During Pastor Appreciation Month, we include our gratitude for the support of the pastor’s wife. Spiritual spouses are viewed differently than their faith-leading husbands. Although there are plenty of benefits, both emotional and spiritual, of serving within the leadership of a faith community, there are challenges as well. A pastor’s wife is expected to be kind, compassionate, sympathetic, supportive, patient, gracious, long-suffering, and the list goes on. She is required to be, in a word: perfect. Yet this unrealistic expectation can be tempered through realistic strategies of coping and support. Research explains.

Princess Angel Boadi and Fiona Starr in “Mental Health and the Pastor’s Wife” (2023) explored how coping strategies and stress management can improve the emotional well-being of a pastor’s wife.[i] In exploring the experiences of the pastors’ wives in........

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