Breaking up with boyfriend

Me and my bf have been together a long time. There are kids involved. We have a long and complicated history and theres some stuff we need to figure out. This last year specifically has been pretty bad and we hit a breaking point this last weekend. He ended our relationship but agreed to go to couples counseling, and is willing to really figure out if we need to do this and if we can mend things. Its complicated because we obviously live togetger, and our entire lives are intertwined so its like we are living in a break up but ... not. This relationship isnt loveless, it needs communication and conflict resolution.

My question is, does it make sense to end the relationship, but work on it? He said he would rather operate as broken up so that if we end up not being able to fix anything, then its already what was expected, and if we can fix it then that would be wonderful but he doesn't want to be disappointed.

Thanks for the feedback. To answer 1ofthequestions, It's almost the opposite where he's calling it a break up but hasn't mentally checked out or emotionally checked out.