OP, keep on carrying it.
Practice with it.
Take your wife to the range and let her shoot a gun (one that she can handle that won't ruin the experience for her.) Whenever you run across the appropriate articles in magazines, newspapers, the internet, read them to her. Articles where people got hurt/killed when the outcome could have been different if they were carrying and knew how to use it.
I didn't EDC or conceal carry for several years. Nevery had an issue with anyone at/near my currect address - but, things can go south so quickly that you'll be lucky to be alive when it's over.
My mom and dad moved back to WV in 1975 when he retired from the Air Force. Way back up in a holler where the railroad built some houses in 1917 or 1918. I used to tell my buddies in the Army you drove till the hard road ended, then take the right hand dirt road, at the end of the dirt road you were there. There's only five of the original eleven houses left. Only two of the original houses are lived in (well, three soon).
One day a car a couple years ago a car pulled up in front of my mom's house and three people got out and went into the house across the street where a single mom lived with her daughter. People get visiters, even from out of state.
Within 30 minutes the black vans, black SUVs, WV State Police cars/SUVs and men in/out of uniform with dogs, shotguns and rifles were in the road, running all over the area.
Fortunately, the three bank robbers that had been on the run since that morning (robbed a bank in Maryland or Virginia, I don't remember where) gave up without a fight once they saw the number of armed officers surrounding the house.
How did they end up there? One of them knew the single mom's boyfriend.
Things can go south so quick these days. The best thing you can do for your family is to be ready and to get them on your side.
One more story. My youngest son lives about 12 miles from us. One morning they woke up to the sound of helicopters flying around above their house and police cars running up/down the road in front of their house. A guy just a couple miles away had murdered his wife, his wife's new boyfriend, dragged the boyfriends body out into the woods and set the body on fire and then run off into the woods. Took the police several days to catch him (he was seen in various places but actually caught less than 10 miles from the scene of the crime. You never know who might be walking/sneaking around your property or how desperate they might be.
If I walk out my door, whether it's to go to the garage, let the dogs out for a walk/treat, to get the mail, take the garbage cans around to the road - or any reason - my pistol is on my side with an extra magazine in a pouch on my belt. Sometimes open carry - this time of the year, but concealed carry in the summer. You never know.
The only person you can depend on to protect yourself and your family is YOU. So be ready. Accept that, and be ready. If nothing every happens, be thankful. But be ready. You may not get a second chance.
