Well Brendan,

How can I thank you enough for inviting me on your course.

I began feeling bitter, angry and stressed. You taught me to live in the moment, not in the past. You showed me who my wife was and more importantly who I was.

To be honest, I did not like all of what I saw, but you taught me that we all have our virtues and faults and how to improve on ones faults.

It was great to sit down with the group and really feel part of the group. To be able to speak openly and honestly without fear of being judged. To be able to share our problems and hopes.

It is true, a problem shared is a problem halved and even if the group never sits together again there will always be a bond and friendship there. They will always be in my thoughts and yes Brendan in my prayers too.

I feel a different person than the one I was 10 weeks ago. I still know I am not perfect or ever will, but hopefully with what you have taught me and I will work at it, it will make me a better person and for that I am truly grateful.

Yours Sincerely,
B.D

What the Amen course has meant to me.

Everything!

Amen has and still is everything. To know in your deepest darkest moments, you know there is always going to be a sympathetic ear on the other end of the phone willing to listen and not judge.

Then there is the course or as I would call it, the journey. This has been a whole new insight about me and my life so far. I have learnt that I am not alone, although I sit at home alone I am now aware that I am not alone, there are many men in a similar position to me, even though our stories are unique to us, there are many similarities that quickly become evident.

I have learned I am not a bad person and that many things are beyond my control but that there is hope for each and every man in our position.

I have learned about 'WHY ME' and that I am a helper who at this moment in time has no one to help. I have learned I am not perfect and ways to deal with conflict, all life changing and life growing.

I have felt a bond with Brendan and the other men who have travelled this journey along side me and although we all had a set back or two along the way, we have gotten there.

I think the hardest part I felt was to forgive my ex partner even though I still have not seen my children in 152 days. I was at my very lowest point and I got the strength to forgive.

I know all the help I have gotten from the course; I also know I still have a fair bit of my personal journey to complete and I also know I will need Amen to lean on.

Any or everyman going through a difficult relationship should do this course as I know it saved my life.

Thanks
L.C

To whom it may concern,

Through pain I now can see, like never before. 10 weeks ago I was emotionally drained and wondered was there any way out of this mess.

While I had not lost hope, through anger, blaming and fighting I was on a path of destruction.

My happiness now is not dependant on anyone else. I am powerless to change others but through faith and asking for help things are happening to renew my life.

I have grown up this year more than the past 20 years of my relationship with my wife. I now understand like never before.

Each week the practical and challenging support group meetings have brought me on a journey of self discovery.

This has been the most beneficial course or programme, I have participated in.

Thank you for helping me see the light. Here is to the future.
D.L

What the Group has done for me.

If I had to sum up in one word what this group has done for me, that word would be ³HOPE².

Before I came to the group I was at my lowest ebb. I had been battered in every way that is possible to be battered, physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, financially and the most damaging of all spiritually. Probably the only thing that kept me going in those dark days was the phrase I adopted as my mantra, ³Keep the Faith Brother, There's Better Days Ahead². Whenever I was feeling down I would repeat this over and over again to myself to drag myself up off the floor. One day in the group Brenda was talking about spirituality and he said something that struck a powerful chord with me. He said that ³Hope is the Certainty that Better Times are Ahead², and from that moment on I went from ³wishing² that better days were ahead to ³knowing with great certainty² that my best days are indeed ahead of me. I realised that I had lost touch with my spirit and had been living my life in a wrong way. I was trying to conform to what modern society demanded and expected of me, and had forgotten or ignored what was really important. No more! Now it is time to really live, and BE, rather than just existing in a vacuum.

There is one other thing I must stress the importance of and that is ³forgiveness², because I really feel that without this there can be no ³hope². It's no good just saying ³I forgive you², you must look deep down, deep within your heart, and your very soul and really feel and mean it, when you say ³I forgive you². For me personally, this was a very painful experience, because of all that had gone before, but the rewards were spectacular. In the following days I found a great ³inner peace² as all the pain, anger, bitterness and resentment disappeared and though the memories of those dark days linger on, they are no longer painful to revisit. Instead of filling me with pain and hurt, I find these memories now fill me with a great strength and hope for the future and I have come to accept them as part of life learning process.

What lies ahead for me? Only God knows. Will I even love and be loved again? Maybe, but if there is someone out there, she's going to have to find me because at the moment I am just not looking for her. ³Everything happens for a reason², the reason for what happened to me I just don't know. Maybe over the coming years that reason will be revealed to me, or maybe not. I just have a very strong feeling that it is going to be quite interesting and a lot of fun, finding out.

S.B

Ten minutes before I went into the office of Amen, I would not have seen myself taking part in a support group. I went into the office for an information pack and left with my name down for the group.

Looking back over the meetings, each week was a set of stepping stones of empowerment and self awareness, of looking not so much at my wife but at myself.

Each week I came away with something to think about, it was either my life or life in general. One week we covered personality types; it could not have been more accurate. It gave me a great insight into myself and my wife. It gave me the ability to recognise the good points in my personality and to work on the weak points.

After covering awareness, intimacy, attachment, co-dependency and forgiveness, along with exploring your thoughts, feelings and spirituality, I was left thinking who am I? I was aware of forgiveness and intimacy and I have explored my thoughts and feelings but attachment and co-dependency has left me asking who am I? I knew I was lost but not how lost I was. Amen has given me a map of awareness and certainty of looking into myself to learn who I am. It was painful to realise this, but I look at it as the pain of rebirth. Amen has breathed new life into me.

