Hi confused - I can't tell you whats going through his head but I can tell you that I've been in a similar situation - from the bf's perspective. I was 9 months sober when I started a new relationship, and relapsed at 11 months due to some emotional stuff which came up between us which I was not ready to handle. I was very scared of backsliding after all the progress I'd made in recovery so I asked if we could take things down a notch so I could focus more on recovery for awhile (I'd also filled my life with too much other stuff too fast and was overwhelmed by a lot of things in general). Long story short we didn't take things down a notch, I relapsed a couple of more times but got back pretty quickly to 70, 80 days before my next slip. Then after about 6 months of that I relapsed for good 2 years ago, lost my relationship to her and lost my sobriety. I wished I'd had better judgement in general on lots of things (not just the relationship), but I also wish I'd been able to figure out a way to get more focused on recovery and not lose my relationship with her and especially not lose my sobriety. The problem is if we as addicts aren't able to stay sober, its very hard to maintain other things in our lives like healthy relationships, so for many of us its important/imperative to maintain sobriety as kind of the primary goal at all times.
Anyway, I can't say if what happened to us directly applies to what's happening with you, but that was my experience in a similar situation, and my perspective on why I felt like refocusing on recovery for awhile would've been a good idea for the long term health of our relationship, as well as my life in general.
Also I agree with what others have said - the advice is usually no new relationships for awhile in early recovery (like the first year, maybe 2), but its just a general guideline that people have come up with over time.