Well, turns out that my stepbrother and sister-in-law are separating. His mother (my stepmother) is devastated, hurt, angry and feeling guilty. She had been pretty close to my sister-in-law, which compounds the hurt she is feeling, but is absolutely furious with her because my sister-in-law is the one who wants out. She announced her plan to leave about a month and a half ago, and she's moving out this weekend. They have been married for 4 years and have a 3 year old.

I called my stepmom today to see how she is holding up, and she asked me how I felt about the whole thing, and since I had recently had dinner with my sis-in-law, wanted to know if I had any information that would help my stepmom make sense of the situation. Stupid, stupid, STUPID me, who normally knows better, made the mistake of answering her question. She did not really want to know what I thought. Her baby son is being wronged and she wants validation of that. And I moronically explained my sister-in-law's point of view, which I happen to think is a good reason for not staying in the marriage. So now, naturally, my stepmom is furious with me for "siding" with my sister in law (which, by the way, I'm not, but I can understand her point of view).

I know my stepmom is in tremendous pain and only cares about defending her son and is dealing with a lot of guilty feelings for the way he turned out (btw, he's really not THAT bad, but he is a cop, and unfortunately one who really enjoys the more authoritative aspects of being a big white cop). I know that the right thing to do would be to just listen to her complain about my sister-in-law and what a horrible person she is. But I didn't, and now I feel horrible.

I'm also divorced, and was kind of in my stepbrother's shoes in that I did not want the divorce and loved my husband tremendously - the pain is still there. I don't believe in divorce as a quick fix for problems that you commited to working through together. But in some cases, well, it's just not black and white. My parents also hated my ex-husband for what he did, and honestly, hating him and bad-mouthing him really did not help me feel better - it actually made me feel worse, because they were hating someone that I still loved and still hoped to reconcile with.

Now, I don't have kids yet. But I already love my unconceived children with a ferocity that I haven't experienced in real life. I know that I would also defend them to the fullest extent. I'm sure if my child's marriage failed, I would be devastated as well. But she is not being rational or open-minded in the least, and her anger is eating away at her and is really hurting her relationship with the rest of the family (yes, I know that I made a big boo-boo, but it's not just this incident - she has picked fights with everyone in the family because she is so miserable right now).

Okay, I'm trying get to my question: what is the best way for me to recover from my boo-boo, and do you think there is any chance or point in getting her to try to see my sister-in-law's reasons? They aren't necessarily getting divorced -- she is moving out for a few months to regroup. My sister-in-law is willing to see a marriage counselor and wants to try to save the marriage, but I also agree that she will grow to hate him if she doesn't get the space she needs. But the way I see it is that my stepmom will be miserable (and take it out on all of us) unless she can find some way to make peace with the situation. If you were in her shoes and it was YOUR son, would you want someone to help you come to terms with it, or would it be healthier for you to just hate the "bad guy"?.

I love my stepmom and I know that she is going to continue to be upset with me for being (what she considers) disloyal. I plan to give it a little bit of time for the dust to settle, but I don't want to just try to brush it under the carpet because I know that it will eat away at our relationship.

Any advice? What can a daughter do when she offended a mother defending her son?

We are ALL going to be a-ok!