Issue with overstayed visa in China

Hey guys,

My first post here and its a tough situation for me at the moment.  Looking for advice on how to deal with this situation the best way possible. 

I am an American citizen who has lived in China for about 2 years now.  I came to China under a travel visa in August of 2010.  That was quickly changed to a work visa in Shanghai where I worked as an English teacher.  In July of 2011 I returned home to renew my visa and such.  I actually overstayed my visa by about 2 days in this instance but was not required to pay a fine or suffer any sort of punishment.  I returned to China on September 15, 2011 in order to get married to a woman I met in Shanghai.  Her family is from Chengdu so we decided to get married there.  Now, at this time my wife mistakenly informed me that once we got my marriage license that I could stay in China on a permanent basis.  We were married on October 4th and had received our marriage license.  My travel visa was set to expire in December of 2011 but I was not worried about that at all at the time.  This is really poor judgement mixed with some laziness that I didnt go through the proper channels.  Anyways, I came to find out last month upon starting the process to get my wife's visa to travel to the states that a marriage license is not enough for me to stay in China legally.  Looking for advice on how not to get into serious trouble when I leave for the states.  Thanks so much in advance and I hope future posts will be more interesting and helpful to you all.