Good job on the successes. It is very hard for everyone, I think, to not talk about D for a couple weeks.
By trigger with dating, do you mean that you hit one of his buttons, and then he ended off bringing up dating? Once, I mentioned that I had looked at a dating website when I was a month away from our D becoming finalized. That brought out a lot of "irresponsible" that have yet to be fully lost. Even though nothing happened, nor was about to, it was like I told her that I was going to have and EA. I can see why you might have reacted.
If you are living apart, it makes sense that he'd be taking things. Even if he realizes that he should work on the M, if that is what God has planned, then a minimum level of comfort is needed - maybe (maybe) that is why he keeps taking things. I wouldn't sweat over it. That doesn't tell you if he is committed either way, except that comfort is important. It could be argued that he wants stuff from home to remind him of you, too, couldn't it?
For your mini-goals, are you making the situations possible for them to happen?
