Scared but determined

[SteveLW]

DV6, just be careful with these exchanges. Keep everything business like. No need to thank him, he hasn't done anything yet!

You: Trees by bus stop need to be removed.
Him: I'll come over tomorrow after work to take care of it.
You: Okay

Any pressure or pursuit you engage in will be felt. And yes, your over exuberance at his offer to help (assuming he follows through on it) comes across as pressure.

AS far as the decision to ask him to leave, I am not going to answer that. But read your own words:

Then...without warning... his pain returned in March 2018 and he announced to me that he had to go back to the hospital. And he did this... for awhile... and, like before, when the treatment regimen stopped being every night, he continued to act as if it was still continuing and spent almost every night away from home... but continued to work and come home until around 5 or 6 when he would leave. I know now that he wasn’t going to the hospital but was spending alone time on our boat (my key went “missing” around then so I would have to borrow his if I wanted to go down there) and then in June he sold his beloved car that he had been restoring and told me he was going to use the money to restore a different vehicle. I later found out that he has been using the money to rent a suite for himself where he continued to spend his evenings isolating from the world. All of this eventually came to a head almost a month ago after my suspicious brother-in-law decided to put a tracker on his car and found out where he was going.

...

On Sunday morning, he comes over without his things and asks if we can talk. He then stares at me in a forlorn way and I know... he doesn’t want to come home. He then tells me that he still does not feel ready to come home and starts talking about possibly staying a couple more weeks.

And then your question again:

It’s the morning of Day 5 and I’m starting to wonder if I made a mistake in asking him to leave. I am fully onboard with GAL and acting “as if” but there is a part of me that is angry at myself for making the decision for him. I mean, I am pretty sure it was what he was humming and hawing about anyway and would have done it on his own but maybe I should have just waited for him to say it and not helped him out? And shpuld I have told him that I needed space cause it feels like I set myself up for him to go dark on me. Save for a couple of housekeeping texts, we’ve had no contact and when we have, it’s been super pleasant, like neither of us have a care in the world and this is totally normal. He hasn’t tried to contact the kids either and they are used to seeing him every day. I wonder if he is missing them or if he is just using this time away to detach and tell himself that it was my choice for him to leave?

Okay now I get blunt. Only a complete moron could read that first paragraph, and then conclude that "that it was my (your) choice for him to leave". If he is telling himself that then he is a complete and utter moron.

He LEFT. You didn't ask him to leave, he had been gone already! All you did was " told him that I didn’t want him home until he really wanted to be there and wanted to work on our relationship." That was the RIGHT thing to tell him.

But you didn't ask him to leave, he was already gone, you just didn't allow him back until HE WAS REALLY RETURNING. You did the right thing.