Early on,
@Mrs Poker Zombie and I would discuss games after it was over. Big hands, my reads on opponents, that sort of thing. It was strategy, without it being a "here's what you should have done" discussion. She can make her own decisions. While our styles are similar there are differences, because I never told her how to play a hand and she just took my thoughts and built her own ranges and strategies.
Then we started playing Head-up games. Nothing very long, maybe 1-2 hours. At the conclusion of any folded hand, we would show our hands. This helped us to adjust to each other's games, which (as many here can attest to) has made us brutal opponents. Together, we have finished 1st-2nd in 4 different tournaments in Las Vegas. In each case the dealer asked if we just wanted to chop, because we were obviously together. The answer is always "no", as we
want to play to the death and bask in the glory of our spouse's defeat.
This of course, morphed into us making out airplane poker table, so we could play heads-up on long flights.
Eventually, we started a heads-up series which we call "Master of Poker". Built a spreadsheet and everything. It's all heads-up games, mostly Holdem, but there are circus games as well (3-handed hold'em was an early entry, but ranges are very different than regular hold'em so you might want to get some regular play under your belt first.) While we have joint banking accounts, we have separate "caches" or "brown bag money", and our poker play is taken from that. It keeps the game competitive, because there is always skin in the game. The player that is currently down for the series gets to determine the stakes (between $20 and up to 1/2 the amount they are down). At the end the winner buys something with the losers money that both can enjoy.
Master of Poker is also a fun way to expose your wife to different chipsets.
After Season 1 (which took just under 4 years to complete) I bought a bottle of Jonnie Walker Blue, which I always thought of as "overpriced". I would have never bought it for myself, but using "her" money made it like Christmas, but without that pang of "why did you spend so much on me". As we draw close to the conclusion of season 2, I have been dramatically cutting in on her lead, but I'm still down.
Best part of getting your wife into the game, is that she can invite friends as well. Our game exploded once women felt comfortable playing, without feeling like they were going to be the only girl. We even host a ladies night once a year, where the men serve drinks and bring their drunk-ass brides home. The man also play a "servants game" in the kitchen, so life as a servant can actually be quite fun.
