I have no idea what church you go to so I don’t mean to sound presumptuous but the current North American conservative evangelic movement is in a bad way. It is rife with spiritual abuse. Churches are becoming hierarchal social clubs. Many christians are being damaged.
What you wrote about your wife, I could have written about mine 6 years ago. But here is the thing. What I finally found out was that she was right and I was wrong. She saw it before I did. We thought our church was characterized by love but it was not.
It was all hierarchy. How long had you been a member? What position did you hold? Who were your “friends”? This resulted in relationships being characterized by an overwhelming lack of love.
Just one example. My wife also complained that she had no friends. She would approach friendships with sincerity but was met by women seeking to establish a dominant position. This was mostly done by “ministering”. Every conversation was about how my wife was doing and what she needed to do to fix herself. It sounds so loving and helpful but, in reality, this was the way women established their place in the hierarchy. The higher ups ministered to those below. It’s sick.
There were so many dysfunctional dynamics like the one I describe above but none of it was spoken and it took a long time to figure out what was going on. We finally left that church and found a healthier church. However, it still had sprinklings of the problems and our experience resulted in us having a hard time trusting people. We are still working through it six years later.
My advice to you is from Ephesians 5:25. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church, giving yourself up for her.
Also, consider that your wife’s problems are a symptom of something that is wrong in the church. Listen to her. Look for examples of legalism or people worship. Do people rave about your pastor? Are there families in the church that are considered “royalty” because they are so godly? Do people leave the church and you never hear from them again?
I will pray for you and your wife.
I appreciate your words, but I don’t agree with the analysis.
Our church has issues like all do, but they are not the issues you are describing. I have been in churches before that, in fact, are that way. I recognize the signs and patterns and they aren’t present at our church.
She’s been a member at this church since long before we got married. Almost 10 years. We got married in June of 2014 and I joined her church. I was a deacon up until now.
My friends were actually the pastor, the associate pastor, and almost all of the people in church that are our age. Granted, it took some time to break the ice, and I’m not friends with everyone in our age group, but I am friends with most of them (most constituting around a dozen people out of a pool in my age group of around 20 people. It’s not a particularly large church. Regular attendance runs around 100, and is predominately older).
The things my wife says about the other women in church, especially the ones with children are not fit for being repeated. This is kind of a repeat of previous behavior, though it’s worse than before. Before we got married, she had this idea that she had no friends at church because she wasn’t married. I think she believed getting married would fix that. When expectations didn’t match reality, cognitive dissonance ensued.