I totally agree with all the above posts about taking time out for yourself.  It's hard to start with as you know in your mind that you're filling a gap - a gap that you don't want to fill with anything other than your husband. I have been trying to 'help' my dp for months now because it feels like I should, but I know (through counselling, time and my own instinct) that I can't help him until he admits he needs to help himself.  We try to think about how they want us to respond/reply/ behave so that we can support them best but we're thinking rationally while they're not. It doesn't work to respond in a rational way to an irrational thought.  It's also confusing because how we would have once responded no longer applies as their behaviour and thought processes are so changed. The fact is, and it is so hard to deal with, (I'm not nearly there yet) is that we can't really help because the situation is so unpredictable. Sometimes I think, or he tells me, that next time a similar scenario happens I should do ...... and then when it does, he reacts completely differently. You think you're learning but you're not.  Let the separation be a positive thing - I sometimes think that if we didn't live together I would be able to get a better perspective on things, I wouldn't be so emotionally exhausted, I could think about me, I wouldn't be there to be put down or have an argument started with, and I wouldn't have to answer questions about where I've been and who I've been with (this is a new thing). Don't give up - hard though it is.