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Fawn Weaver insists, “Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It’s a choice.” When it comes to marriage, I chose wisely. 

I can readily identify with Churchill’s assessment: “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”

Amanda and I are celebrating our 36^th wedding anniversary today.  We were married on September 7, 1985 at the Post Oak Springs Baptist Church near Jacksonville, Alabama, her home church and my first pastorate.  Since that time our journey together across these 36 years has been quite an adventure with lots of unexpected twists and turns, a journey that has enabled us to learn and grow, and to forge a remarkable number of treasured friendships along the way.

After a reception in the Fellowship Hall we departed for our honeymoon and the real work of marriage began.  Even for a pastor and wife, the merging of two lives is never easy and is often messy.  Amanda and I have tasted both the “for better and for worse” experiences of life, and our relationship has grown stronger and more durable as we have confronted obstacles and embraced opportunities. Marriage is perhaps the most unique of all human relationships.  The privilege of partnering with one person for life is a blessing and a challenge.  But for the pastor’s family, I think the stressors are specific and peculiar.  While every marriage has its challenges, a pastor’s marriage is lived out in a distinct context.

Here are a few of the factors that test the stability of a minister’s marriage:

• The glass house syndrome.  A minister’s family life requires a little more transparency and is often scrutinized more publicly than the average marriage.
• The swinging pendulum of emotions.  Because a minister deals with the emotion of everything in life from birth to death, a minister’s family is subject to lots of emotional fluctuation.
• The burden of confidentiality. A minister deals with sensitive confidential issues on a daily basis, and although a minister’s spouse is not privy to many of those issues, the duress of confidentiality often bleeds over into the minister’s home life.
• The flexibility challenge. A minister’s schedule is always tentative.  Interruptions are a constant.  Vacation plans change. Kid’s ball games and concerts are missed. A minister’s life demands extraordinary flexibility.
• The fatigue factor.  Many ministers confess that they teeter on the brink of burnout or pastoral fatigue.  A minister’s children and spouse often live with a parent or partner who is physically and/or emotionally exhausted. And without a sense of balance and a time for refreshing, this weariness can drive the entire family toward “church burnout.”

According to Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure.” Although this admonition is for the entire faith community, it is especially important for ministers.

To build a healthy marriage, a minister and spouse should take proactive steps to navigate the aforementioned stressors with faith, discernment, and intentionality. As we have grown through 36 years of marriage, we have gained a few insights into what makes marriage work for us as a pastor and wife:

• Embrace the uniqueness of the “ministry life.”  Life for a minister’s family is not abnormal. It is just a different kind of normal. We try to live into the uniqueness rather than avoiding it or denying it.
• Avoid unrealistic expectations. You will likely encounter a few church members who have unrealistic or idealistic expectations for your work schedule, your preaching topics, and your family life. You will be a more effective minister and you will have a healthier family life if you live out of the wellspring of your gifts and convictions, and not the expectations of others.
• Schedule time for dates. There is a lot of demand on a pastor’s schedule.  Calendaring can often be like doing triage. So I schedule appointments with Amanda for lunch dates, dinner dates, sporting events, and other fun activities. Otherwise, my schedule becomes full and we will miss spending quality time together.
• Avoid taking the stress and stories of work home.  Often when I leave the office, I am still in ministry mode, making evening visits or phone calls, working on preparation for upcoming services, or processing the events of the day. And while I may occasionally need to decompress by discussing an extremely stressful situation, I try to avoid discussing the daily debris of ministry with my spouse
• Take your off days and your vacation.  I am still working on this. Only a couple of times during our 30 years have I taken all of my allotted vacation time. However, the older I get, I find that it is more important to take time to rest, refocus, and rejuvenate, for my physical health, my spiritual health, and for the health of our marriage.
• Tell stories involving your marriage or family life with discretion. Our congregation loves stories and they seem receptive to illustrative stories from our personal experiences, such as our adventures in tennis, golf, or travels.  However, I try to only tell stories that highlight and illustrate how our lives intersect with the application of the biblical text, and I avoid stories that are intimate or critical.
• Do ministry together occasionally.  Amanda has her own passion for ministry and she invests her time and energy in serving, just like any other member of our congregation. However, we occasionally enjoy making hospital visits together, engaging in mission projects together, and even reading and discussing the same books.
• Take care of your health. During our wedding, we pledged to be faithful to each other in sickness and in health. Obviously, we prefer to be healthy.  We do a pretty good job of keeping up with our doctor’s visits and we are proactive in caring for our health.
• Learn when to say yes and when to say no to invitations. We enjoy being socially active, but there is no way to say yes to every invitation. It is a biblical imperative to “let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
• Keep growing… together.  I don’t think anyone, especially a minister and spouse, ever reaches a point where you can put your marriage on cruise control.  A healthy marriage requires ongoing nurture. There is a big difference in growing old together and getting old together. We want to grow old together by continuing to grow spiritually, intellectually, and intimately.

A healthy marriage may not necessarily make ministry easier, but an unhealthy marriage certainly makes ministry more difficult. If you neglect your marriage in order to preserve your ministry, you are likely to lose both.

I love being married and I love serving as a pastor. And I hope to enjoy both in some way for an extended season. Amanda and I have shared a partnership in life and ministry for 36 years now.  And I look forward to many more.

(Barry Howard serves as the pastor of the Church at Wieuca in North Atlanta. He also serves as a columnist and leadership coach for the Center for Healthy Churches.)