Welcome to the village! Quandary, interesting to hear how many like us are in the same boat. Likewise, my wife and I got baptized in 74 at the ages of 23 and 25. At the direction of the Society, no higher education, no retirement planning, no children. We are now 55 and 58. I stopped attending in 2001, my wife a little over a year ago. So for 4 years, my wife remained "faithful" to the org, while I attained an inactive status. It took me from Feb of 2001 (when I stopped attending) until the summer of 2002, about a year and a half, before I started to be able to make sense of anything. Yes, we devoted soooooo much time and energy. I was an elder for 14 years, and a regular pioneer for almost 5 of those years. It was the Dateline program in May of 2002 that started my process of waking up. Then Ray's book, "Crisis of Conscience", was like a bucket of ice water in my face. I was suddenly awake and out of the fog so fast, it was very disturbing, as I know many can relate.
So, my wife continued going. I never tried to discourage her, because I know that is exactly what they tell the faithful one to expect. I even drove her to the first DC I didn't attend. After always attending these affairs together for 27 years, when I left that morning to leave her by herself to attend the DC, we both wept together, as we realized this was a most significant rift. As the months and years passed, I would only occasionally attempt to share one small tidbit with her. At times, she would attempt to be interested and rational for 10 or 15 minutes, but would then always comment something like, "You're destroying my faith." Of course, I would always retreat at that point and allow some time to pass.
We reached critical mass in April of 2005 when we actually discussed separating, because I knew I would eventually be DF'd for apostasy, and then, if she continued to adhere to the direction of the WT, we could have no meaningful relationship left. None of her JW friends would be comfortable coming to the home of a DF'd apostate. And being a good witness, she could have nothing to do with my new "worldly" friends. So if we could have no friends in common, what kind of relationship could we have? And this after over 30 years of marriage. At that point, she became a bit more open to talking about the things I was learning. I think she figured, "OK, if this is going to cost me my marriage, I should at least find out why." She eventually agreed to read Diane Wilson's book and then Crisis by Ray. Needless to say, at that point we were on the same page and she is determined never to go back.
I don't know if anything in our experience helps, but I share it in the hopes that it might. You may certainly contact me directly by messaging me on this forum.
Uncle Lenny