Sometimes when expectations are named, people will recognize that they are unreasonable and the expectation is altered or discarded. I think this can be true within a congregation as well. A place to start your reality testing in your congregation is with your governing body, in my case the session. What I would suggest is that you make a list of the presumed expectations of the clergy spouse and beside each of them you put a scale from zero to ten. Ask the members of your session to personally mark each expectation as to its validity within the congregation with one being not valid and ten being a very valid expectation of the clergy’s spouse.
Two things will happen in this process. First, you will discover a variety of understandings even within the smaller body of the session which will allow for a deeper discussion of what is valid and what is not. Second, you will identify what may be legitimate expectations and what are more a case of your assumptions that are not valid. A third hoped for outcome will be that the session can join the team in making sure that the expectations of a clergy spouse are reasonable and reducing the power of the loud voice that may have a less reasonable expectation.
Once this list has been discussed, one might find it helpful to publish to the congregation both the list with its scales and the session conclusion on each item. That way members of the congregation can have the fun of doing their own rating and checking it against that of the session. Again, it also has the effect of naming these expectations and therefore lessening the power of the less reasonable ones.
From a pastoral standpoint, one might want to describe the process and suggest that families within the congregation might want to make use of it in identifying expectations within their own family. It might provide a congregational conversation, and the foundation for a series of sermons and possibly an adult class that could have benefit for everyone.
