Preachers? wives face emotional challenges, experts say
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?Being a preacher, I know the pressures a preacher?s wife faces. This is especially true with a minister who is charismatic and a wife who is silent,? said Benjamin. ?Often the wife loses her identity. Instead of saying, ?Where?s Judy today?? people will say, ?Where?s the preacher?s wife?? That can be a very tough thing to handle.?
Benjamin?s comments come as the community, and the nation, struggle to grasp why Mary Winkler, 32, could confess to the murder of her husband, Matt Winkler, 31. The Winkler family is well known in Warren County because Mr. Winkler served for nearly three years as youth minister at Central Church of Christ.
Winkler was shot to death in his home in Selmer, Tenn., where he had served as preacher for Fourth Street Church of Christ for around a year. His three girls, ages 1 to 8, were at home when he was murdered.
Benjamin is affiliated with the Alliance for Community Outreach in McMinnville, although he lives and preaches in Manchester. He specializes in grief counseling and issues dealing with mental health and anger management.
Benjamin knows the Winkler family so he has given this case considerable thought. While not knowing any answers for sure, he has speculated.
?When a minister gets caught up in the demands of his ministry, it?s easy for everybody else in his family to get neglected,? said Benjamin. ?A wife might feel like she?s not getting enough attention because the preacher will drop everything for a member of the congregation but then he won?t take time to talk to her.?
Benjamin said there?s also the added pressure of trying to be a ?perfect family? that doesn?t succumb to the problems everyone else in the world faces. Other mental health experts say it?s common for preachers? wives to struggle with depression and isolation because they feel there?s no one to talk to about their problems.
Gayle Haggard even wrote a book about the subject called ?A Life Embraced: A Hopeful Guide for the Pastor?s Wife.? Haggard says ministers? wives can feel trapped by unrealistic expectations ?to live a certain way, to dress a certain way, for their children to behave a certain way.?
And ministers? wives often find themselves handling more jobs than they expected to take on, said Becky Hunter, current president of the Global Pastors Wives Network.
?You?re not really hired, and yet there is some expectation in most church settings that the pastor?s wife comes along in a package deal,? Hunter said.
Too often, ministers and their wives are reluctant to seek emotional help from members of their congregations because they?re put on a pedestal as leaders, said Lois Evans, a former president of the Global Pastors Wives Network.
?This family needed help,? said Evans. ?It seems like there was no place to turn and no place to talk, and it became an explosive situation.?
By almost all accounts, Mary Winkler is soft spoken and reserved. She never talked of family problems according to members of her congregation and co-workers at the elementary school where she worked as a substitute teacher.
Benjamin says he doubts any one event pushed Mary Winkler over the edge. Rather he thinks it was a lengthy pattern of behavior over the course of their 10-year marriage.
?I like to use the analogy of a seed that?s planted,? said Benjamin. ?There must be certain conditions in place for that seed to germinate. And in her case, there must have been something to happen to trigger that anger or make it manifest to the point where she shot her husband in the back.?
Defense lawyer Steve Farese refused to talk about the Winklers? private life or if they had personal troubles. But he also hinted this may have been a long-term problem.
?I can?t discuss anything she?s told me,? Farese said. ?But I think you have to look at the entire picture. You can?t look at the end of a story and determine what the beginning and middle were.?
Associated Press writer Woody Baird contributed to this report.