Kroeran
Full time employment: Posting here.
How long would it take for her to hear about everyone else who doubled the value in their RRSP's/IRA's/401k in five years before she asks you why you are wasting away your joint assets in fixed investments that are barely beating inflation?
she just said, "that's horrible but one of the risks we take by owning a lot of equities investments, and the market will come back some day". She doesn't really pay attention to our investments, but understands that what we are doing has significant volatility but typically pays nice rewards in the end (with patience).
we have spent the last 30 years listening to the stories as collegues, neighbours and relatives rode the markets up, and then listened to them crying in their beer as they rode them back down (after running up their credit cards on expensive trips etc).
I got a nice ski trip to Switzerland out of dad in the 70s (I was in highschool) when gold made its crazy run up and he was feeling flush - he didnt ask me to pay back the money when he rode it all the way back down the year after.
So, the lesson here is make sure you manage expectations of all the stakeholders (usually, DW) when choosing the stock market roller coaster, which you have done.