A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Minneapolis: DL DM charter 2.3MM
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 100,417
People leave security to smoke.
Once I had back to back trips and left the terminal briefly to go to my car in the attached parking garage in order to remove some dirty laundry from my carry on bag. If the inbound flight had been delayed, I would have omitted this step and gone directly to the next flight.
In the OP's situation, it would be better for wife to do her own OLCI and print her own boarding passes to carry. Then if the OP is late or other unforeseen things happen, wife can still take the flight as scheduled. Similarly wife should not do OLCI for the OP and print his boarding passes in case her inbound flight is delayed even if OP has some other way to go through TSA security.