-lonely\/","title":{"rendered":"Twelve Reasons Pastors\u2019 Wives Are Lonely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Church Answers began as a source of information for pastors, staff, and other Christian leaders. I have been incredibly blessed to discover a subgroup of my readership that has much to offer: pastors\u2019 wives. Many in this group have also shared a common plight: they are very lonely.<\/p>\n

Indeed the transparency of these pastors\u2019 wives is amazing. Many have shared with each other on this blog about their battles with depression. My desire to offer help to pastors\u2019 wives has increased greatly. My respect and admiration for them has also grown significantly.<\/p>\n

For this article, I assimilated the hundreds of blog comments, Twitter and Facebook messages, and general conversations I\u2019ve had with pastors\u2019 wives. My focus was on the number one challenge they have shared: loneliness.<\/p>\n

Here are the twelve most common reasons pastors\u2019 wives have offered to explain their loneliness.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Superficial relationships in the church. <\/b>\u201cNo one ever sees me as my own person. I am the pastor\u2019s wife. No one tries to get close to me.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. A busy pastor\/husband. <\/b>\u201cMy husband is on 24\/7 call all the time. I just get leftovers.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Mean church members. <\/b>\u201cI guess I\u2019ve isolated myself to some extent. I just don\u2019t want to keep hearing those awful things they say about my husband and me.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. A conduit for complaints about her husband. <\/b>\u201cLast week someone told me their family was leaving the church because my husband is a lousy preacher. Do they have any idea how that makes me feel?\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Broken confidences. <\/b>\u201cI\u2019ve given up trying to get close to church members. I thought I had a close friend until I found out she was sharing everything I told her. That killed me emotionally.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. Frequent moves. <\/b>\u201cI\u2019m scared to get close to anybody now. Every time I develop a close relationship, we move again.\u201d<\/li>\n
  7. Viewed as a second-class person. <\/b>\u201cOne church member introduced me to a guest visiting the church by saying I\u2019m \u2018just the pastor\u2019s wife.\u2019\u201d<\/li>\n
  8. Lack of support groups. <\/b>\u201cI\u2019ve heard that some wives have support groups that really help. I\u2019ve never been able to find one.\u201d<\/li>\n
  9. No date nights. <\/b>\u201cI can\u2019t remember the last time my husband and I had a date night together.\u201d<\/li>\n
  10. Complaints about children. <\/b>\u201cI really don\u2019t try to get close to church members anymore. I\u2019m tired of so many of them telling me how perfect our children should be.\u201d<\/li>\n
  11. Husband does not give the wife priority. <\/b>\u201cFrankly, the church is like a mistress to my husband. He has abandoned me for someone else.\u201d<\/li>\n
  12. Financial struggles. <\/b>\u201cMy husband makes so much less money than most of the members. I just can\u2019t afford to do the things they do socially.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    While many pastors\u2019 wives share that there are blessings in their role, many do suffer severe loneliness. I would love to hear from more of these wives. And I would love to hear from others about them. The words I have heard from these women have prompted me to be more intentional about praying for them.<\/p>\n

    \n

    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Church Answers began as a source of information for pastors, staff, and other Christian leaders. I have been incredibly blessed to discover a subgroup of my readership that has much to offer: pastors\u2019 wives. Many in this group have also shared a common plight: they are very lonely. Indeed the transparency of these pastors\u2019 wives…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745018,"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-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-family","category-lead","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTwelve Reasons Pastors\u2019 Wives Are Lonely | 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\/12-reasons-pastors-wives-are-lonely\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Twelve Reasons Pastors\u2019 Wives Are Lonely | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Church Answers began as a source of information for pastors, staff, and other Christian leaders. 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