Do I call out DHs lie or keep quiet?

He’s probably deep down ashamed that he hasn’t stuck up for you hence why he feels embarrassed to still be in contact with her.

As others have suggested, maybe he’s also worried about your reaction? Even if you don’t give him a hard time about it speaking to her, he grew up in a household with a toxic character and that can make people afraid of other people’s reactions and conflict averse.

I’m sorry it’s a shit situation. My advice would be if you catch yourself wanting to look at his phone, remind yourself you’re just giving her what she wants - getting between you and your DH - and letting her live in your head rent free. Don’t let her take up anymore mental space.

Your DH has taken a stand (albeit an inadequate one) by staying with you in spite of this pressure so that it something to hold onto. I doubt he will change without therapy. This is the type of thing where couples therapy may help him see the dynamic more clearly and to put down better boundaries with her

If you were suspicious/annoyed enough to go to the lengths of looking at his phone, then I'd argue he was probably right to be vague.

Whatever you say, you very clearly strongly dislike his sister, and he's heard enough about this over the years to come to the (not unreasonable) conclusion of "when did you last speak to that turd of a sister?" isn't the hill he wishes to die on.

Don't claim that you "don't care when he speaks to her", when you very obviously do.

If he'd said he'd spoken to her that day would you have checked his phone?
Why did you check his phone?
What difference does it make whether it was today yesterday or last week? How does it affect you? You have no relationship with her?

Does he show other signs of emotional abuse, OP? For what it's worth, he's a fool if he cannot see that his sister attacking and undermining you was actually an attack on HIS marriage and HIS happiness. He should have supported you, and distanced himself from her until she apologised to you both and changed her ways.

You shouldn't be looking at his phone, OP. Everything else sounds pretty trivial, and you all need to behave like adults, but you owe your husband an apology re the phone.

Theres no reason why a grown man can't speak to a member of his family without you expecting to listen in and snooping on his phone. I am losing sympathy.

I would just let it go. It doesn't sound like there's anything malicious in it.

Erm excuse me what? He didn't lie for a quiet life, he lied because he is a useless coward who values his vile sister more then his own wife and kids. Dont try to plant a seed to op that this is less serious then it is. The only thing you got right is spineless but you even down played this.

You just need to stop asking questions. He said he’d spoken to her, why are you then interrogating him about “when” as he hadn’t told you. Why would he? I have no idea what my DH last spoke to his sister, that’s his business. Just focus on your family and let him get on with dealing with his.

i’m now torn - why’s he lied about phoning and what else has he been lying about over the years?

He lied for a quiet life because it's a flashpoint issue and never going to be solved. Why would you need to know the exact day he spoke to her, it's really not an issue and he's not lying so much as just avoiding getting into it with you, which is understandable at this point. To go from that to checking his phone then extrapolating it into 'what else has he been lying about over the years?' is like you're spoiling for a fight about it, which rather justifies his quiet life approach. Sure he's been spineless in some ways, but if he's between the two of you then keeping his head down is a viable approach too. Just let it slide and don't talk about her with him if it can be avoided.

But op hasn’t stopped him from speaking to his dsis so your comment is invalid.

I completely agree with you. Wife and kids come first especially in a situation where sil is being nasty. Anyone saying otherwise is probably the sister 🤣 or clueless ppl who come on here to chat utter rubbish.

Op its time to be vocal and speak up. Dont tell him you looked at the phone he will run away with it and make you the bad guy. Instead just speak up about how you feel in general.

I completely agree with all of this!!

This comment says it all:
insisting she came to our children’s birthdays as she’s their aunt and had a right to be there.

He had to insist that she was allowed to attend the children’s birthdays!
You’re claiming that she’s the one causing the drama but your DH had to put his foot down just so his own sister could attend his one kids birthdays.

You’re now admitting that you also snooped through his phone to see how often he’d been ringing her - that’s messed up!

