If you are close in mass and strength, maybe you (wife) should try captaining.

My wife and I are new to tandeming. As the captain, I find it to be like driving an 18-wheeler, not that I've done that. It demands a lot of my attention. Taking a hand off the bar just to scratch my face is tricky, whereas I can literally ride miles with no hands on a single. I also can't look and admire the scenery on the sides as much when on the tandem.

The previous owner of our tandem installed a stem extender and trekking bars. This brings the bars up pretty high. The bars are very wide and have lots of positions. This seems to be very fortunate for us. I'm not sure I would have thought of this.

With the lower power-to-weight ratio, I have to shift gears much more often than on my single. The lowest gear is barely adequate. The highest gear is very inadequate. If my biggest chainring is 52T (I have to check), I feel like I want a 58T or 60T. On slight downhills, we can hit 35 mph with little effort, since the tandem has a higher power-to-wind-resistance ratio, and the 2" wide tires help it feel safe.