I'm still on the fence but that is true- replying with a question does not constitute an acceptance of the apology.

I think the reason it matters what the asshat thinks of me is because he's married to my sister and therefore she condones his opinions.

I must note that Hec and I are one of (I presume) many married couples considerably happier than your sister and the asshat (I first typed "asshate," a fine Freudian typo for the person in question), but this by no means implies that either of us condones all of the other person's opinions, even of various family members.

Your sister's married to the asshate, and all that you can safely conclude from that is that she doesn't at this moment want to be un-married from him (or at least that her wanting hasn't hit the tipping point yet).

And please don't hesitate to tell me to stuff it if any of this sounds even for a second like I'm minimizing any of the sheer misery this is for you or any of your family.

tell me to stuff it

Not at all! It is really helping me to hear everyone's opinions. Right now I am leaning towards asking for clarification of the apology but I think before I do that I need to decide what I want to happen in the long run and whether answering his email will help.

celery...

this by no means implies that either of us condones all of the other person's opinions, even of various family members.

I assume that if your spouse said something really awful to one of your loved ones you would go out of your way to make sure your loved one knew that you did not support that position. Unfortunately I have had no such assurance from my sister. In fact she has implied that any troubles that happened while asshate was living with us were mostly my fault.

What JZ said. The DH has opinions on things which are VERY different from mine, but why shouldn't they be? He is not me. The Asshat is not your sister and her being with him does not condone his opinions any more than me being with DH means I am now pro-death penalty.

One of the things my therapist drummed into me and which has served me well was that I had to let each person be in charge of their own relationship. In other words, how well my mother gets along with my DH or my brother or my BF gets along with someone we both know is NONE OF MY BUSINESS. I have to let them work it out themselves and when it comes up, refuse to get involved. On the other side of this, I can't expect my brither, for example, to be responsible for my relatioship with his wife. I went through a period of really disliking my SiL, who was, IMO, horrible to my Bro and our whole family when he got sober. Her being a self-righteous pain wasn't his responsibility and she eventually thawed out.

I dunno. I think expressing negative opinions about your spouses family, that they haven't initiated is different. Mr. Jane does not like his dad. I am allowed to say, "Yeah, what he did there was really crappy." My dad screws up a lot. When it makes me cry, Mr. Jane is allowed to get upset about it.

If I'm in a fight with my mother and Mr. Jane says she's a terrible person and he doesn't respect her and that goes on past the fight? It's going to cause some huge issues, and he better keep it to his damn self.

However, we're pretty lucky in that all the family I get along with on my side he does. All the family on his side he gets along with I do too.

I think I'm worried that if I tell my sister how hurt I feel that she allowed her husband to dehumanize me she will tell me it will all be better if I accept his apology. I feel like he was at his most honest when he told us there was nothing I could do to gain his respect. I think his apology is all lies. I wish I could lift the veil from my sister's eyes.

edit: now Mom is saying we should wait. If we're patient asshate is bound to screw up again. So I'm back to trying to be in the same room with my sister without crying or kicking her.

Oh, and to clarify--I am talking about what my DH says to someone else or them to him. For example, if he says something which bothers a friend and she is upset, I will tell her that she has to talk to him about it. It took almost five years for him to work out a friendship with my BFF, but I think it would have taken longer if I had stepped in.

Laga, why does he have to respect you? I mean, he's a dick, he doesn't get who you are and that's totally his loss. His respect wouldn't mean much anyway, given that he clearly has a limited sensibility.