This app was mentioned in 7 comments, with an average of 2.71 upvotes
I used to use an alarm clock across the room until my SO complained it was prematurely waking her up (I get up at 530...she's more around 8ish). I went out and purchased an LG Urbane smart watch and use Alarm for Android Wear I set 3 alarms 2 minutes apart...haven't had any problems waking up since
I find this behavior baffling as well. They actually made the lack of alarm in theater mode worse in the update.
There's an app called 'Alarm for Android Wear'
This works fine in theater mode. I find the swipe to snooze/cancel UI un-intuitive on this app though, so be warned when you're half asleep and need to wake up.
Yes, you can do it with calendar reminders (which are pushed to the smartwatch). But you can't do it with alarms as far as I know. I just tested an alarm and it went off on the phone only.
Apparently Google has it set up so phone and watch alarms are separate currently: https://support.google.com/androidwear/answer/6056812?hl=en
An app like this might help you: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nefastudio.android.nfalarm_wear&hl=en
This app is a little ugly but alarm can ring on watch, phone or both.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nefastudio.android.nfalarm_wear
I use it because it also goes off when watch is in theater mode unlike default alarm.
I found an alarm app that gets through even in Theater mode:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nefastudio.android.nfalarm_wear
oh, and your wife sounds nice...
This might be the best option. There's also this one which is a simpler solution, but it costs $0.99.