You know how when someone goes into prison the recommended thing to do is explode, on the slightest provocation, into an awe inspiring display of crazy violence and aggression? That way - the reasoning goes - no one will bother you again. They'll all be too terrified. This is what new sister in law is doing, and you are her designated victim.

My advice: make your response 'reply all senders' - ie ensure everyone who read her email will also read yours. Explain that the email was private. Explain that, as a loving brother, your concern was justified, whatever her opinions. Assure her that no disrespect was intended or meant:, and that you certainly have no wish to invade her privacy. Conclude with a reiteration of your best wishes on her nuptials.

This sends the message to her, and to everyone, that you won't be cowed. She'll have to find someone else to make an example of. And then I would continue on in your relationship with them as though nothing had happened. Refuse to discuss it again. Go on loving your brother and being pleasant to the wife, but let your email be the line in the sand: this far and no further.

The response to her (and anyone she cc'd on the email) should be:

1. You don't think that she's a gold digger or that the marriage is doomed or anything, but you acknowledge that your brother's track record with divorce is bad. This is likely because he is hard to live with. It is not farfetched that, at some point, New Wife will come to this conclusion, too.

2. He is your brother, and, therefore, you will always have his interests at heart above anything else. Because your brother is bad at marriage, concerns about a pre-nup occurred to you. In weighing whether to raise the subject (protecting his interests) or not raising the subject (protecting New Wife's interests), brother's interests won out. This is a question of loyalty, not privacy. You should be a little self-righteous about this, because it is not unreasonable.

3. None of this has anything to do with her. You've gotten to know her over the last 2 years since the email was written, and you know that she is a wonderful woman and you love her kids, too. You think that she is terrific for him, and you are so happy that they are together. But he's still your brother . . . and notwithstanding that he apparently sucks at marriage, you're still loyal to him. And when push comes to shove, you really feel obligated to back your brother. (Your brother gets to duck the issue, too, because you're his sibling -- what does she expect? Especially before you got to know New Wife . . .)

Really, she's probably mad at your brother for spilling the information that HE HAD ALREADY THOUGHT ABOUT IT before you raised the issue. And for telling you about it.

E-mail is a great thing for communicating with business colleagues, but every day I am more convinced that it is a curse on personal relations.

It's bad enough that without voice inflections, eye contact, and body language, innocent remarks can create inadvertent hurt. But e-mail is positively the delicious Weapon of Choice for every passive-aggressive, snotty bully out there. Your bully is getting all kinds of satisfactions out of this: Spying, dredging up old stuff that's none of her business anyway, manipulating your brother against you, using your whole family as a cc-audience for her drama. Oh, what joy.

But I don't know about getting into an e-mail-cc war with this one. Something tells me she would really, really enjoy it, and it would only wear you down.

Something also tells me your brother was wise to protect his dough (or rather what is left of it in this economy).

Don't e-mail your brother anymore (since you will have no privacy with her on his account -- funny how that privacy thing works), and re-discover the infinitely better telephone machine.

First off, love Cary's suggestion that you take a walk with the sister-in-law in an industrial section of New Jersey, but I don't think it will be necessary.

I'm not sure how you inquire about a prenup "gently" in an e-mail, but the LW said he did, so I guess he did. (I'm using "he" as all-inclusive, because I'm not sure if the writer is a male of female.)

At any rate, I would also send an e-mail, assuming it is being read by both the brother and sister-in-law, stating that the offensive e-mail is three years old and if brother thought it was "inappropriate" why did he keep it for so long? The LW might also state that prenups are very commonplace for anyone with property and money adding up to over seventy-five cents so it was not at all outrageous to inquire about it.

Without too much righteous indignation (remember that both are reading it) the LW might point out that it is ironic that the person who is complaining about invasion of privacy invaded privacy in order to make the complaint.

I will give the new sister-in-law some consideration since she has children and probably does not want them out in the cold in the case of a divorce, but that is also the LW's ace in the hole. He should establish himself as someone who will not back down in a fight, and therefore she takes him on at her peril. She might believe that blood is thicker than water stuff and back off.

I would hate to see them have to lock horns forever, but sometimes that is unavoidable. Some things you can't back down on, and family dynamics is one of them.

cary is right. she invaded your privacy, not the other way around.

write an email to her, cc it to your brother and everyone else in the family and say that:

1. you inquired about a prenup out of love and concern for your brother, and would have asked about it no matter who he was marrying, as anyone should understand.

and

2. if she hadn't been invading her husband's privacy, she'd never know about it.