I've been married for over 20 years. All of the cars we have bought were automatics. To be honest I never really cared one way or the other until just recently.
About 2 years ago I decided I was sick of the slushbox and I wanted a stick; needed something fun. My wife was having none of it. She has never driven a manual and had no interest and no intentions of learning. It was a battle but I finally got her to cave but not without making me feel really guilty. I bought a 2002 Maxima 6-speed. I loved it. I had it for about a year before it caught fire in my driveway. That was a bummer. Now back to square one. The whole guilt thing. Am I the one with the problem for feeling guilty for wanting this? I think I may have that type of personality that tries to make everyone happy without regard for my own happiness.

By the way I'm looking for a 2006-2008 A4 2.0. Oh, yeah.

 

damn man sorry to hear about your previous car :-(...
i am the same way man, when i was looking for car to buy last year, it was so hard finding manual. we would go look at one, test drive it and go home for further research, and in like 2 days it was gone! happened a couple times. so on the day i was going to buy a car, I caved and decided auto... i wanted a b7 so badly i was going to sacrifice manual for it. well on the way up i found a b6 1.8t 6sp that had 73k on it and test drove it. the price was steep according to research and kbb, but i was talking to my dad and what we did was leave the lot, test drive the auto. I was stuck on having manual again... so on the ride back to the other dealer we talked about going in and offering 11k cash for the car. I was explaining to my dad that I want to own a car I paid for, no help or anything from anyone. Though he agreed, his opinion was the b7 would be a better choice just because it was "newer". but the mileage was slightly higher. well we got to the dealer and told the sales rep and he went to talk to the floor manager. they weren't going to budge much but got the price down from 14 to 12k out the door.

but I have driven in the S4 with DSG box and i must say i was quite impressed. the shifting(auto mode and manual mode) was very smooth and quick.

also depends what you want to do for the car.

 

Sucks about the wife. I taught mine how to drive a stick in my old Si and she liked that and now like driving any of my cars. I say get her interested in cars and she might like the stick more.

 

He's talking about about a manual transmission, Don... get your mind out of the gutter.

As for your Auto vs. Manual debate, just get two cars, and auto for her, and a manual for you!