Kalimac, interesting points all. Yes, Saruman's remark was well-aimed, but not the final straw.
I actually feel it was Sam's marriage to Rosie that was Frodo's final undoing. Bilbo age and departure was the final push out the door.
Sam was the only hobbit Frodo could have confided in, whom Frodo would have felt understood. He had carried the ring. He had seen and experienced much of what Frodo had. There was no other hobbit Frodo would have confided in.
Rosie and the marriage and children distracted Sam at a time Frodo needed him most, and compounded his sense of failure and disconnectedness by sheer contrast with Sam's robust aliveness. This isolated Frodo more than anything, and he lost his one tie between his past life in the Shire and the experiences in Mordor and who he became thereafter.
See his sense of failure, which already had a grip on him: if Sam could resume life in the Shire, then why couldn't he?
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"Of course, you can't be away long anymore," said Frodo, a bit wistfully.
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He envied Sam, and felt guilty about that, so much so that he hid his envy and his pain from Sam, and isolated himself even more than the circumstances did. He feared his burden was so overwhelming he might drag Sam down with it. So in the end, in that year, he cut himself off from Sam, long before he went away.
I think Frodo understood how important a connection to his past Sam was, and this was why he had Sam move into Bag End with Rosie. It was his last attempt to keep his friend. If he were his old self, not borne down by loss and depression, he would have told Sam "You know, Sam, you and Rosie could hold off another a year or two, couldn't you? I.. I think I could really use your help here at BagEnd. Not too long. Just a year or so, while we get settled." Smiles. "Nothing wrong with long courtships, right Sam?" But due to his own feeling of failure, he didn't feel he deserved it enough to ask.
[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Marileangorifurnimaluim ]