The covering of spirituality was not in an autocratic way. I went to mass to hear the psalm, readings and gospel's, to hear what the priest's had to say but the spiritual part of the group showed me a lot more happens at mass and in everyday life. It was good food for the soul. If we take soup as food for the soul I was eating mine with a fork, Amen gave me a spoon.

When it comes to thanking Amen for what it has done for me, I happened to come across a poem of Patrick Kavanagh's. For me it sums up my feelings on Amen. The poem is called Thank You.

Here are the last lines of it.

Thank You.
For what it teaches is just this:
We are not alone in our loneliness;
Others have been here and known
Grief's we thought our special own,
Problems that we could not solve
Lovers that we could not have,
Pleasures that we missed by inches.
Come I'm beginning to get pretentious,
Beginning to message forth instead of expressing how glad
I am to have lived to feel the radiance of a holy hearing audience
And delivered God's commands
Into those caressing hands,
My personality that's to say
All that is mine exclusively.
What wisdom's our if such there be
Is a flavour of personality
I thank you and I say how proud
That I have been by fate allowed
To stand here having the joyful chance
For most have died the day before
The opening of that holy door.

Thank you, Thank you
R.S

I'm writing this letter to describe how the good people in Amen helped me when I was at the lowest point of my life. I am a recovering alcoholic and was stuck in a relationship with a lot of mental abuse.

I had no one to turn to. I just though that marriage was supposed to be like that. Having been through a lot with the battle with drink, I though I was strong and wouldn't let things show on the outside. But deep down inside I knew I wasn't being treated like a human being. I was living in a total nightmare. I wasn't allowed to say or suggest anything, all I was, was a money making machine and a child minder while she was out spending every penny that she got.

I was in a bad way. I had no confidence and felt worthless, afraid to stay and most of all afraid to leave my children.

My brother took me to Amen, I was glad he did because I wouldn't have gone on my own, I would have been afraid too.

After the first visit it felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I couldn't believe that two girls could be, so understanding. This wasn't the vision I had of women. They spoke to me like I was a human being and I wasn't used to that. I can't explain how much those two girls helped me, the relief of somebody listening to me. The girls suggested some kind of counselling to me. It was then I met a nice man called Michael.

I can only describe this man as a genius. He taught me things about myself that I didn't even realise myself. Being good at hiding my feeling, he would come at different angles and I would trip myself up. Every session I had with Michael my confidence was growing and growing. When the sessions ended I missed them, but deep down I knew I had to go it alone and with my confidence growing it was time to put everything into practice and it is working.

Last but not least, there's Brendan. He is very honest and sincere and has a great knowledge of people's feelings; he has a great way of getting things across to people. It's lovely trait to have. He has a great way with people.

As I said before, I can't even start to explain the gratitude I have to Amen. My family, friends and work mates all notice the big changes in me since I first went to Amen. I don't known how I would have coped with my situation. I was nearly suicidal, not knowing were to turn, all I can say is thank god for those great people, I don't know where I'd be now if I hadn't went with my brother that night.

Thanks everyone in Amen. I am, were I am today because of you all.

From,
K.P

Twelve steps back to Somewhere Better than Before.

Review - Brendan's Tuesday Evenings

I have been attending the Tuesday evening sessions for some 8 weeks or so and these are my thoughts and comments.

Firstly, it has been an immensely positive experience. I have attended some order of counselling before in the darkest days of my separation just to stay on an even keel and this was beneficial.

I was determined not to let the entire debacle get in the way of my ultimate happiness. The entire experience has not been easy and is not nearly over as my former wife is determined to throw every negative aspect of the legal system at me. This is notwithstanding the personal loss I have felt for both her and more painfully two young daughters. Brendan's meeting is something I commend. The use of a group (although not hugely attended - to the absentees loss in my opinion) is a new experience and something of a sanity check.

It is so good to hear that I was not alone in an abusive relationship with the obvious gender reversal of the publicly conceived norm. In truth, it was a chance meeting with another contemporary male victim during the summer that gave me the solace to contact your organisation. This is what eventually got me to attend this session.

Brendan's forum should be encouraged in my opinion. It is a great structure around which to understand and do the necessary ³personal repair work² that us men are far less likely to engage in. To quote Brendan ³men are too busy trying to survive², that really resonated with the attendees. It is what has been pre-programmed into our psyche, for the right reasons mostly, but the opportunistic legal profession and some women's peers seem determined to use this trait for destructive purposes.

The evenings are somewhat of a sacred space, the thrust toward getting some understanding of the mechanism of relationships is invaluable. Again to quote Brendan ³awareness², both of the shortcoming of both personalities in the relationship and the path to not re-engaging in negative behaviours that might damage another relationship. In my mind, even more importantly, learning how not to let oneself into a bad situation again by recognizing certain aspects that could lead into another damaging or difficult situation.

In summary, it is an empowering pursuit, and somewhat or a reassurance that all is not lost because one has oneself to gain. Recognition of the time of separation is a time of growth, but that I think is an individually asserted choice. These evenings are a break from the incessant legalities and financial strain that comes with the separation.

The adage of ³fighting with new weapons², with the adversarial connotations apart is what really can be achieved by engaging in this sort of programme. Some things we have no control over, that is just providence at work. Making a choice to try out an evening like this is an opportunity for some personal solidarity with the benefit of Brendan's mentoring. Somewhat of a departure for this man's logical engineering brain but it has given me some peace and some inner gain. At least I will be able to pass this peacefulness on to my children, it can only be a positive, and no act of law can threaten that intangible personal empowerment.

Regards,
H.T