What a fascinating thread. I really, really wish I had the Internet in 1989! The years I spent wasted on my own. Oiy!
As so many others, I experienced the alienation that comes with leaving the WTS while my partner didn't. The experience pretty much tore my heart out. We survived a couple of years, but the marked change occured when the first year had passed. It's as if she tumbled to the fact that I wasn't going back to the WTS. Just as your wife, she would come out with comments along the lines of "I miss the man I married", which in retrospect I now see as tantamount to emotional blackmail. I tried everything, the soft approach, the tough approach, but ultimately she was too close to her family (whom she Pioneered with, and so saw every day).
Forgive me Auld Sould for just a moment, but I've read this entire thread from beginning to end, and this comment resonated most with me. For the few couple of years I was out, I too heard Nina say things like this, as well as "Please come back. This may be the last Memorial we're all together." This was usually accompanied by lots of tears.
However unlucky I may be, and whatever mistakes I've made in this life that have condemned me to eternal damnation (or at least on permanent ignore), the one area I struck gold with was my woman. The reason we are still together, despite this tremendous pull towards the organization was I knew if I asked her to come with me and leave, if I said our marriage and future happiness absolutely depended on it, I knew she would leave with me.
But I never once even hinted at it.
I didn't because I truly believed, in my nerdy, idealistic, pie-in-the-sky, heart of hearts that she would eventually see what I saw and leave on her own. And then we would be together as we were.
Gotta tell ya, after 13 years that idealism was being strained. But I was lucky, and the dysfunction of this religion finally touched her. She found a reason, on her own, to leave.
This now, is my rambling point. I submit that the spouse that doesn't leave with us, didn't see what we saw. Sometimes that's a doctrinal issue, but sometimes it's on a more personal level (and sometimes the two intersect). But they won't leave on their own until he/she finds their own reason for leaving.
Nina's father was an elder for 40 years, partook at Memorial, convention parts the whole 9 yards. She had been raised around the old guard, and while she saw the organization's dysfunction hurt me terribly, it didn't touch her. So there was no reason for her to make that ultimate, terrible, fightening decision. She didn't, until she had to.
Auld Soul, I don't pretend to have the answer for you. Your wife sounds like a real sweetie. From what you've told me, she sounds like she truly cares about you. I won't offer an opinion about your relationship. I will say however, that until she finds a reason that means something to her, something so extraordinary that she is willing to face not only death, but eternal damnation by Jehovah God himself, I'm afraid she's going to stay tied to this organization. Nina would have left with me, but she would have always stayed tied in her heart. That I gave her time, and let her find her own reason, gave her the chance to see the sect for the sham it is. However, I also realize I was very, very lucky and in retrospect it could have turned out very badly for us.