Skip to main content

Your Husband Does What?

It's often a conversation killer.  I'm at some social gathering of acquaintances or thrust into a social situation of some sort in which I know few people, if any.  A new workplace, especially.  We are making small talk.  It's the usual:  Do you have children?  Where are you from?  Are you married?  What does you spouse do?

When I utter the words, "My husband is a pastor," there is a moment of silence, then a quick "oh really?" as a comment.  Often I see the person scanning back through everything he or she said.  I know what they are doing.  They are trying to decide if they said something offensive, told an off-color joke, or uttered some sort of profanity.  It happens about eight times out of ten, that someone begins to apologize to me for something that he/she said before it was known that my husband is a pastor.  As if it should really make a difference.  When the apologies start, my standard line is usually, "You do know, I'm not the Holy Spirit, right?"

My husband tried to warn me.  He said it would happen when you marry a minister.  I just didn't realize how often it would happen. 

I've been known to use profanity.  And I trade in vulgar jokes sometimes.  I'm still a child at heart.  

So I know where my vulnerabilities are.  I also know when to be quiet, when not to talk because it might jeopardize him and his ministry.  This is a balancing act -- being a minister's wife.  But I'm me.  I haven't become some holy women because I'm married to a minister. 

And I hate it when people act as if I have.  When the find out I'm a minister's wife, so they change who they are instantly. 

I hate that. 

I know it's shocking!  After all, I am not wearing a jumper, I do wear make-up, and I am an educated, professional woman.  I just blew your stereotype.  And for the record, this pastor guy, with whom I share a house, a life, and a bed, is a pretty darn non-stereotypical human himself.  He loves hiking and being away fromcivilization, he lives for Doctor Who, and one of his favorite songs of all times is by Nirvana.  We're regular folk.  He and I still have disagreements, we both get in bad moods, we have forgotten to pay a bill or two on time.  He leaves the toilet seat up and I leave my shoes lying around.  We think ill of others sometimes and simply find some people annoying and disagreeable.  So don't feel like you have to be perfect around us, because the Lord knows (really) that we certainly aren't.  I would much rather have someone be genuine around me than to pretend to be someone they are not because they think it makes them look better.  I'm not an idiot -- I can nearly always see right through the veneer of perfection and pseudo-piety. 

Yes, I know how to cook, and I love to do it.  But not because I'm "a pastor's wife".  

Recently, someone was afraid of being too crass withme because she thought that, being a minister's wife, she would need to tone down.  She doesn't.  

No one does. 

Moral of the story?  It doesn't really matter what my husband's job is.  You wouldn't act differently is he was a physician or plumber or librarian or chef, so don't act differently because he's a pastor.  You are still you and I am still me.  We need to be authentic with one another to form real relationships.  And I'm not judging, nor do I have a super-special relationship with God that's different than what you or anyone else can have, if you choose to do so.  Let's just be real ... together. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Review of "Come as You Aren't"

Come as You Aren't: A Role-Playing Game for Adventurous Couples is a simple role-playing kit for couples who want to explore and experiment in ways to seduce one another that they simply wouldn't have imagined otherwise.  The set is meant to offer one partner who draws a Who, a What, and a Where card at random and places them in an envelope for the other partner.  From there, it's up to them to enact the scenarios as they see fit. The instructions are printed on the back cover of the box and the deck comes with a few blank cards for couples to customize. This is a fun little gift for couples -- and just in time for the holidays. I received a free copy of this game from the Blogging for Books review program in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "Roadfood"

Jane & Michael Stern's Roadfood gives us another (this is the 10th edition!) gastro road trip across the US.  Roadfood is like a road map through backroads and interstates for some of the best food in each state and region in the US. Roadfood celebrates venues most travelers would never venture near, let alone enter.  Most of the state-by-state listed restaurants are, however, for dining on the cheap.  Like Litton's in Knoville, TN -- which really does have amazing burgers. While one could hardly map a road trip by the Sterns' restaurant finds -- some cities, like Chicago, are overrepresented, while the rest of Illinois is all but ignored -- this fun and fanciful volume is pure pleasure. I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

A review of "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World"

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life  is a book to which I wish I'd been introduced years ago.  In it, Joanna Weaver offers challenging and helpful advice for drawing me -- and women like me -- back to the core of those things that really matter in life.  My husband has been a pastor for 17 years.  I work with developmentally challenged adults in a residential setting.  And when we married (just a year ago), I never realized all the ways in which our busy lives would impact our relationship and, more importantly, our spiritual lives.   We all have different lives with different choices, pressures, situations, challenges and opportunities.  But most of us -- or, maybe just me! -- feel overwhelmed by those choices and pressures, the situations and challenges.   This is the book I needed to expose how so much of all that is my own doing.  Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World is based on an exc...