I'm mystified by the whole, "I stayed away for 7 years because..."
...because what, exactly? The only explanation given is, "because she said she would wait," which is too dumb to countenance—"I'll wait for you" in that context clearly means "I want you to come back," not, "please stay away for nearly as long as we are old, to prove some sort of esoteric point".
Like, if I read between the lines I can assume he perhaps doesn't want to come back and face her yet, but...
Honestly, it really came off as "we're doing this 'cuz the author just wants this for plot progression purposes" XD