You have 2 seperate issues here, one is your spouse telling other people about private conversations, the second is the elders getting onto you about your doubts.
What is your desired outcome? If you want to continue to fade then admitting to personal study and looking at newspaper articles and wikipedia is not going to cause too much trouble for you, agree to only do the study they 'allow' you to. I'm assuming you have family who are JWs hence the fade, if not then why put off the inevitable?
With your spouse, what is your desired outcome? Keeping secrets? Or being open and sharing? Have you looked at Steve Hassans books about helping people escape a cult? It may take time, if you want to save them then appeal to their real personality, not the cult one. This is not going to be easy, you will need patience.