By Jeff Brumley
The toughest part of being the spouse of a woman minister isn’t assuming a quiet, secondary role at church or even having to take care of the kids while pastor mom is preaching or attending finance committee meetings.
It’s suppressing the male instinct to protect a wife as she suffers the slings and arrows of congregational personalities and politics, three men shared in a Tuesday conference call hosted by Baptist Women in Ministry.
“It’s tough and very awkward when disgruntled [church members] speak harshly about your wife,” Paul Swiney said during the hour-long conference call titled “Help! My Wife is a Minister: A Conversation with Ministers’ Spouses.”
“You want to defend her, but it may not be appropriate to do so,” said Swiney, the husband of Tambi Swiney, the associate pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn.
It’s especially hard to sit in a pew with individuals who have been critical of your spouse or the church staff or policies, said Josh Speight, whose wife, Becky Caswell-Speight, is minister to families with children at Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, Ga.
It’s understandable that ministers come under regular scrutiny by their congregations and often it is well intentioned, Speight said. But taking a back seat in those situations can be agonizing for the male spouse of a female preacher.
“Your first thing is to speak up for your spouse and sometimes you can’t do that the way you want to,” Speight said.
But that urge feels deeply instinctual, said Brent Jones, whose wife, Andrea Dellinger Jones, is the senior pastor at Millbrook Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C.
“The masculine [need] to protect your wife is a huge deal,” Jones said. “It’s hard not to say something” in those situations.
The learning curve
There are other challenges for men married to ministers, the three men said, including those around rearing children, maintaining careers, setting boundaries and advocating for time for relationships and children. But even these were described as blessings by the three men on the panel.
The men were asked what sacrifices they’ve had to make as ministers’ spouses.
Jones said he is the stay-at-home dad for his and his wife’s 2-year-old daughter. Growing up a male in the United States did not prepare him well for domestic life while his wife earns the family income, he said.
Having recently finished his doctoral work, Jones said there is an emotional toll postponing a career and giving up some professional goals altogether. That has run up against his masculine sense of responsibility.
“It isn’t anything women haven’t been doing for centuries,” he said. “I just wasn’t socialized to do it myself.”
Swiney, who is retired from a career in IT, and whose wife became a minister relatively late in their marriage, said he hasn’t struggled with the issues Jones mentioned. But there’s been a learning curve for him grasping how much of Tambi’s time and energy is needed at church.
He has to balance between honoring the needs of others for his wife’s time and reminding her of the potential impact her time away can have on the family.
Setting boundaries
The three men identified boundary setting as important when married to clergy.
Swiney said his wife is very driven and wants to make sure every one of her tasks is done correctly.
“I encourage her to pace herself,” Swiney said, “to take time for herself and for us.”
Swiney also said he has had to learn how to lay back while people vie for Tambi’s attention before and after worship, and at other events.
“I want to allow her to have the space and room to do her job and just stay out of the way,” Swiney said.
Speight said his challenge is remembering that he and his wife have different ways of enjoying downtime. He enjoys alone time while she is usually more inclined to be around others. But there are times when he has to remind Becky to take care of herself.
Jones said he’ll often remind Andrea of church bylaws that delegate certain tasks to committees.
“You can set some natural boundaries that way,” he said.
It also takes creativity to make being married to a pastor work, he said.
Jones described himself as a morning person who likes to start his days going to the gym and a coffee house. So Andrea stays at home until the mid-morning so he can do that.
“The church has been fine with her coming in a little late,” he said.
Expectations
None of the men said they feel pressured to fill special roles at their wives’ churches.
Speight said he gets to live the role he wants, which is to be a parent to their two daughters. He also sings in the choir and is a substitute Sunday school teacher at Smoke Rise Baptist Church.
“It’s really nice to be a lay person and not feel any expectations as I would if I were on staff,” he said.
He added that the parenting part can be challenging when it comes to explaining to the daughters that mom has to be a minister to all the children at church.
“They sometimes struggle with that, especially at group events or when they have to share mom when they’re tired or haven’t seen mom” lately, Speight said.
Swiney said he’s been assigned no specific tasks and instead focuses his service in ways that support his wife’s ministry and the church the most. That includes serving on stewardship and finance committees and teaching.
Jones said he teaches Sunday school and participates in children’s church at Millbrook Baptist in Raleigh.
“I don’t have to bring anything to a church supper and no one thinks I will,” he said. “I am just a lay person and I participate where I can.”
Special, funny moments
There are also a lot of awkward and funny moments that come with being the husband of women ministers.
There is a comical element in being married to a minister, Swiney said.
“On more than one occasion a child [at church] has assumed that the senior pastor and Tambi are husband and wife, and that I am not in the picture,” he said.
One is when dads don’t know how to properly dress or fix their daughters’ hair for Sunday worship.
“I’m not good at it,” Jones said with a laugh.
Another is watching “stiff-necked conservatives” come to terms with his pastor wife — and often come around to accepting her, Jones said.
He recalled a funeral his wife led for a non-church member where a male relative remarked they were not at “a real Baptist church.” The same man later asked Andrea to lead another funeral for his family, Jones said.
“And he was much warmer,” he added.
The Speights have experienced numerous special moments, including the years when the couple lived in Kentucky.
Becky was an associate pastor at Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, and Josh was with the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship.
They participated in a daughter’s baptism there, served communion together and preached together in 2013.
Speight, now the missional congregation’s resource manager for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said marriage to a fellow minster has been a commitment, not a sacrifice.
“We have a commitment to our callings and to our marriage and to our children,” he said. “The challenge for us comes in navigating calendars and schedules and making sure we don’t sacrifice our kids’ needs.”