{"id":854625,"date":"2025-08-06T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=854625"},"modified":"2025-08-05T11:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T16:59:16","slug":"what-makes-or-breaks-longevity-in-a-pastors-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/what-makes-or-breaks-longevity-in-a-pastors-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes or Breaks Longevity in a Pastor\u2019s Marriage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a two-decade-old, still quoted statistic that 50 percent of pastors\u2019 marriages end in divorce. A <\/span>2017 Barna report<\/span><\/a> said 10 percent of Protestant pastors have been divorced, but did not break out the percentage of those divorces that happened while in, or as a result of, the pastorate. Given <\/span>more recent research<\/span><\/a> that church-attending couples have lower divorce rates than the general population, it\u2019s likely that pastoral divorce rates\u2014if they ever were as high as 50%\u2014have likely declined substantially.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If there is any marriage situation that has more strain inflicted on it than a pastor\u2019s marriage, I\u2019ve yet to hear of it. The burdens pastors carry on behalf of their flock, the expectations placed upon them, and the sheer mental, physical, and spiritual exhaustion have cracked or shattered the foundations of too many pastoral marriages. It\u2019s a strategic area for Satan\u2019s attacks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, how can a pastor\u2019s marriage last, and last with joy? Here are a few thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stay on the same page.<\/b><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t \u201canswer the call to preach,\u201d as we said it in my tradition, until after Sonya and I were married. We were still in our 20s with a young child, but I\u2019d worked only in pest control, then overnight freight delivery after our vows. Thoughts of ministry were put away before we wed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I announced that I was called to preach, she never questioned it. She, in fact, predicted it\u2026sitting in the drive-thru at Dairy Queen. Hey, nothing like a little prophecy with your M&M\u2019sTM<\/sup><\/span> BlizzardTM<\/sup><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty years later, when we were discussing me resigning the pastorate in the middle of the financial crisis, she told me, \u201cI wasn\u2019t called to be a pastor\u2019s wife; I was called to be your wife. Where God calls you, I go.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Being on the same page requires prayer, conversation, openness, honesty, humility, intentionality, and time. But it makes for a long marriage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Always focus on each other.<\/b><\/p>\n

Just days before I wrote these words, the now-infamous \u201cKiss Cam\u201d shot of two co-workers wrapped in a <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> friendly embrace, went viral. To put it mildly, things are going downhill for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pastors know too many stories like this. If it isn\u2019t Kiss Cam, it\u2019s a stray text message, a left-open email, or just plain suspicion. Emotional and physical affairs are real, and pastors are not immune.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the first thing that happens leading to a pastoral divorce is forgetting your heavenly first love, surely the second is forgetting your earthly first love. (I\u2019m using priority here, not chronology. Your 3<\/span>rd<\/span> grade Valentine probably isn\u2019t the issue.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Staying focused on each other requires a single immediate recognition\u2014your focus has shifted to someone or something else\u2014and a single immediate decision\u2014to return your focus to your spouse. Focus is an act of the mind, the will, and the spirit. Make your spousal focus so intent and so clear that every possible distraction is out of focus by comparison.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second you find yourself bringing something or someone else into focus, ask the Holy Spirit to refocus you on your first love.<\/span><\/p>\n

Always nurture your physical relationship.<\/b><\/p>\n

Several years ago, I developed a sermon series on sex. I won\u2019t reveal the doesn\u2019t-sound-as great-now series title, but the postcards sent to surrounding homes brought some unbelievers to check it out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In one of the sermons, I suggested that if you are married and too busy to have sex, schedule it on the calendar. \u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201cit isn\u2019t spontaneous, but at least it\u2019ll happen.\u201d The next week after the service, an 80-year-old man walked over and said, \u201cIt didn\u2019t work, Marty.\u201d \u201cWhat didn\u2019t work?\u201d He said, \u201cWriting it on the calendar.\u201d \u201cDid you try it?\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut I can\u2019t get her to go in there and look at it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, I laughed\u2026a lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have sympathy with couples who are too busy to attend to their physical relationship, but I don\u2019t want to enter into that particular suffering. I still believe married couples who are in Christ, unless inhibited by illness, inability, or distance, should not separate themselves physically except for times of prayer and fasting. Believe it or not, younger pastors, it requires as much as or more intentionality after 60-years-of-age as it did when your little ones ran you ragged; possibly for different reasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your physical relationship may eventually, for physical reasons, come to an end. If it does, you can still nurture your romantic relationship with great results.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember Jesus and his church.<\/b><\/p>\n

