Just for clarity: "Fridging" in this context is when a female character is killed off for the sole purpose of providing motivation for the male MC. Usually this female character has little to no personality or agency of her own.

I'm doing a deep developmental edit of my fantasy novel, and I realized that I have totally fridged a character. The MC's wife is estranged and a large part of his story is attempting to reach her before a monster attacks her city. In the current version, she gets killed by the monster before he can reach the city, and he turns his grief toward the main antagonist, who stopped him from reaching her in time.

There is a character that I could easily replace her with, though it would change the context of the story. This character was intended as a "one day long after the story is over" love interest and the MC's relationship with her is intended to show how he heals after loss. But she can easily be replaced with the wife and the focus can be on how he repairs their relationship through the course of the story.

Writing this out made me feel confident that replacing the characters is the way to go, but I still want to ask the question and start the discussion:

When, if ever, is "Fridging" acceptable? Fridging constantly happens in stories, so when is it "story breaking" and when does it make sense? What is your opinion on fridging? Can we switch up fridging to make it more interesting or dynamic? How can we "fix" fridging?

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Edit: To add context, the story itself has a monster that destroys the city where the wife lives, it does not attack her directly.