Thanks DC. Yes we are both sure that getting this stuff out in the open is the best thing and we agreed on that decision last week.
You see, when things like this happen there is a sense of shame from a victim that has done nothing to be ashamed of. So you only tell family and a few very close friends, but then as time goes on you speak about it so much, to so many people, and a wider circle of folks get to know that something is badly wrong either intuitively or because a friend of a friend told them. After a while two things happen. A bit like telling a whopping great lie, this 'guilty' secret lurks about like a big skeleton waiting to fall out of the closet, at the same time it's such an intense thing to happen that you talk about it over and over again with family and friends until, frankly, you can't remember who you've told and to what level of detail. Secondly, you lose your sense of guilt and shame about being a victim because you realise that you have done nothing wrong, and my wife has now become defiant about it.
We decided that it would be a cathartic experience (especially in light of my wifes newly diagnosed MS) to say 'sod it, life's too short to carry around this sort of baggage, let the world know and be damned'. So now we don't have to cart around a skeleton in the closet, it can come into the open, crumble to dust and let the wind blow it away.