Good home defense revolver?

Why limit yourself to a revolver? If you are stuck with a handgun, go with a good full-sized or compact 9mm semi-auto. Glock 19 and 17, S&W M&P, HK VP9, Walther PPQ, SIG 226 or 229, will all do a great job. If you are not limited to only a handgun, get an AR15.

Ruger GP100 7-shot .357 Mag or a Redhawk 8-shot .357 Mag.

Also, nobody is going to be lacking in defensive firepower with any .357 Mag revolver.

my wife can barely pull the trigger on a revolver, I know its recommended but not for her. Shotgun and AR way easier. Also the airweight is gonna kick harder

Get a 9mm

S&W M&P

ruger super red hawk .41 mag

There have been some excellent suggestions in here from some respected posters. I agree with many others here that limiting yourself to a revolver because you think a female cannot shoot a semi auto is short sighted. Let me suggest something that no one else has yet:

Why not let her choose her own gun?

As an instructor, I've seen it time and time again in my classes - women will bring in their tiny revolvers and end up shooting the qualification with many of the 9mms I have to choose from since they didn't pick out the gun themselves. Most of their husbands, while well-meaning, buy them tiny revolvers thinking it's the best choice. A full sized 357, as others here have suggested, isn't a bad choice if she's practiced with one and prefers it. And if the gun is not to be carried concealed there is no reason to get something tiny with a limited capacity.

So to sum up:

1. If you get a gun BOTH of you plan to use, I would cater the decision to her preference since her hands will be smaller. Take her to a range and let her try some full sized 357s and some full sized 9mms. She will be 100 times more likely to use it if she chooses it.

2. If y'all have different preferences, then each of you should get your own handgun. There's always an excuse to buy too many guns, and again, she will be much more likely to use it if she chooses it herself.

My fiancee has her own personal 9mm that I absolutely trust her using - an HK VP9 with a 15 round capacity. It's a mid sized 9mm, light recoiling, easy to shoot accurately, and has a good capacity.

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but the SW governor's versatility has me a bit intrigued.

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I'll use a bookmarked post about the Judge to explain how shotshell-shooting revolvers are a bit of a gimmick even though downshift did a good job explaining:

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It tries to do two things at once but only does one of them "okay" and the other pretty terribly.

1. Shotguns don't have rifled barrels unless shooting slugs. Why? Because it causes the wad to spin and your shot spreads out too quickly. Couple that with a short barrel and it makes the Judge terrible at ranges past 10 feet. The one upside is that it's a decent snake gun for this very reason.

2. The gun weighs almost 4 pounds and provides no extra ammo compared to a regular revolver (is actually down 1-2 rounds compared to revolvers that weigh less). If extra weight is added capacity should reflect it. They made it larger for that gargantuan cylinder that can fit long 410 shells. I already explained how the gun isn't a shotgun so that basically makes this unnecessary and burdensome weight.

3. When shooting 45 Colt, it doesn't maximize accuracy or velocity. Since the cylinder is the length of a school bus the bullet has to travel quite a bit in open space before impacting the rifling. The large gap between cylinder and forcing cone causes a loss in velocity.

If you're getting it as a defensive gun, there are numerous (and I mean NUMEROUS) other guns I would choose. If you want an accurate shotgun, there are numerous others I would choose (like an actual shotgun with a common chambering like 12 gauge or 20 gauge). If you want a snake gun, you found a good one.

So to conclude, it does an "okay" job at being a 45 Colt revolver but does a terrible job at being a shotgun. So it's essential 0.5 guns for the price of 1.

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Check out Taurus 357 mags. I know a lot of folks love their semis, but a double action revolver is still safer and more reliable.