Need to be better.

My best mate rang me last night and told me that he'd been going through a bit of a rough patch and that he was separating from his wife. It took me quite by surprise, they always seemed like a great couple. Together they have a son and his wife has a daughter from a previous relationship but he has always treated her like his own and I'm pretty sure she thinks of him as her dad.
They have been married for roughly a year longer than my wife and I and from the outside it appeared as though they had quite a good relationship. She was looking out for him and making sure that his friends knew that he was having a hard time when his mum was diagnosed with cancer recently. He was supportive of her and cared for her when she basically broke her back and had the long path to recovery. They always seemed like a happy couple. It turns out that they had been having issues for a while and had been trying to work through them without any success. From the sounds of it, it has been a mutual decision and they are trying to be amicable and courteous to each other as they work through this together.
It just goes to show that you never really know what's going on in someone else's life and what issues they may be dealing with at home. I feel like a bad friend for not knowing about any of this earlier but I don't know what I could have done to help.
I want to do everything I can to help my mate but I can't really think of anyway to do this except to let him know that I'm here for him if he needs me and to maybe stay in touch with him a bit more than usual. I don't want him to feel pressured by me or anything and I don't really believe that taking him out to a pub to have a few drinks will really help him that much. It may distract him for a while but it won't really change what he's going through and how tough it must be for him.
Part of my self improvement and bettering of me is obviously that I
need to be a better friend and try to stay in contact with my friends more than I currently do. 

Bomber
Bill and Ted were right, be excellent to each other.