I see this as a little crack in the door. I know it is pushing, but if you could get him to go with you to Retrouvaille. It is not all about getting back together. It is about communication, and knowing yourself, and understanding the other person. It looks to me like you two could really benefit from work in that area, no matter what the future holds.
As for son, oh boy. I went through schoolphobia with my oldest. He would walk into the school and start throwing up. One day he threw up 7 times. It is a very difficult situation that you can improve, but don't expect it to go away. You need to enlist the help of the teacher, the principal, everyone at the school who will help you. First you need to know what his fear is -- is it the other kids, do they tease him? Is it the teacher? What? Then he needs to have a friend at school. For my son, the Principal became his friend. She told him anytime he could come to her office, even if she wasn't there. She made a pal of him and made him feel wanted at the school. The teacher had to control the kids in the class because they had been picking on my son. It was a difficult year, we saw phychiatrists and gastroenterologists, and in the end we got him to stay. (But only til 10th grade; he did finally drop out.)
Your family needs to pull together. My prescription is take one Retrouvaille weekend and all follow-up classes and work together as a team to help your son with a stable homelife.
