Those who cherish the film Dr. Zhivago (in spite of the role of Gramscians in bringing Pasternak's manuscript novel to the West), may recall that very near to the end of the film, as KGB General Yevgraf Andreievich Zhivago (the Alec Guiness character) is trying to persuade the young girl whom he believes to be his niece that Dr. Yuri Andreievich Zhivago was her father and Lara Antipova her mother: "This man was your father. This woman your mother. Don't you believe (in a seductive tone of voice that would challenge Lucifer's talents)? Don't you WANT to believe?"
By analogy, the excommunicated and schismatic SSPX flatteringly and comfortingly whispers to you (and perhaps to your wife????) from its ecclesiastical prison: We (SSPX) are what you want the Church to be. We (SSPX) are, in fact, the Church. Don't you believe? Don't you WANT to believe?
The answer to SSPX is a resounding NO! However pretty the poison of the schism, SSPX is nevertheless poison.
Is your wife also an adherent of the Feeneyite cult of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus or of the actual Catholic understanding of that term? Remember that Protestantism is not called Protestantism for nothing. It is called Protestantism because it protests againt the Roman Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ Himself. In tactics, Feeney (until his recantation, repentance and restoration to the Catholic Church), Lefebvre and Martin Luther are of one anti-papal type.
If you believe what you claim as to the necessity of formal Catholicism to the salvation of your soul and that of your wife, then she and you are obliged NOT to adhere to SSPX and thereby NOT to apostasize.
A person is a Catholic or not. It is just that simple. The enemies of the Church are not within the Church. If you want to be a Catholic, believe the Truth. Do not succumb to the temptation to believe what you want to believe. Persuade your wife as well to believe the Truth and not what she wants to believe. Willful apostasy (SSPX) is not a path to heaven. Obedience to the Vicar of Christ on Earth is a more reliable route to salvation.
St. Francis of Assisi is reported to have said: "Preach the Gospel at all times, using words if necessary."
As to your last paragraph, you should live so long. Your horse's finish line might well be a pike held by the shade of old Marcel aiming the pike at your horse's chest. I guarantee your "horse" won't bowl me over. You underestimate the stubborn commitment of grizzled and aging Catholics to the One True Faith.
I will give you one thing. Your references to your wife prove that you have more understanding of love than most. She wants what is best for you and apparently has invested her resourcefulness in persuading you to share her faith (at the risk of temporary but necessary strife?) and ran the risk of aggravating you in order to truly love you. It sounds like your decision to marry her and her decision to marry you were in fact evidences of the kind of love that is very real and not at all what most of this world may imagine. It is your privilege to love such a woman back. Given your response to date, however imperfect, it is also her privilege to love you.
May God bless both of you and safeguard your (plural) arrival at His Truth.
Bless you my dear, dear FRiend. I think the world of you. :)
An excellent analogy! Bless you, BE, and prayers for VA and family.