Ephesians 5 is key: husband, love your bride as yourself and as Jesus loves and gave himself for his bride (vs 25\u201331, 33); wife, submit to and respect your husband as to the Lord (vs 22-24, 33); and both, submit to each other in the fear of Christ (v 21).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true there are marriages outside of Christ that endure. Not all 50<\/span>th<\/span> and 60<\/span>th<\/span> anniversaries are celebrated in the fellowship hall. But, for pastoral marriage to find longevity\u2014and dare I say, joy?\u2014 remain focused on each other, stay on the same page, nurture your physical relationship, and keep Jesus and his bride as your foremost example of marriage longevity.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a two-decade-old, still quoted statistic that 50 percent of pastors\u2019 marriages end in divorce. A 2017 Barna report said 10 percent of Protestant pastors have been divorced, but did not break out the percentage of those divorces that happened while in, or as a result of, the pastorate. Given more recent research that church-attending…","protected":false},"author":19048,"featured_media":854628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[1,183,195,184,190,175,192,177,191,14796],"tags":[20981,20984,20983,20982,20980],"class_list":["post-854625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-communications","category-conflict-and-people-problems","category-discipleship","category-family","category-grow","category-how-to","category-lead","category-mind-body-and-spirit","category-monday-wednesday-featured","tag-focus-on-your-spouse","tag-keep-jesus-and-his-bride-as-your-foremost-example-of-marriage-longevity","tag-nurture-your-physical-relationship","tag-stay-on-the-same-page","tag-what-makes-or-breaks-longevity-in-a-pastors-marriage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Makes or Breaks Longevity in a Pastor\u2019s Marriage? | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There\u2019s a two-decade-old, still quoted statistic that 50 percent of pastors\u2019 marriages end in divorce. 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For many years, he has served churches in Georgia and Tennessee in full- and part-time pastoral and volunteer opportunities. Marty is married to Sonya, the love of his life. Their four kids are grown; their two grandkids are not. They have a collie with PTSD and a cat with an attitude. His latest book is The Disparate Ones: Essays on Being in the World but Not of the World (Missional Press). Reach Marty at freelance.martyduren.com, or connect on Facebook and Bluesky.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/martyduren\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Makes or Breaks Longevity in a Pastor\u2019s Marriage? | Church Answers","description":"There\u2019s a two-decade-old, still quoted statistic that 50 percent of pastors\u2019 marriages end in divorce. 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A 2017 Barna report said 10 percent of Protestant pastors have been divorced, but did not break out the percentage of those divorces that happened while in, or as a result of, the pastorate. Given more recent research that church-attending couples have lower divorce rates than the general population, it\u2019s likely that pastoral divorce rates\u2014if they ever were as high as 50%\u2014have likely declined substantially. If there is any marriage situation that has more strain inflicted on it than a pastor\u2019s marriage, I\u2019ve yet to hear of it. The burdens pastors carry on behalf of their flock, the expectations placed upon them, and the sheer mental, physical, and spiritual exhaustion have cracked or shattered the foundations of too many pastoral marriages. It\u2019s a strategic area for Satan\u2019s attacks. So, how can a pastor\u2019s marriage last, and last with joy? 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For many years, he has served churches in Georgia and Tennessee in full- and part-time pastoral and volunteer opportunities. Marty is married to Sonya, the love of his life. Their four kids are grown; their two grandkids are not. They have a collie with PTSD and a cat with an attitude. His latest book is The Disparate Ones: Essays on Being in the World but Not of the World (Missional Press). Reach Marty at freelance.martyduren.com, or connect on Facebook and Bluesky.","url":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/author\/martyduren\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19048"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854625"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854627,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854625\/revisions\/854627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}