Ministry can be hard on families.
The constant burden of loving and leading a local church is taxing, and the pressure a pastor feels inevitably impacts his wife.
In recent years, my wife has frequently facilitated groups for pastor's wives. As she has interacted with them, she has found three common challenges.
1. Criticism & Requests from Staff
In most professions, the wife doesn't show up at the office or job site to hear random comments about her husband's leadership.
People from her husband's work don't approach her with a complaint about a decision or to "put a bug in your ear" with hopes she will pass along the information to her husband. Thus a pastor's wife is constantly faced with the challenge of loving people who are disappointed in her husband, of deciding what to tell her husband and casting the burden on the Lord so that she can worship and learn when she comes to a worship or group gathering.
Pastors: Help your wife with this tension. Encourage her to ask those with a struggle to bring concerns to you (or the leader of that ministry). Assure her that she does not need to carry the burden of carrying messages to you.
Church Members: Don't ask the pastor's wife to relay a message for you. Pastors and their wives don't have church staff meetings at home.
2. Unrealistic Expectations
There are a few people who sensed they were "called to be a pastor's wife," but most (like my wife) simply sensed the Lord leading them into a relationship with their husband—whether the husband is a pastor or not.
Kaye didn't study or prepare to be a pastor's wife; she was (thankfully) just excited to be my wife. Yet in some ministry contexts, there are implicit expectations placed on a pastor's wife. She senses them, and she wrestles with if she should or how she should fulfill them.
Pastors: Encourage your wife to plug into the church as the Lord leads her—to find a place of service that fits her, to engage with a group of people that encourage her and to worship at the service she most enjoys.
Church Members: Don't place unrealistics expectations on the pastor's wife. If there are needs in the church (i.e. piano player, women's ministry leader, children's Sunday school teacher), search for those who can already have strengths in those respective areas.
3. Lack of Quality Time with Husband
Sadly, many wives in ministry are neglected.
Your pastor's wife longs to have more time with her husband, but she probably feels guilty asking for it.
Pastors: We must love and lead our wives before we love and lead the church. You will most likely disappoint someone with every decision you make; so choose to disappoint others and not your wife. Your marriage is "till death do us part."
Church Members: Look for ways to treat your pastor and his wife. Do they need a date night without the kids? Then offer to babysit for the night. Do they need a weekend off? Then take the necessary steps to make this happen.