Do Other Introverted Pastor's Wives Hate Sundays?

*DISCLAIMER- I love being a pastor's wife. True, it's not all about me. No, I'm not always this cynical, nor do I think along these lines the whole time I'm at church. I do actually think about the needs of others, at least every other week or so. ;) Yes, there are many wonderful and rewarding parts of being in church leadership- I'm totally only talking about the negative stuff here. And finally, yes, my husband works incredibly hard on Sundays and it's exhausting for him too. Now with all that out of the way, can I be honest for a sec?



Last night I found myself googling the phrase, "Do other introverted pastors wives hate Sundays?"It was not my proudest moment, lemme tell ya. But at the same time, Sundays are so draining for me, and I need to find some better coping skills, or at least know that I'm not alone!


It's not as bad as you might be thinking. I love our church. I love that my husband is a pastor. I love listening to him preach. I love the people in our church.


However.


The Getting Ready
Every Sunday morning, I wake up early to get myself and the kids ready for church. Of course, this involves dressing up, the most dressed up that any of us will get on most weeks, and also the earliest we'll wake up most weeks. Fun times already! Any other time we're all getting ready to go somewhere, I'd expect Thad to help me get the kids ready, but on Sundays it's all on me since he has a sermon and a million other things to be thinking about. So I'm in charge of the outfit picking, the breakfast, the snack and toy packing, the teeth brushing, the hair fixing, all on top of getting myself ready. I'm hyping myself up on coffee long before we get out the door. In fact, I'm probably on my second cup before we get out the door.


The Leadership Meeting and Sunday School
We get to church early for leadership meeting and Sunday school. As I've explained before, I'm an introvert. Being around people, especially large groups of people, drains me. During Sunday school, I'm often sneaking peeks at Facebook or Instagram, not because the speaker isn't interesting or because I enjoy being rude, but because those brief little escapes help me stay sane. Go right ahead and judge me for it! I know, so horrible to get online during Sunday school! (But thank God for ipads and wifi!)



The Being Friendly and Apparently Not Being Allowed to Have Even a Second to Myself
I'm the pastor's wife, so of course I need to be friendly and welcoming to everyone. It's not that I don't want to be friendly and welcoming. It's not that I don't care about every single person that comes, because I do care, deeply! It's that being friendly and welcoming doesn't come natural for me. I'm not good at it. It's exhausting for me. One Sunday I was getting a little overwhelmed so I took a quick break from chatting with people and ducked into the bathroom. A congregation member(someone that I don't even know yet, but who obviously recognized me) popped in and said, "I see you! You can't hide in here!" I'm sure she didn't mean to be so rude, but boy- talk about the WRONG thing to say to an introverted pastor's wife who already feels a bit on display and out of her element and needs just a second to breathe! I mean, really? I can't hide in the bathroom for a second to recompose myself? Okay, then how about you just watch me go crazy right in front of everyone! Trust me, you want to let me have those two minutes to myself.

There's me hiding in the bathroom. I felt a little better after just a few minutes to myself.

The Sitting on the Front Row and Worshipping Inconspicuously
Finally, service time arrives. As the pastor's wife, I sit right there on the front row. Most of the time, surprisingly, that doesn't bother me. I decided from day one that I wasn't going to let being a pastor's wife keep me from being myself. If I worship less flamboyantly than some people, that's okay. It's good for people to see that people worship in different ways, and that's normal. I'm pretty confident about that part of it.(Yay me!) However, this can be problematic if I'm having a particularly bad day(cause worshipping tends to bring out all those emotions, dontcha know), or if I have a particular hatred for one of the songs being sung. I may or may not be found singing "I really hate this song...I really hate this song..." instead of "I am a friend of God! I am a friend of God!" Thankfully, we don't sing that song very often.


The Sermon
My husband is a great preacher(not that I'm biased or anything, but really. I may be biased, but I'm also picky, and he's pretty darn good). I love listening to him preach. I'll be sitting there getting all inspired, writing notes in my notebook, resisting the urge to check and see if someone commented on my facebook post, and thinking about the blog post I'm going to write about how much the sermon inspired me. At that moment, I'm so fully of passion, so ready to run out into the world and do all of the things!!! I can make a difference in the world! I can learn and grow! Awesome Awesome Awesome!!!


The Aftermath
And then the service ends. More talking with people. More hand shaking and interacting and talking. (Again, it's not that I don't like people or that I don't care, it's that doing these things is EXHAUSTING for me and I've been at it for a good 4 hours now.) Then the kids come back in from their class, and they're in that lovely state of being excited/tired/hungry/cranky all at once, and it's just lovely trying to corral that energy. We usually go out to eat so that I don't have to go home and try to fix lunch two hours after it's normal time. I'm usually able to keep my energy going through lunch, but by the time we get home...


