Welcome BA,
I think everyones fading experience is alittle different. In may case I didn't set out to fade, it just happened. We had moved about 4 times in 6 years, different cities/towns and congs. Then when we bought our house and settled down my father became ill so to help out my mom we sometimes attended her hall, and there were lots of times we couldn't go because of my fathers illness. Then we just stopped going. If an elder from our hall dropped by, we said we'd been to my moms hall, when we showed up at my moms cong, the elders there just assumed we were regularly going to our own hall. That was the easy part.
The hard part of your fading is your family. My husbands family lives in another city, so they don't really know the extent of things, and we don't see them too much. My mom was another story. When she moved out of the city, she asked an elder to call on us. He did a few times, and still tries, but we are pretty good at avoiding him. I finally had to tell my mom I wasn't going anymore at all. It was not a pretty scene! I think she's come to terms with it now though, it's a don't ask, don't tell situation.
It takes alot of time if you are not thinking of moving around a bit and you have to be prepared to have questions asked that you might not be comfortable answering, and the odd surprise visits from the elders.
You are really in a limbo situation. Our marriage was affected for a while, but my hubby is faded along with me, although I think his reasons are different. There are some good experiences on the freeminds site you might want to look through.
Here's to a successful fade!!
BB