Hey everybody, I know the following may seem like a plea for somebody to "just be on my side", but it's gotten to the point that I need to just say it and figure out if I'm being crazy. I hate "drama" and it will exist in this post.

Context: I'm the director of youth ministry at a United Methodist church. My wife and I have a one year old. There is a conflict with the nursery coordinator.

Back in February, my wife gave feedback to our nursery coordinator, who for two months prior had asked us to do so. During the two months of observation, we were watching babies experience some mannerism of negligence, including leaving a crying baby in his car seat without attempting to console him beyond shaking a toy in his face, and children who couldn't roll over on their own being left on the floor in uncomfortable positions. Negligence might be too strong a word, but as a parent I would be very, very upset if my daughter was treated that way. But she never was, due to the fact that either my wife or I were unable to leave the nursery for longer than 3 minutes without being paged back. This made worshipping very difficult for us, especially considering the paid nursery workers were unable to involve themselves with my daughter. So, my wife gave honest feedback: I think your nursery workers are uncomfortable with babies and need to be trained. We were more than willing to have our daughter be part of that training process. Now, this was all in a text from my wife, because they had been talking about something else. The nursery worker said "I assure you it has nothing to do with my training."

Immediately, I received a text message from the nursery coordinator saying "I need to talk to you about what your wife said, I want your perspective." It seemed like she was being undermining, as if my wife's opinion wasn't good enough, and that she wanted my perspective on my wife's messages. I was sitting right next to my wife, so she saw and got upset.

I talked with the nursery coordinator that weekend, and told her everything my wife said and how she said it was fine, and correct. Later that week, it was my wife's birthday and she was in the church office. She hates when people say happy birthday to her, so when people said happy birthday to her she would roll her eyes and say "thanks". So the nursery coordinator walks in and says happy birthday, and my wife rolls her eyes and says thanks.

That night, there's a post on Facebook from the nursery coordinator. "You don't disrespect me, personally or professionally. I consider myself a good person" with multiple comments from people from church commenting how she is wonderful, how could anyone disrespect her, let me at them, and all that... Including my wife, who said "maybe you should think about this before you undermine people". Right after my wife's comment the nursery coordinator said "this person has issues known to many". Someone else said "delete toxic people" and she said "done and done". My wife and she were no longer friends on Facebook.

My wife went to our governing body, the Staff/Parish Relations Committee and said the way she was treated was unacceptable, and that the nursery coordinator is making no strides to better the nursery. Originally the issue was the lack of training the nursery workers had. The pastor and head of SPRC assured her they would work it out.

After she met with SPRC, the nursery coordinator asked me if she and I could meet. We had a conversation, with me asking her to apologize to my wife for her Facebook post, which she admitted was indeed about my wife. She said she wouldn't apologize, that Facebook is like her personal diary, and that she did nothing wrong and my wife is out of control and this isn't the first time she's been difficult.

So it was left at that. The two of them didn't talk to each other and shot each other dirty looks for a few weeks, and nothing further happens from the SPRC. But then I found out that she got a promotion, that she would be the Christian Education Director, Family ministries, and nursery coordinator. Irksome, considering she hadn't spoken to my wife since the original text messages about the nursery... Other than a text asking my wife to lose the NC's personal number and to contact her via the office number for anything else.

Then, Easter rolled around. After I asked my wife if she had a good time at church, she broke down into tears. She said people she would normally talk to were making their kids get out of her path and giving her dirty looks. She said nobody would talk to her, and that she felt ostracized. It was clear that others had picked up on the Facebook posts mean spirit and pegged my wife as the jerk who disrespected the nursery coordinator. She said she felt like she couldn't go back to church anymore. We hadn't been putting our daughter in the nursery for two months because we weren't sure she'd be safe, plus I just had to hang out with her anyway so we went to my office where her toys were (and I knew the toys would be sanitized, another thing the nursery workers were supposed to do but did not do before leaving).

So I went to church alone next week while my wife looked at other churches. We thought that might be the end of it... And we were wrong there too.

I told my pastor my wife felt like she couldn't come back and why, and he was apologetic for the nursery coordinator, but my wife still hadn't heard from her since February. I Talked to my SPRC liaison about the issues happening with the now spiritual education director, and that it would be difficult to have her overseeing what I'm working on since she had an active conflict with my wife. They have a strict confidentiality policy, but he told the education director that I had a conflict with her and specifics about what I said, so she forced me into a meeting with her, the pastor, and I. It was quite uncomfortable, and when I brought up my frustrations she said that she had taken care of everything, lied about things she had and hadn't done, and said she wouldn't apologize or even talk to my wife, who wasn't coming to church, because she had "already tried to talk to her" in person, which I know isn't true because I was around when my wife and her were in the same room.

When my wife found out she was infuriated and had another meeting with the SPRC chair and the pastor, and the chair told her everything had been taken care of and its all been addressed, hoping she can come back the church.

Needless to say, I'm perturbed at how the situation was handled, and I'm pretty sad that I don't get to worship with my family anymore. Obviously I'm in the middle of this, but more because I was dragged in rather than needing to be involved. The whole situation could've been avoided if the nursery coordinator would've just said "your concerns are valid and will be addressed" or apologized when she posted on Facebook. But she didn't, and now she now controls some of my responsibilities (and is already using that to force meetings on my Sunday school teachers, two weeks notice for a possibly 3 hour meeting after church this Sunday), and I'm in a really awkward place. Tack on that I'm going to seminary in the fall, my youth program is strong, and leaving this church would be awful for my family since it is providing our home as part of the compensation package.

I don't know what to do. I'm drained and exhausted from politics and showing a happy face at work all day while inside I'm boiling. I did the Christian conflict resolution, go to the person, and then go to the governing body... But nothing happened.

It feels unjust. Am I crazy? Is my wife the one who's wrong? I don't know what to do, and I want to. I've been praying the whole time that this would get worked out, but I just see this situation getting worse and worse. I'm trusting in the Lord... But my faith in people's decision making is rapidly going downhill.

Sorry for the length, I just need you to know everything that's happening. :(