I'm so confused.....

And here's why: My sad excuse for a brother-in-law (a/k/a Stevee's husband), called Brian's phone on Saturday morning at flipping 5:30 and told him how much he appreciated is not "doing shit" about the situation between he and Stevee, and that the family doesn't care, and a bunch of other things that I don't think I should reveal on the interwebs. They've been having problems since the week after their wedding this past May -- actually, I guess the problems started shortly after they got engaged over a year ago, but whatever -- and Brian and I had discussed getting involved and giving advice, but then decided that any advice from us could be construed as holier-than-thou and wouldn't be taken seriously anyway, and since they hadn't come to us, we'd keep our big fat noses out of it.

That'll teach us.

So he called and yelled at Brian, and Brian didn't say much to him. He got off the phone and told me what Carl had said, and I got REALLY pissed, and called Carl. I didn't yell at first, because I refuse to take sides in this slowly-developing Lifetime movie/full-length Jerry Springer feature film/monstrosity of a marriage that they've got going on, but I also don't appreciate being woken up at the ass-crack of dawn, especially when I'm sleeping really well, which rarely happens.

I asked Carl what the deal was, he told me about the recent events that had happened, and laid into me telling me we hadn't "done shit" to "warn" him and didn't we owe it to him, and blah, blah, blah. I told him that he had never called Brian or me, and that had he done so, we would have been there for him, but since we generally don't appreciate unsolicited advice, we generally refrain from giving unsolicited advice. We're funny that way. You know, not hypocrites.

I kept trying to talk to him in a reasonable manner, but he kept interrupting me. Now, if you know me, you know this is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves. Maybe it's because I'm a court reporter, and the sound of two people talking at once is enough to make my head explode, or at the very least cause me to chuck my laptop across the room or at somebody, or maybe it's just because I'm a normal human being who is actually listening to the other person and not waiting for my turn to talk. I'm not saying I never interrupt. I'm not perfect. But I try.

So anyway, he kept talking over me, and finally I said, "Look, if you're going to call and wake me up at 5:30 in the fucking morning, you're going to listen to what I have to say, so shut the fuck up."

Clearly, I'm totally a morning person.

So we talked for a while, and it went okay, but I'm still irritated by the whole thing. I also got a MySpace message reiterating what the events of the previous night were and somehow insinuating that I approved of them, which ticked me off again, and caused me to send a message to him reiterating everything I had said the previous night, because I assumed he hadn't heard any of it.

Back to my confusion. At what point did other people's marriages become my responsibility? When in the world did it fall on me or my husband or anyone else in our extended family to go up to anyone my sister-in-law dates or marries and ask them if they were sure they were making the correct decision? I'm totally confused as to how I or my husband or anyone besides my sister-in-law and her husband are even REMOTELY responsible for anything that's happened in this situation. I was just sitting here minding my business, cursing my uterus and my job and dealing with my own life and the stressors in it, trying to keep myself afloat emotionally, and he comes along and dumps this load of shit on me and everyone else.

Here's a news flash for anyone else who thinks like my brother-in-law: You and you alone are responsible for your actions. You are where you are in life as a direct result of the choices you made before you got there. Unless you have the IQ of a garden gnome, you could have figured all this out and made different decisions. Apparently, the rest of the world gives you too much credit in assuming you are a reasonably intelligent adult.

Now, I don't agree completely with my sister-in-law either. I've heard about some of the things that have happened during this time, and I think she's acted in a way that is reprehensible. So has he. Problem is, I don't know how much of what I've heard is true and what's been skewed, so I'm trying to stay out of the whole thing because I don't know enough to start passing judgment on one or the other. In fact, until Saturday morning, I thought they both sucked equally. Now Carl has taken a slight lead based on the phone call. Congratulations, dude.