Hard Hearted

At church they have used the term (I think it is in the Bible too) of the hardening of the heart. This is when we become desensitized to the sins of the world and we just accept it and no amount of naysaying can make us recognize the sin as something bad and we won't turn away from it.

Well living with alcoholism, one too becomes hard hearted - think it can also be called denial. We use the excuse, well it could be worst. He's going through a lot. We enable and say -- I just don't know what he'd do if I "put my foot down."

My mother is hard hearted. I don't want to be that way.

BHP called it bitterness today. She said you have to become hard hearted to keep yourself from going insane. I cried, and said about my mama, "Bless her heart." I don't want to be that way. She has endured a lot and missed out on a lot by living with her alcoholic. I remember after getting out of the parental alcoholic home I was angry at her and not daddy for keeping me in that situation. I am becoming bitter and hard hearted and I don't like it.

Yesterday, I said that we would be on the wagon for a while, guess I was fooling myself. J**** came in drunk tonight. Didn't come home until 10:30 pm - he's passed out right now. Says he drank six beers. Don't really care. He's feeling all ashamed and pitiful, I just can't get back to sleep. So this brings me to BHP's question:

Here goes -- What are you willing to live with and what will you NOT tolerate? Wow, never thought about it this way, but this puts me in a place of control and a position to say, hey you have a choice. I didn't have a choice as a child. Mama made that choice. Now my choice has to be for me and the children. So here goes my list of I will not tolerates: 1) I will not tolerate drinking or drunkenness in my household, 2) I will not tolerate drug use or users in my household, 3) I will not tolerate a disrupter in my household. By disrupter I mean that when he is not home all is happy and calm, when he comes home the calmness goes away and we dance around him and he is grumpy with the children., 4) I will not tolerate an adult who has to be treated as a child. 5) I will not accept less than a 24/7 father figure for my children.

I also need to work on my own anger issues and ask myself why am I angry and not confront him in front of the children or in an accusing way, but to figure out what my problem or his problem may be.

Today, I gained and lost hope in our session. I lost a lot of the hope that this marriage will make it, he's not ready to grow up and commit himself to this family. My grandfather lived to be 99, in his eyes he made it to 100 (time in womb, etc.) He always said, don't let anyone fool you, marriage is not 50/50, it is 100/100. Both have to give 100% of themselves to make it work. J**** is not willing to give 100%. But I gained hope that we F****, G*****, D***** and I will be just fine.

Maybe my heart won't be hardened after all. Thanks BHP.