You are a pastor so everyone thinks your marriage is amazing. Your life is perfect and theirs is the one who needs your help.
The reality is you work all the time and are always at church for various events. Your spouse is raising the kids and taking care of most of the things at home. You help as much as you can, which isn’t much.
You want your marriage to live up to expectations, and don’t think you are at risk for divorce because you are a pastor.
But connecting with your spouse like a great marriage requires takes time that you just don’t seem to have.
They understand and try not to complain too much. You don’t think it’s that bad, but you don’t really know.
You know you need to do something different, but you may not know where to start.
Don’t all pastors’ marriages go through this?
Being Married to a Pastor is Hard
All marriages have seasons where things are easier and some where it’s harder.
What if you tried daily check-ins to show your spouse, they are still important to you. Like more important than your work.
Be Intentional to make time with them without distractions or kids a priority.
You could text them more during the day to
- See how their day is going.
- Let them know you are thinking of them.
- Send them something funny.
Or if you are already good at this.
You might decide you need to spend some intentional one-on-one time each day.
This might not sound like a big deal but giving your spouse your undivided attention daily can pay big dividends.
Intentional Alone Time With Your Spouse
My husband and I named this time power hour. It doesn’t take an hour but when we started, we allotted an hour to it.
We have a regular time in our schedule. Ours is each evening after the kids go to bed. We had to teach them to respect this time and not to come into our room unless they have an emergency.
It’s a time when we are both committed to listening and talking to each other.
The goal of this time is just to talk about things other than the logistics of this day and the next. It’s not just about who is going where and when.
We talk about what happened during the day and I love to talk about how it made me feel. We also like to share things that made us laugh or sometimes we just cuddle.
After we started this new habit, we noticed we bickered less. We were on the same page more or at least seemed to understand each other better.
After a little while we started saying:
“Do you have anything to talk about?”
“No”
“Me either.”
Then we would use the time for other productive things like reading or bible time. Often, after a few of these power hours where we skipped because we thought we didn’t have anything to say we would start arguing more.
We decided even if we couldn’t think of anything to say at first, we would sit together and enjoy each other’s company.
Don’t Skip It
When we stopped skipping power hour, we would stop bickering. We noticed this daily time together really made a big difference in our connecting and happiness.
Now, our power hour lasts 15 minutes or so each evening before we got to bed and it is a key habit to the joy and peace in our marriage.
What about you?
Choose To Make Your Spouse a Priority
Do you have a time each day to really connect with your spouse? A time protected from kids and electronic distractions.
Do you prefer mornings or evenings?
I think building it into your daily routine
will make it a habit that you stick to and
can have a positive impact on your marriage.
Remember, the point of power hour is to listen to your spouse and find out what is going on in their day. You can often see clues as to what small things you can do show them you are listening and you care.
You want your spouse to feel loved by you. You want them to feel like you love them more than anything after God. Even more than the church.
How are you doing at this? I know you think your spouse knows this but do they feel it by your actions?
Maybe it is time to start your own version of power hour.
May you pastor from wholeness.