Not that strange, but certainly fucking annoying: at universities it's becoming more common to have "closed searches" for upper administrators like presidents, provosts, deans, etc. This is very much a labor/management thing, and historically (in the US) public universities have had open searches, where faculty and staff get to meet candidates, ask them questions, etc. Upper admins have taken over all decision making power in recent decades, but in the past few years they've even started preventing faculty/staff from even knowing who is applying to be their new uni president. Under pressure to do something about "the consent of the governed," admins have "allowed" some faculty and staff to view interviews and things, but are forced to sign NDAs to do so.
At public universities, using taxpayer money, promising large amounts of taxpayer money to some person. It's stupid and annoying.
Your wife sounds like mine. I value transparency and openness fundamentally, but after a decade of "no" to almost everything, I've learned that if I just do stuff without asking, she frequently says, "Oh, that's a nice idea." If I ask, however, it's "not a good idea," "not now," "we don't need that," etc.