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So, have you overcooked the nature and level of partnership in your marriage?
What does the Bible expect of a "wife"? To know she is equal before the Cross; to be filled with the Spirit; to work easily with her husband in the home; to be godly; to use her gifts and graces (surely?!), to enjoy Jesus day by day and keep walking on her own adventure with Him.
As women get older and wiser, they are to "train younger women" (Titus 2:4).

So how does this very freeing scope of grace change when the wife becomes an "elder's wife"? What is the nature of this phenomenon? How does she suddenly become a brand? Why is she suddenly bestowed the gift of leadership in so many churches, even if the Spirit has not given her that gift (some women do have that gift)? Why does she suddenly have to become more manly, and share in all the pastoral nasties, in visioning and strategizing, in wrestling over wayward sheep?

What will become of her journey, her children, her femininity, her uniqueness? Oh, what of her beauty and her joy? Is she really called to share so explicitly in "eldering", by virtue of being married to an elder? Is the senor pastor’s wife really the “co-captain of the church”; "the mother of the church"? Help me find the scripture. And don't ask me to say any Hail Mary's.

Well, what does it say of an elder's wife? The Bible has lots to say of all women, but what of this unique "office"? Does it exist?
1 Tim. 3:2 says, "Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife". The Bible has more to say about deacons' wives here...1 Tim. 3:11 adds, "In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything." Well, I would hope that would be the end result of the gospel for all female saints.No mention of an "eldership team", of the wife sharing a mirror-image calling, of her having to lose her mind and her children, of frenetic travel, of becoming a slave to the front-most pews. I am not even sure a good wife young in the Lord would disqualify a man from receiving a shepherd’s cloak in the flock...
Of course the wife remains a woman, a daughter of God, someone freed utterly by the gospel of Jesus Christ. She too is a temple of the Holy Spirit, an agent of the gospel in her sphere (for a few women in the bible, that sphere was to be a companion to Jesus, and a travelling companion to the apostle Paul...).

What is her sphere? You might as well ask me describe every flower of the earth in a single sentence. She is unique. Some are mothers, some are prophets; some are weak, some are strong; some are infants in Christ, some are mature; some are teachers, some are listeners. In Africa, some are apostles. Fact. Maggie Thatchers, Ma Theresas, Nightingales and Blandinas...someone needs to write a poem. Each one called to be active yeast and salty salt in very special and unique ways. And surely all women have giftings, and some will be greater than their husbands.

By the way, I think one huge effect of wives being de-Woozified will be a loosening up and greater permeability in the church, for men and women..the a-biblical term, “eldership team”, will no longer present a formidable, impenetrable pack.

My dear friend, has your wife lost the virtue of her special specialness? Is she firstly "wife" or "woman"? Is she a "team member" or Christ's member? Has she sacrificed the power of delicacy for the pull of your office? Is she burned out from being in the wrong fires? Or...are you her ceiling? I’ll leave it there.

I think it is heartily good that a spouse shares in the partner’s life, ministry, joys and heartaches. Two-way. But, lest we as men want our wives as “women in bed and men everywhere else”, let us remember that which is our first mandate as husbands (whether we are elders, electricians, engineers, elderly or at ease)...Eph 5:25-28 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”. Now compare that to sitting half-stupified in just another coffee shop sharing jointly in the pale pathologies of “your” church...

Are you getting Ephesians Five right? Or has your lady become the church’s concubine? Claim her back, wash her, set her free to the freedom that Christ gave her at Calvary. Maybe she will even go beyond you – but who cares, because it is the flock that matters, right?

Nick