It really sucks, doesn't it?!? He did the wrong thing, he's the one feeling bad now, you've put in so much effort to get things working again, and he still can't figure it out!
Reading your post I get the feeling you're struggling with the thing I struggle with the most: understanding that we have no control over our spouses. I'm not talking about evil, manipulative control. But it just seems like if they understand the situation as well as they appear to, and if we've put forth so much effort to try to get things on the right foot again, they should be able to see their way clear to doing the right thing. It's right there in front of them, why don't they just do it?!?!
The answer is very simple. THEY DON'T DO IT BECAUSE THEY'RE IDIOTS! Er, I mean they don't do it because they can't or they don't want to or they're scared or they don't think they should or their friends tell them not to or...we don't know why not. We have to be willing to give it to them to do. We have to figure out how to just work on ourselves and let them come around in their own time. At some point, despite all our efforts to build Rs with our spouses, we have to realize that they may never figure things out and we'll have to move on. It'll be sad, and we'll probably feel bad leaving somebody behind that we worry isn't healthy enough to really deal with life. But we can't do it for them, so some day we'll have to start doing it for ourselves.
Man, that advice is a lot easier to offer you than to apply to myself. One thing for sure, you need to give yourself credit for all that you've done trying to save your M and start letting yourself off the hook a little bit. As much as you want to and as much as he probably needs it, you can't save him on your own. Try giving him as much space as you both can handle, give yourselves some time to adjust, and see if that makes things better or worse. Good luck!
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