You have to ask yourself one question: does your wife have much smaller hands than you?
If the answer is yes, you need to buy two guns. His and hers.
I have that situation here, so we went with the Ruger GP100 and Ruger SP101, both in .357 Magnum. The .357 gives you the option of using either full-house magnum loads (lotsa recoil, noise, and flash, especially with the smaller gun), or you can shoot .38 Special ammo, including +P or +P+ loads.
For around the house, make sure you get some high-quality factory self-defense loads (Hornady is a good choice, along with Federal, Remington, Cor-Bon, and others)..
Never miss an excuse to buy another gun. yeah honey this gun will have less recoil, honest!