Deep down, every Vim user just wants one person to tell them that the countless hours they spent leaning to use it weren't a total waste of time.

You might've moved around too quickly. Stick to motion in the home row to start - hjkl. There are several ways to enter insert mode but DO NOT attempt it before she's familiar with the basic motions.

:q!

My wife's impressed though, may be a little...

But she's also a programmer.

Maybe your wife is either VSCode or Atom gang

Have you tried rebooting her?

Have you considered divorce?

I'm sorry, you need to :s/replace/her/ as soon as possible.