My ABF has been controlling his drinking for the last few months.  He's done well drinking in moderation, even though I suspected for a while he may be doing other things to chase the high.  Now suddenly, he says he needs time apart from me because he knows he can do it with me, but he needs to see if he can do it without me.  He needs to test himself and see if his desire to be sober and have a different life is enough to make him not want to go out or binge drink.  He also said he struggled with telling me that because of how I would react.  I tried to be understanding that this may be his next step in sobriety.  However, it also hurts quite a bit to be without him.  He's been staying with me almost every night for the last month and a half, and now he's gone.  He has seen me this week because he needed my car for job searches, and he needed my computer to apply for jobs, but once it's done he asks to go back to his apartment.  I'm trying to be respectful of his wish for space, but it flat out sucks. I have to hide my emotions so I don't come off as selfish.  I have to act like I'm not lonely and I don't mind not seeing him or being touched.  Even when he has been around lately, he has been on his phone incessantly or on facebook.  So I feel extra slighted that even when he is around, he's not really "there".  Please don't get me wrong, I am over the moon that he has taken it upon himself to take this next step.  But, from a bystanders view, it is really hard.  And it's even harder when he wants me to be strong around him.  He said that he cares about me so much that if he thought he were hurting me, he would just keep doing what he's been doing.  But it needs to happen.  He needs to know he can do it on his own and I need to know he WANTS to do it.  I need to feel peace when I want to go do something with friends, and I need to feel peace that when he's at a friends or somewhere else that I don't panic he'll end up at a bar.  Nothing about this is easy.