Hi, StingInTheTail, welcome to PsychCentral. I read your post and am quite impressed with your self understanding and willingness to work on making things better for yourself and your relationship too.

I see two things you might want to think about; you are still very concerned about your husband, more so than you are about yourself. I would look at what you want and are doing for you, rather than looking so much over the fence speculating on what your husband may be doing. Whatever he does, stays or goes from the relationship, you're still only going to have your own thoughts, feeling, life to manage so you might want to put some energy into what you want to do with your life. Do you have a career or hobbies/interests you pursue, friends of your own, etc.? You might want to look toward yourself instead of stay tangled in what is happening in the relationship all the time; yes you should still care and look to the relationship but the individuals in the relationship (you :-) are what make it work and it can't be a very good relationship if one's self is not "whole" to begin with. The relationship can't make you whole, you have to bring your whole self to the relationship in order to make it. It sound a little like that might be what your husband is trying to do, make himself whole within himself so then he can reassess the relationship and see if he thinks the two of you will be able to make another go of it or not.

Another thing is that mending takes time. You said you had been arguing for a year before he left, it could take that long or even longer to sort that out again. I was in therapy 9 years, twice! There aren't any maps or books on how to mend, how to make a life for one's self. I don't know if it would help but having a longer view instead of anticipating something "happening", relaxing a bit and learning to take the situation in stride, working with it as it unfolds slowly, might be a bit more comfortable for you? Expecting things to happen often feels rushed to me and I don't like that anxious, nervvy feeling? I prefer to feel like I have time to do things and for things to change. I can experiment and see what I like and reject some things and still have time to try others, etc.

But the biggest thing is that things are in the future and one can't predict the future. I wish I could tell you how it is all going to come out but no one can, not even you and your husband. So I like to try and sit back and watch how things are going, relax and use my interests and curiosity to guide me and let things unfold as they will do anyway. Doing a lot of analyzing and thinking about things can drive me crazy :-) so I try to work on my tendency to do that and relax as much as possible since all the thinking and analyzing in the world doesn't do anything at all to move things forward or help with whatever problem I am having.