Not-so-quiet Desperation

I thought I could handle being married to a pastor … but now I’m not so sure,” says Lisa, a character in Desperate Pastors’ Wives by Ginger Kolbaba and Christy Scannell (Howard, 2007). The novel tells the story of four pastors’ wives in fictitious Red River, Ohio.

“It’s a town so small that when you take out your garbage, people already know what’s in it,” Ginger says. We were first interested in the book because Ginger is a former Leadership staffer and currently editor of our sister publication Marriage Partnership. Our interest was further piqued when the authors appeared on Court TV to comment on a recent trial of a pastor’s wife accused of killing her husband.

How has a fun, breezy novel tapped such a deep need?

The characters in our book are all desperate for something: love, faith, peace, fulfillment. They all live in the fishbowl of pastoral ministry. Their husbands don’t understand the stress of being a pastor’s wife, and they have no one to turn to. So these four women from different churches, different denominations start meeting together. They drive 40 miles out of town to meet at a small café. It’s the one place where the façade can come down.

Why use a fiction? Surely there are true stories of hurting pastors’ wives.

Unless it’s a murder, who would read it? We wanted to be able to reach out to pastors’ wives, but if we did so in a non-fiction, reportorial way, nobody would believe it. From the outside, pastors’ families often look so perfect. We wanted church members to pick up the book and say, “Oh, my. I had no idea I was doing this to my pastor’s wife. She’s just like me, and I need to give her a break.”

What kind of research did you do?

As a pastor’s kid, I’m familiar with the struggles of pastors’ families. And in my role as editor, I receive hundreds of letters from pastors’ wives who have nobody to go to, and so they come to us. We interviewed women and surveyed their blogs, and we found there really is an underlying desperation in many of their marriages and relationships.

We also studied the polls. Global Pastors Network reports that 80 percent of pastors’ wives say they feel left out and unappreciated by church members. You talk about desperate—that statistic really threw me: 80 percent? That’s a lot of hurting, isolated women.

And 84 percent of pastors’ wives feel unqualified and discouraged in their roles. More than half of pastor’s wives said the most devastating thing that happened to their marriage was entering the ministry.

Do you think pastors would be surprised to know their wives are this unhappy?

Yes. Ministry wives face problems of calling and expectation. He’s called, but is she? She is expected to be a role model and a first lady and to keep her whole family in perfect order. Everything she does and says reflects on her husband’s ministry, and I don’t think the men understand the stress that places on a woman. Their whole identity can be wrapped up in being the pastor’s wife, and they begin to lose themselves, who they are.

And they have nowhere to go. If you’re a pastor’s wife and you’re really ticked off at your husband because he isn’t helping at home or he works too much or he’s inadequate in bed, you can’t go to the pastor to discuss it. You can’t tell other women in the church.

So your use of the word desperate is not hyperbole.

Not at all. One woman told me, “I hate organized religion.” After decades in small churches, she hates what the church is doing to her husband and their family. I was told, “I can worship God so much better when I’m not around church people.” She was just being real. And I’ve heard that many times: life is messy, community is messy, and in too many churches it becomes nasty, and your soul takes the hits.

In your story you advocate the “safe place,” where the pastors’ spouses can open up in a protected environment. We found safe places on blogs, dozens of sites where pastors’ wives are writing anonymously to get the toxins out of their systems. But how much real community is there on the Web? The friendship among the four women in our book is a rarity. At least it offers the hope that there are real friends out there and people who truly understand.

You have a ministry background. What was the novel’s effect on you?

Therapeutic. My characters said things I couldn’t because I was the pastor’s daughter. One served a burnt casserole to the church leaders who had refused to replace the broken stove in the parsonage. In the end, they seemed like real, ordinary people, like me. Even with all the things the pastor’s wife does and is expected to do, she’s often invisible, and few people really appreciate who she is. I thought, I need to do more to express my gratitude to my pastor’s wife—and to all pastors’ wives.