Going
My experience of leaving being recognized as a Jehovahs-Witness is the flip side of much like yours, except I was the spiritual head, on the fast track to be a MS leaving and my wife was the one subject to her identity in the congregation changing because of my leaving.
She was the catalyst in me being a JW as I reluctantly accepted a study from one of the elders in her congregation with the thought that I would see what all the fuss was about. It wasn't long after baptism that my insatiable inquisitive nature got the best of me and I was able to see the organization for the fraud that it was.
My wife is much like that of Brotherdan, not particually in agreement with everythiing the religion says and teachs, yet chained to it as the only place to go. She is a third generation JW, father was an elder and special pioneer, and it is all shes been used to and exposed to. I don't think she actually believes much of what they teach partucularly some of the harder core crap, but, in fact, is trapped by its more social aspects. the rigid regimend of somewhere to go and something to do. In fact, I remember one discussion in particular we were having where I point blank asked if the only identity that mattered to her was that of her being a JW----was that the only way she identified herself? She skirted around that question by only answering that she'd let her actions speak for themselves.
When I called my wife's bluff on her manipulative use of the "D" word it was not without a lot of forethought or retaliatory in the heat of anger. It was after putting up with snide sarcastic comments meant to do nothing but aggrand the organization, her activities within and her friends while attempting to make me always feel "less than" or "not good enough", always on the defensive, and her sometimes outright verbal abuse occasionally after coming home from a particular study or circuit or district convention going on 5 years and at that point I'd had enough. I figured above all else, as much as I loved her, I had a right to believe what I wanted, watch what I wanted, participate in any activity not illegal or immoral that I wanted, do all these things without checking to see if my conscious choice was either in agreement with hers or a relevant WT magazine, and that I had a right to be happy with or without her and if it took me kicking her to the curb, so be it.
Right now, our relationship is better than its ever been. Her friends regularly stop by the house while out in service for drinks and breaks. If I happen to be there, they act as guests towards me and not as religious inquisitors. I think our realationship is thriving largely due to the fact that while I exercise patience and respect in what she has to say, her beliefs and her "theocratic" activities, even to the point of listening to her "experiences" with a "deer in the headlights" look she says she recognizes as respectful disinterest, even though on some points we might disagree, I demand and sometimes verbally remind her that for our relationship to work, she needs reciprocate.