It seems to me that since the new patch, my companions, including my wife, seem to die very easy. To date I have killed my wife Aela 12 times or more, (I'm starting to lose count). Last night a frost dragon killed her at the college in Winterhold ? We were running a cave and I had killed a few enemies, looking around because I was attacked from behind, I saw no Aela ? Going back the way I had come looking for her body again, I found her swimming in a pool of water ?? Getting her out of the pool we moved on, I encountered a spiked gate, pulled the lever and moved through. I encountered 5 more enemies killed them all and noted my back up was gone once again. I noticed something moving around by the gate, and noticed that the gate had re-closed, lifting the lever to let her in, I watched as she lifted to the ceiling with the gate ? Apparently she had been impaled by the gate when it dropped, so lifting it up and down a few times I watched as she went with it each time, but I just could not shake her loose. So finally I ran into her knocking her off the spikes and we continued on our quest. Going through a door we encountered a boss, I fired my flame bolt dragon priest staff I took from a drogon priest, and the shock wave apparently being to close to the wife killed her instantly. Re-loading once again, the auto-save placed me right infront of the boss again, firing the staff once again at a longer distance spared the wife, so I fired again, just as "Dip Stick" ran infront of the staff ! The blast hurteling her into the boss, at least knocking him back so I could get off another shot. So once again re-loading the auto-save, I pulled my sword and made quick work of the boss, turned to my wife and told her to "JUST GO HOME !"

If you are on the PC, dismiss your follower, and use the console to disable and enable them, or use the Wabbajack method if you are on the consoles, from the Wiki:

• The Wabbajack can be used to reset your Followers, allowing their level and stats to scale with yours, or reach their max level. (Xbox360/PS3)

To do this: Take your follower to a secluded area, save *since it can kill them or turn them hostile*, then Dismiss them, then use the Wabbajack on them until they transform into something, punch them to break them out of it, then this will cause them to respawn which will fix their lvl and stats.

How cool thank you !! Cause I am gettin real tired of resurecting her !!

Does this only work if you dismiss them? I've tried this a ton of times on Lydia and nothing ever changes. But I don't think I dismissed her.
I cannot trade anything with her at all. For some reason her weight capacity slowly shrunk until the point where she can't carry any weight whatsoever. Not even a piece of jewelry. very frustrating.

cobrasno1, there's another bug where companions sometimes respawn their default gear (invisible in inventory) each time you re-recruit them. So Lydia keeps getting invisible sets of steel armor.
On PC you can console removeallitems.
Oon XBox/PS3.... ???

Yes, you have to dismiss them and then re-hire them, using either method (Wabbajack or console command).

A question about the Wabbajack: do we have invite them and then dismiss them for it to work or can we just walk up to them and Wabbajack them?

I used the wabbajack on her with success.... then I took her into the Temple of Talos in Markarth. Now I've a leveled wife that is eternally stuck there.

It. Is. Frustrating.