People frustrate me (part x of n)

So, when I was up visiting my parents over my break, my brother and sister in law came to be part of the little family reunion (the short summing up: crazy-making relative didn't make my mom and me so crazy, but I suspect the waiter at the restaurant where we ate one night was tempted to spit in the person's food because of all the picky crazy requests they were making of him).

They stayed a little longer, after everyone else had left. And while my dad was napping (he gets bad allergies and headaches as a result), they took my mom and me aside and said they wanted our advice on a matter.

I can't really say what it is here, even in the relative privacy of the blog, without feeling I'd be revealing something very uncomfortable for my sister-in-law, but suffice it to say that my crazy-making relatives have nothing on her crazy-making relatives. My crazy-making relatives are merely a bit fussbudget-y; hers is actually doing something while, not technically against the law, is both going to skirt a US law and is going to be - how do I say it delicately - untrue to a vow this person took, which, while technically legally severed, still seems on some level to be binding to me.

One of the upshots of this action is that my sister in law is now wondering if this relative feels like her branch (my sister in law's) of the family was a "mistake." And I can see how that's very unsettling and upsetting to her. She essentially has little family left (save for a brother and sister in law of hers) other than ours where she feels comfortable any more. (My brother and sister in law are going to consult an uncle who is a lawyer and has been active in some immigration policy...to see if he can do anything. But I may already have said too much).

Anyway, it's a really uncomfortable situation, and, while I know it's not good to be too judgmental, it feels really slimy what one person in particular is doing. And my sister-in-law, and her brother and sister-in-law, kind of feel like they have to sit by and watch it happen without being able to really do or say anything. (My brother is in favor of saying something, but would not do it without my sister-in-law's agreement).

They told my dad later, and I think he may have given them some useful advice. I hope it works out for her. My sister-in-law is such a great person and it really sucks that her family is imploding in the way that it is, and that she is having to deal with the fall-out.

My mom said to me, quietly, after they had left, "It might sound a little conceited for me to say this, but I'm really glad C. (my sister-in-law) has us, since her family is having such problems." But I think it's true. I know once my sister-in-law commented that she liked coming to visit my family because my mother didn't expect her to cook or do housework while she was there. (She doesn't expect it of me, either, though I offer).  And I think my family is calmer and quieter, by and large, than her family is.

We were talking in my Sunday School class yesterday. Someone brought up the issue of sin and the consequences of it, and how when people sin it brings them pain eventually. And I observed that sometimes the worse pain is visited on more-or-less innocent bystanders to the situation, thinking of my brother and sister-in-law. And I wonder if the person involved realizes that they are inflicting pain on other family members and does not care, because they are "following their bliss" (or so they think), or if they are just blind to the fact that their actions have impact on other people.