You know that thing I wrote last week about the new year? That thing, which you read with equal parts interest and enthusiasm? Well I'm going to sort of move on from that, so if you didn't read it, now would be a good time. I do these things for your benefit, you know.

My wife and I attend a local support group for abuse survivors and their partners. I attend, you understand, as a partner. This week (last week, by the time you read this) I raised the issues that I mentioned last week which I know you will all have read about. Now I can't, obviously, repeat what was said to me. It would be unfair, even if it wasn't one of the group's basic rules that confidence is not breached and we do not talk about the group outside the group. It's like fight club in that respect, and also because Brad Pitt is there most weeks. In other respects it's a bit different. Anyway, I can tell you the effect of what was said had on me.

One of the great benefits of any group unified by a single trait, especially a difficult problem like abuse, or alcoholism, but even something untraumatic like a shared enthusiasm for a favourite book or tv programme, is the discovery that there are other people in the world like you. For something like abuse trauma, what this means is that your feelings, emotional responses and widespread behaviour and mental reactions to your abuse, can seem a lot more normal when you recognise that other people respond exactly the same way. Some abuse responses can see, confusing and even counter-intuitive. Describing some weird aspect of your behaviour and finding a roomful of heads nodding along because they all do EXACTLY THE SAME THING can be as valuable as someone telling you how to make it better.

So that's the effect it can have for survivors. It can sometimes have that effect for me as well, as there are other partners who go to the group and have experienced the same things as I have. Another benefit I get is, I hope this doesn't sound weird, seeing my wife through the prism of other members of the group. The way this works is that I describe something that she is doing, feeling or thinking to the group. Nods of agreement from people indicating that they know she feels. Someone pipes up with their own, similar, experience. They recount their version, and what I get is like a mirror held at a different angle. Now I can see the same thing, but from a slightly different perspective. As a result, I can see it in a slightly different way, perceive an aspect of it that I had not previously appreciated. I can't tell you how insightful, and how invaluable, that simple process can be.

I haven't reread last week's piece yet, but at the time I wrote it I was feeling slightly at my wits end and, even though I tried to put a positive spin on the article, that may well have come across. Well, no apologies from me, that's how it is some weeks. Not this week, mercifully. This week I understand a little bit better, a fraction more. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel again.

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