I have the same misgivings that you do regarding this plotline. Despite last season's assurances of character growth from Carver, this season doesn't indicate that anything has changed.
I wonder though if part of Dean's decision to trick Sam into accepting Gadreel didn't have as much to do with his guilt because Sam was in that position because of him in the first place than just an inability to live without him. I can follow a line of thinking that if he hadn't been so hard on Sam regarding not looking for him and where they were mid-season, then Sam wouldn't have insisted on taking on the trials. It would have been him to die in the trials because he believes that Sam would have let him -- I'm not so sure about that, but what I think isn't the issue. Dean believes he would have closed the gates of hell and died, and Sam could have gone back to Amelia and had that normal life.
I don't know. Maybe Dean's motivations aren't as simple and "selfish" as we think. Of course, that doesn't make what he did right. The problem is that Carver is doing a piss poor job of showing the characters' motivations -- Sam in S8 and Dean now. We have to read between the lines and fill in the blanks. So, I'm wondering if Dean's focus on the bunker as home isn't Dean trying to give Sam what he thinks he deserves -- "Look, Sammy, you want a home, here, I'm giving you a home." If I look at it that way, it's much less selfish and sadder tbh because Dean has fucked himself over so badly.
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I wonder though if part of Dean's decision to trick Sam into accepting Gadreel didn't have as much to do with his guilt because Sam was in that position because of him in the first place than just an inability to live without him. I can follow a line of thinking that if he hadn't been so hard on Sam regarding not looking for him and where they were mid-season, then Sam wouldn't have insisted on taking on the trials. It would have been him to die in the trials because he believes that Sam would have let him -- I'm not so sure about that, but what I think isn't the issue. Dean believes he would have closed the gates of hell and died, and Sam could have gone back to Amelia and had that normal life.
I don't know. Maybe Dean's motivations aren't as simple and "selfish" as we think. Of course, that doesn't make what he did right. The problem is that Carver is doing a piss poor job of showing the characters' motivations -- Sam in S8 and Dean now. We have to read between the lines and fill in the blanks. So, I'm wondering if Dean's focus on the bunker as home isn't Dean trying to give Sam what he thinks he deserves -- "Look, Sammy, you want a home, here, I'm giving you a home." If I look at it that way, it's much less selfish and sadder tbh because Dean has fucked himself over so badly.