Posted by Rodetta Cook

Rodetta Cook has been a pastor’s wife for over 40 years. She and her husband, Ron, have actively served the Lord together in ministry during the entire time and are co-founders of Care for Pastors. She understands the expectations, loneliness and how hard it is to find balance in ministry as a pastor’s wife. Rodetta also leads the pastor’s wives initiative at Care for Pastors called The Confidante and ministers to hundreds of wives each week. She strives to share blogs with other pastors’ wives that will help them in their ministry walk.

Posted by Rodetta Cook

Topics: For Pastors' Wives · Loneliness

The Other Woman

Monday, December 07, 2015

I want to talk about a subject today that may or may not hit home and that is “the other woman.” You may say that is a strange subject, my husband doesn’t have another woman. Oh, but he may have. Many times pastors allow the church to be the “other woman” and she robs him of his time and energy to where he has no time to give to his wife or children. Every pastor must learn boundaries or his wife may become resentful and bitter towards the church.

I had a friend once that was a pastor’s wife who wanted to speak at her husband’s funeral because she had something very important to say to the church. Her husband had been the pastor at this church 20+ years.

She stood up at his funeral and said, “I’m sure no one here today knows this, but my husband had another woman. And that woman was you and no matter how hard he tried he could never do enough for that other woman or please her. The more he tried, the more tired he became because it was never enough. The sad part is I loved that other woman as much as he did, but she didn’t always love me back.” Then that pastor’s wife said to the church, “Please don’t do this to your next pastor.” And she then sat down.

Wow, how powerful and brave of this pastor’s wife to share at her husband’s funeral. It is so true ladies, our husbands sometimes don’t set proper boundaries and the church does become the other woman.

If this is an area in your marriage that needs attention, please encourage your husband to reach out to Care for Pastors for a safe place to get help.