I am also spending a lot of time on the divorce busting process, I'm an engineer so I am pretty methodical.
Just an observation, but it seems like a lot of the sitches have men with engineering/IT/analytical minds as opposed to emotional/passionate minds. Not sure if there's also any correlating with "Nice Guy Syndrome" or "Men are from Mars, Women are Venus" type dynamics? Haven't thought it out (left brain, I know) so maybe I'm way off - just jumped out at me when reading scaredA's comment above and wanted to float it out there.
Yes he is trying to analyze and understand everything so that he can build it into a rational model so that it will never, ever happen to him again. If he can avoid doing X, then Y will never happen. In addition, he wants to unlock this puzzle, to deconstruct it so he can find the solution that will allow him to rebuild it. Finding that key would provide immense comfort.
His brain has convinced itself that getting his W back, or getting W to apologize and declare a desire to have him back is the very best and fastest way to restore his feeling of being in control.
With the benefit of time and distance, he'll realize that's what it's really all about, it's about regaining the ability to feel in control of his life and his future. It really has very little to do with his W or who she is as a person, she's a lever to get him what he wants, but that's really just an illusion.
