Removing jacket fast when wife goes pale (5)
I believe the answer is:
ashen
'pale' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'removing jacket fast when wife goes' is the wordplay.
'removing jacket fast' becomes 'as' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'wife' becomes 'w' (abbreviation).
'goes' is a deletion indicator.
'when' with 'w' taken out is 'hen'.
'as'+'hen'='ASHEN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ashen that I've seen before include "Visibly shocked" , "'Very pale, from shock say (5)'" , "Looking pale from illness" , "may be pale with shock" , "So vampire might appear" .)