I agree that this thread and the OP's unfolding story is just WOW
. I'm sure you'd get 10-15 minutes of fame as a news story of personal finance, but at least people on this forum are not as brutal in criticizing the OP and her husband as the masses would be commenting on Yahoo, MSN, etc. articles (I don't waste time reading them though except skimming a few).
It seems easy to offer advice when you're not in the same shoes. I'll refrain from that....it's way too complicated to deal with emotions. OTOH, just to put in the perspective at least it's a paper loss, not the loss of health or other worse scenarios. Just yesterday I read a long story of the family that has a severly autistic child in the MONEY magazine (that might be found on the CNN.money site probably)....I just compared these two stories in my head...Sassy, you'll get better if you keep your attitude as is. I know I know when life deals you a pile of muck nobody else's problems seem worse than your own.
Now with the money part. You haven't mentioned it, but since your DH is agreeable, I'd become a control freak from now on...Well, you setting up new passwords and getting access to all the accounts indicates that you're going to sit in the driver's seat from now on. Hopefully your husband won't be able to guess the passwords, but you'll have them in an "open it when I'm dead" letter (no clue where to hide it, maybe at your parents until they leave this world).
I'd also run, if you haven't yet, annual credit reports for both of you, to make sure everything is kosher in your credit histories. It's free once a year. If you haven't done this in the past, I'd do all three companies at once and then I'd alternate one report from separate companies every 4 months so it's free to you.
Since you describe your DH as a guy who likes to live high on the hog, but he also agrees you to take control of the finances, I'd look at his paystub to verify that his net pay is deposited in the account you check. I know that you can request your employer to deposit to a few accounts instead of one. Because of trust issues between you two now, you want to make sure you start clean and fresh. Then give him an allowance or something, because to be cut off from money cold turkey might have adverse consequences.
Also, I still think that your family needs life insurance and it sounded that you haven't it. I never thought about time limitations of when to die after getting a term-life insurance policy...this is just a note to myself, not to prompt suicidal thoughts for your husband again.
I guess that's all from me. It sounded that your husband earns a healthy paycheck so maybe now he needs a stricter diet to pull you all up and going again.