Trial Separation; how does it work??

Hi, My husband came to me last week and told me we should do a trial separation. Although we have had a very rough couple of years, it still hurts like hell. It's been a week now and I'm still in shock, I don't know what to do, how to act or what to expect. Let me backtrack and tell you the story. If there are any guys out there, please give me your opinion from a male perspective. H and I met when we were in college and married 4 years later after we graduated and found jobs...so we have been together a total of 23 years. When we moved to Dubai, the recession hit and we started having serious financial problems, his business was failing and we had a huge mortgage. A year into this situation, he started looking very depressed, he stopped talking to me and eventually told me he was extremely unhappy, that he has discovered that his values have changed (we are Muslim) and that he no longer believed in God. He said that he felt resentful that he has had to spend all this time in a lifestyle that didn't really suit who he "really was" and that he doesn't even know who he really is anymore. I tried desperately to get him to consider counseling but he adamantly refused. We have had lots of ups and downs over the last 2 years, at times we would get a bit close then move away again, but overall, it's been hell for me. I was so distraught, confused, and hurt that I was going mad. Then at one point I snapped. I felt i was going to burn out unless I stopped trying and just tried to live my life and be happy. I started doing my own activities, made new friends and started a social life of my own, since he refused to be seen in public with me (because he does not want to be associated with a Muslim woman). I felt that the rational solution would be to leave. I have a good career, I am independent, I have a good support network and overall would eventually survive. But I still could not bring myself to say the word divorce or even separation. I knew that no matter what i still loved him deeply. I'm mad that I have left it until he is the one who asked for the separation. Because of our dire financial straights, we are unable to move to separate homes, so we are still sharing the house. I feel frantic since this happened. I cry daily just thinking that he doesn't want to be with me anymore. I have to stop myself from sending him messages or going to his room and trying to talk to him. I don't' know what to do. I told him again that a separation will not resolve our issues, we need counseling, we need help. But he seems to think that the only way to solve this is for him to "try living without me to see if it's worth the trouble of living with me!!!" What do I do??? i know he has issues related to how his parents treated him as a child and many of those issues were projected on his feelings for me and his expectations of a spouse/marriage. I can't solve this and at this stage I feel i just want a divorce. I am way too tired to sit and wait for him to decide, go through all this pain just to have him say, yeah I discovered you're not worth the trouble, bye! I WANT A DIVORCE NOW SO I CAN MOVE ON, GRIEVE FOR A WHILE THEN MOVE ON. My therapist thinks we still have a chance if he goes to counseling with me, but I know he won't. What should I do!

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