It isn't your last shot. Not by a long shot. I think this is where you apply zero pressure. Zero questions. Happy cashier. He knows you love him. He knows you don't want this. HE CANNOT HEAR IT NOW. Now he is in the happy zone. Now he thinks if he just gets through this and to that happy place on the other side then everything will be perfect. He has to figure out for himself that it isn't the answer. Dress nicely, make him dinners. But when his words or actions say back off, do just that.
You can't reason someone out of their feelings. You can't guilt them into staying. You can't nice them into staying either.
The biggest regret I have is that the first time OD said ILB I didn't push him out the door. Oh I was convincing and he stayed. As a result, I endured in that awful state for another 3 years. My children suffered. I suffered. OD suffered. I truly believe in the bottom of my soul if I had the courage to let him go, he would have been back a long time ago.
S's best friend's father gave his mother the ILB this summer. She very politely and lovingly showed him the door. She told him that she and the 4 kids would be just fine without him. She told him that he needed the time for himself and he should not contact her. She told him to contact the kids all he wanted (they were older). Within weeks he was begging to come back. It isn't out of the woods by a stretch, but he is still there, he is in counseling, he is talking about his problems and telling her that it is all him. That man saw a kind and loving woman who made it perfectly clear that she would be fine without him. She didn't know about this site or the book or anything. She just did that.
I think this is where you have to really get that it isn't you or your marriage. That he is going through what many have before him. I am definitely in the camp that says you can't shorten it but you can extend it.
