Trouble moving forward

My boyfriend and I have been together for a year and a half. We’ve kinda reached a sour spot in the relationship, we always argue and things just don’t feel the same. We had a really big fight which I think affected him more than me? But we agreed we needed to shed our unhealthy habits to move forward and work on us, which is what we’ve been doing, but on two occasions I’ve brought up how I feel he’s been dragging us getting back to normal. He says it’s because he’s still hurt and worried we will fall back into our old ways so he wants to take it slow. I see it as him quiet quitting our relationship or him just being around long enough to lose feelings so he can leave me clean with no emotion. I’ve expressed this to him and he said it’s hurting him to think I see him that way. But he also doesn’t understand that it’s new to me to not have us back to normal in the time we usually do. I’m trying to understand him but I feel like he isn’t understanding me. And I mean I guess he’s been trying but not at my pace. And I don’t know what to do anymore because all I do is overthink. Please help! (Just leave him) not at option please. I want to hear from people who have been hurt from their partners (not abuse of cheating) and how they wanted to be treated and why