Why would a Pastor do this to me ?

[Aquila]

My wife and I have a similar story. I had attended this church for nearly 12 years also. I was part of the minister's team and on rotation to preach. My wife and I taught Sunday School, were part of the Praise Team, members of the choir, assisted our outreach director, and I drafted a men's life focus ministry with regular meetings and outings. My wife would occasionally lead the choir and the praise team in the pastor's wife's absence. Well, they decided to open the church for morning prayer services during the week. The church was open from 6am to 10am for "come and go prayer". However, the ministers were "required" to be at these prayer meetings. Well...my wife and I both work and we only have one vehicle. I have to drive my wife to work, drive my son to daycare, and then get myself to work before 8am every morning. There was no way we could make these meetings and be to work on time, that is unless we drove across town just to sit for 10 minutes and leave. I explained my situation to my pastor and he appeared to understand. Well about two weeks later my wife was cornered by the pastor's wife and was told that if we "consecrated ourselves" by making morning prayer maybe my "ministry would open up". Well...my wife explained that we had prayed and spoken to the pastor about the issue and that she didn't believe we had to be there. Our pastor's wife pointed her finger in my wife's face and said, "That's a spirit of rebellion!" My wife exploded into tears and left the sanctuary. I only heard a ruckus but didn't know what it was about. My wife went into the ladies room so I followed the pastor's wife up into the pastor's office where she was hysterically denouncing my wife as a rebellious woman who had no respect for spiritual authority. I stepped in and asked what was the matter and she began to point and scream at me about keeping my wife under subjection. I looked at the pastor expecting him to calm his wife down...she was obviously emotional but he allowed her to lay into me. I interrupted her and said, "Look, I don't even know what happened. We all need to take a seat, calm down, and talk about this like adults." With that she sat down, started crying, and began texting. My pastor began to lecture me about how his wife's "discernment" was rarely wrong. At that moment my wife walked into the office and things got heated between the two of them again. Eventually we all calmed down and agreed to sleep on it all then my wife and I left. My wife said that she'd never return. I told her that she should give it a chance. We continued attending this church for a little over 7 months after that event. However, during that period my preaching time was cut to nearly nothing, my wife was removed from the singer's schedule, everything she volunteered for was "full" and she was told that she wasn't needed. Her heart was broken. Eventually we decided that we had to leave. It really hurt us. We've not been the same.