And of course, he isn’t in the church building alone with her.

That way, if she has something to discuss that’s confidential, the door can be closed but they will both still be in view. I can’t imagine some of the things he’s heard in his office even being able to be said with the door open–that seems to be like it would a breach of confidentiality.

Just a thought–windows are great! But they only work, if there are other people nearby in the building.

Thanks for a great discussion.

A faithful servant in our church that is involved in many of the churches ministries seen that my husband was going through a rough time and started to do little things to encourage him (cards, and email and that kind of thing). Stuff that seemed really harmless. But little did she know that my husband and I were having a rough time and weren’t seeing eye to eye which was making if difficult for us to communicate on other issues. Anyway, it wasn’t long before I found some email that had nothing specifically inappropriate in them but made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like that my husband would be sharing such personal thoughts with another woman besides myself. Now I just want to say that I don’t think that my husband had consciencly decided to do anything wrong and even the other woman involved I think fully believed there was nothing inappropriate either. But as a child who came from a home broken up over infidelity my red flags just started going up. And in our vunerable state I seen a slippery slope ahead of us.

I confronted my husband about the issue and he agreed that he would have been uncomfortable if the roles had been reversed and I would have been confiding in another male besides him. He agreed to try to keep a healthy distance from this woman and without it being so much a tangible thing I think an inner barrier went up in him that let her know that he wasn’t available for any type of intimacy, even that of friendship with another woman besides his wife.

So we had the open door, never alone with another woman policy but it wasn’t a needy parishener but a faithful God loving woman that Satan had tried to use, arming her with the best intentions to try and sabotage my marriage.

This wasn’t the first time and it probably is not the last time Satan has went for our marriage but I think we get stronger with each attempt and some of it we can even laugh at now. Like the church member that had a foot fetish issue and was always trying to buy my husband shoes!

I think that our lovely husbands are seen as admiral and sweet loving husbands and I think that cause some women to be attractive to them, but I also believe in setting safeguards, I mean Satan never sleeps and destroying a Pastors Marriage is like icing on the cake for him, so it is up to us to be diligent and for our husbands to be wise.

The safeguards we have are,

1. My hubby never counsels a women without me
2. Any women parishioners that calls him, he always says “hold on” and goes and find me and we speaker phone the conversation
3. He makes it very clear in church that his wife is his partner in crime, I mean ministry :) and gives me my place, ALWAYS
4. He never never hugs a female parishoner and when some of our teenage girls try to hug him, he gives a side mini hug.
5. When after service he does his door meet and greet, I am right there with him.

Aside from that I pray for my husband, I put him up to Jesus and always pray and cover our marriage in prayer…..

Man after reading that I just thought, I am protective of him…. But he is hunky though…

I once worked at a church that had french doors for all the office doors. Hubby won’t meet in a closed office unless it has a window. In fact, when we moved to this new ministry position, they had to install a new door on his office because it didn’t have a window.

Hubby also makes it a policy that his computer monitor can be seen from the office doorway. He’s counciled too many people who have delt with pornography problems and doesn’t want to leave a shadow of a doubt.

Like a previous commenter, we make all passwords, accounts, and phones known to one another. I know we have nothing to hide from one another, but I also know that the accountability helps create trust in our relationship.

At our previous church, I knew of 2 separate women who “had a thing” for my sweet hubby. One recently called him “for some advice.” I simply told hubby my feelings about her — even though they sounded jealous. He later told me that he hadn’t seen it, but now looking back he could tell how some of her “neediness” was just to have an excuse to talk with him. He then quickly referred her to her current Sunday school teacher (a female) for future advice. :)

We cannot be too careful. Satan wants to destroy the church. Unfortunately, our familys are often in the crossfire. Thanks for the discussion, Lisa!!

I totally agree with all that you have said. We have a policy that my pastor/hubby does not ever meet with a women or girl alone and I do not ever meet with anyone of the opposite sex alone. ( obviously this does not include family. Because well that would be near impossible.) I don’t have any male, other than my son, father and hubby’s phone number in my cell phone. If we have to contact someone of the opposite sex we either have the other make the call or one of our children make the call. I now it sounds a bit extreme, but being above board and protecting our marriage is totally worth it. This can be a bother sometimes but totally worth it.