What do you do when a person you love dearly needs something that you cannot offer, or has a problem that you cannot solve?
And no, I don’t mean something that you can offer them later or figure out a solution to later. I mean things that are totally, completely and irrevocably not in your power and capabilities to do. Ever. Not for lack of skills or wont of trying, but because some things simply aren’t possible for some people to do for somebody else.
Sometimes, the answer is simple.
Not necessarily easy, but simple.
You don’t try to offer a half-ass substitute to the thing you cannot provide and you don’t keep trying to find solutions.
You stop. You get out of their way. You give that person space and you support him or her as best you can.
Why?
So that they can see clearly enough, past the obstacle that is your well-meaning insufficiency, and look for someone or something that will solve that problem.
It’s a hard lesson to learn, but one that more of us need to for the sake of our relationships of all kinds in our lives.
Deacon Blue
Inda Pink
Holy Sh!+ from Deacon Blue 
Q: What do you do when a person you love dearly needs something that you cannot offer, or has a problem that you cannot solve?
A: Offer your ear.
(My $0.02)
Really excellent advice, my friend. I heartily co-sign.
However, I’ve found that sometimes the listening gets to a point where it isn’t helping either…or, as I’ve also found, listening is what gives you the cues that you need to step out of the situation in question, either wholly or partly, because that’s what the person really needs or wants.
But yeah, listening is where is starts and, one hopes, where it can happily end…at least sometimes. 🙂