Learn English – Pronoun use with preposition: “with *he* and his wife” or “with *him* and his wife”

Using the instead of my in "the wife" does subtly change the meaning of a sentence it's used in.

Assuming the woman in question is the wife of the speaker, compare

It's my wife on the phone.

to

It's the wife on the phone.

Using the instead of my puts a bit of social distance between the speaker and their wife. Even if the listener knows that the speaker is talking to the speaker's wife, the use of the decouples the couple.

Using the wife when talking about someone else's wife is possible, but is different in meaning. In this context you can use the wife to mean his wife, her wife, their wife or their wives, i.e. it can only apply to a third person pronoun.

Imagine A is on the phone and B wants to know who A is talking to:

B: Are you talking to the husband?
A: No, it's the wife.

So A is talking to the wife of the couple they are interested in.

The wife would not work if someone's name was used:

B: Are you talking to Mr. Jenkins?
A: No, it's the wife.

Here the wife would be taken to mean A's wife, rather than Mr. Jenkin's wife, although it is possible that there might be confusion as to what A means.

As Barrie England points out, you can also use the wife to mean your wife as in "How is the wife." I agree with him that this is only something that would be done if you are sure your remark won't be taken as an insult.

Other constructs that are similar:

• Female
  • The wife (fiancée, girlfriend)
  • The old lady (and other such euphemisms for wife, "the ball and chain", etc.)
  • The mother in law
• Male
  • The husband (fiance, boyfriend)
  • The old man (and other such euphemisms for husband)
  • The father in law

The pattern is that someone uses the in place of my when they are married to or related by marriage to someone and don't like, or are pretending not to like, the person in question.

There are many ways you could word this. As for which option to choose, try omitting "and his wife's" and see what happens:

Read about he amazing story.

Read about him amazing story.

Clearly, both of those are wrong, and they can't be fixed by adding "and his wife's".

So, first let's fix the short version somehow. These are all viable candidates:

Read about him and his amazing story.
Read his amazing story.
Read this amazing story about him.

Now, let's put his wife back into the narrative:

Read about him, his wife and their amazing story.
Read his and his wife's amazing story.
Read this amazing story about him and his wife.

Of those last three, the middle one sounds a little off to me. I'd choose one of the others on this list, or reword it in some other way.