“I’m not contesting he was married. But there’s no evidence that his wife was in fact alive at the time he became an Apostle.”
There was when Paul wrote letter to the Corinthians.
And if you don’t believe that where in the Bible does it say otherwise?
No, there wasn’t. I’m sorry. I’ve already examined the passages you quoted, and I think that sister woman is a better translation here than wife.
This is a problem with the vernacular, an English translation cannot take precedence over the words as they were written.