The Exhaustion
I'm exhausted. Physically exhausted from getting everything ready and doing and being the whole time. Mentally exhausted from interacting with all those people. Emotionally exhausted from the worship time and the inspirational sermon- and oh yeah, remember all those excited feelings about all the awesome things I'm going to do and awesome blog posts I'm going to write? They're still there, I'm just too exhausted to do anything about them. I don't know if you've ever experienced that before, but it's one of the most frustrating feelings. So not only am I exhausted, I'm exhausted and frustrated. And remember, I still have two small children who are wanting to play and eat and drive me crazy for the rest of the day until bedtime finally comes around, when all I want to do is lay on the couch for the rest of the day. And of course, totally understandably, my husband is also pretty much down for the count by this time also. Someone should start a business where pastoring families can drop off their kids after church and someone wonderful will take care of them for the rest of the day, feed them, bathe them, and drop them off asleep into their beds shortly after bedtime. They'd make a killing, I just know it.


So after all of that yesterday, (and then with DST thrown in, making my kids stay awake nearly three hours after their normal bedtime), I found myself on the couch at about 11PM, googling "Do other introverted pastors wives hate Sundays?" The bad news is that a link from truewoman.com came up, condescendingly telling me that I should sacrifice *all* of my own needs, even those related to my specific "personality"(as if that's a fake thing!), for the needs of the congregation members. It was the whole "You can't hide in here!" all over again, with an extra dose of "die-to-self!" thrown in for good measure. (I knew I shouldn't have clicked that one, but I did anyway.) The good news is that I also stumbled across a ministry for pastors wives and female church leaders that looks pretty awesome. I'm going to check it out further- maybe it's just the encouragement I need.

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Entering Recharge Mode

I'm an introvert. Very much an introvert, actually. And this month has been absolutely exhausting for an introvert like me.

Just in case you don't know what an introvert is, let me give you a quick run down. Contrary to popular opinion, introversion is not the same as being shy, not the same as not liking people, and is not the same as being selfish or self-centered(all common, but false, assumptions about introverts.) Introversion means that a person that's an introvert will be drained of energy when interacting with other people, and will be re-energized by spending time alone, or with one or two other people. (For me, since I'm a strong introvert, spending time with one or two other people doesn't really cut it in the re-energizing department. I need regular time by myself to feel like myself.) Extroverts are the opposite- they gain energy by spending time with others. Many introverts like spending time with other people, they'll just need an adequate time alone afterwards to recharge. Many introverts are friendly and outgoing, and in a social setting act similar to extroverts, they'll just need some time by themselves to process later. A big part of an introvert's life is inside their own head, and they need time to develop and care for that world. Does that make sense? 

So. I need lots of alone time to process and just "be". This past month? Hasn't been happening. First was Hayden's birthday. Then with the church's anniversary service, Thad was pretty much gone and out working all day, every day for two or three weeks straight(and he was out of town and completely gone for three of those days). He was working hard, but so was I, taking care of the kids and the house completely on my own. The anniversary service itself was amazing, but that was an ENTIRE day of interacting with people- totally exhausting for me, on top of already being exhausted. Whew. Then add on the regular Sunday and Wednesday services, on top of other various meetings and interactions with church members, etc. The weekend after the anniversary service we had a wedding to attend, so that was another long night of interaction. I know that there are a lot of you out there that have a lot more on your plate, and I'm not trying to complain, just explain where I'm at right now. 

Just as I was starting to recover from all that and feel normal again, my aunt and uncle came into town. I love my aunt and uncle. I LOVE spending time with them. But it was not an ideal time for my introverted self to have company. I apologized for not being as energetic and fun as I usually am when they visit, but I just didn't have a lot left to offer! They were gracious enough to understand, and my aunt arranged for us to get some one on one time together. For me, it's not the same as alone time, but still a lot more helpful than being around 5 or 6 people at a time- plus I really enjoy spending time with my aunt. 

They left yesterday afternoon, and I don't think I've ever been more excited to have the house to myself! It wasn't that I was happy for them to leave, I was just so happy to be by myself(well, plus the kids) for the first time in what felt like forever. I felt a tiny bit more refreshed when I finally dragged myself to bed last night, and thought maybe I'd be good now. Oh no. 

I didn't realize just how bad things had gotten until after church this morning. I normally feel a bit drained after 3 or 4 hours of interacting with people every Sunday, but today I was just exhausted and even felt a bit panicky just after church got over. I could not wait to get out of that door and just get away from everyone! Then it dawned on me. I've been running on fumes for three weeks now. My level of interaction compared to my needed alone time has been grossly out of balance the past month, which means that my tolerance for interaction with other people is extremely low right now. I'm in serious need of recharging! 

So this week is self care week. I'm focusing on me this week. Tomorrow Thad will watch the kids for three or four hours so that I can have some alone time. Maybe that will be enough to catch me back up, but if it's not, I'm going to take every opportunity that I can this week to recharge. The kids might watch a little more tv than usual. I might not get as much housework done. But that's ok. I'm scared to find out what might happen if I don't take care of myself and get the rest and rejuvenation that I need. I can't be the mom and wife that my family needs if I'm burned out and not feeling like myself. So this week, I'm putting myself at the top of the priority list.




And tonight? I'm getting the kids to bed, and then settling in with a glass of wine, a bowl of strawberries(and GAPS icing to dip them in), and some GCM. It's been offline for four days now for a summer break, and I can't wait to dive right back in.