I’d love to hear the other side of this story.
Your poor DH and kids stuck in the middle of this.

i ended my first marriage because it gradually became apparent that my (now ex) husband was constantly lying to me. Stupid little lies to do with him and his family who I later became aware were being totally horrible about me and actively excluding me from their family circle without my knowledge. So he was doing stuff to please them and then lying to me about it instead of just saying what was going on, (which I totally would have been fine with and supported him with btw) so when we went to his parents house with his sister and her husband I would be the only one who didn’t know what was really going on and I had no idea at the time, I thought I had a decent relationship with his family. When I discovered the first few lies I lost all respect and it was the last straw in what was becoming an increasingly difficult relationship. I felt that if he was lying about the small irrelevant stuff I couldn’t trust him on the big stuff. When we got divorced I discovered the rest of the lies and even now 30 years on it is still completely unfathomable to me why the lies were said. If there is all of that deceit in a marriage as a way of life I don’t believe it’s fixable.

But that is an issue in your relationship that actually his sister isn’t at fault for and it an issue with how it makes him feel.

any relationship that one feels they have to lie because of how the other would react is controlling and toxic

So why I don't agree with the way dh has handled the situation with his sister and yourself. I think you asking questions regarding his sister would just cause an argument. I can see why he told a white lie

I'd be wondering what he says about you to his sister tbh. He obviously doesn't defend you, but does he fan the flames a bit?

I think in your shoes I'd be initiating a move to physically get away from her and he can come or not.

There's nothing worse than a spouse who doesn't have your back.

OP, I can totally sympathise with you. I have been married for over thirty five years and during that time, I had to endure numerous incidents of unacceptable behaviour towards us (mainly my wife), from my sister. My sister never left home, never had a relationship, never learned to drive. When I met my wife in early 1990, my sister immediately tried to split us up, telling lies about my wife, to my parents and relations. It got so bad, that on the morning of our wedding in September 1990, my dad took me to one side and said - "It isn't too late son, you don't have to go through with this". My choice of language for the reply wasn't pleasant. At the start of the reception, when the disco started playing, my sister stormed over to us, shouting at me, telling me that the music was far too loud and dad didn't like it. I told her where to go (she never went to clubs and didn't like pop/rock music) so both her and my dad left.
Over the years, I learned that she was telling lies about us to other relatives, however, that backfired, because I had always got on with one of our cousins (let us call her Mary), who had started talking to my sister. However, during a brief conversation with my sister, when I phoned my parents (my sister always picked up their phone first), she told me some personal information about Mary and her husband (who I also knew, because I did the readings at their wedding), so I gave my sister pretty short shrift over that, telling her that I didn't want to listen to any of her poisonous gossip.
Anyway, my sister took every opportunity to be mean to my wife, even though I had words with my mum and dad about her, they didn't do anything, I think she controlled them.
They are all gone now and I don't miss them, I have my wife and I regard her family, to be the better half of my family.

The whole subject makes your dh uncomfortable so he prefers to keep everything completely and utterly separate.
Even if you don't mind now, clearly you have in the past with the wedding etc, so he doesn’t quite know what he should say or do, so he buries his head in the sand and acts like a deer in the headlights when you question him.
Just let him crack on, and let it go.

I think it's unsurprising he calls her when you are not around as who wants to feel forced to go to a different room when talking to a family member on the phone?

It's a tricky situation because having nothing to do with your husband's sister at all makes life tricky as it's not really possible and puts him in a very awkward position. I'm speaking as someone who gets caught between my partner and my sibling. My sibling can be difficult but I still make it clear to that they won't be excluded from family events because I don't want to allow rifts to develop. That doesn't mean expecting anyone to accept bad behaviour but just being civil when the occasion arises.

Is it worth seeing a counsellor specialising in family dynamics to discuss how best to move forward? Maybe do couples therapy as well?

If a woman came on here and said that her partner was stopping her speaking to her sister, to the extent that she had to call when he was out of the house, and he was then hacking into her phone to track her calls, we'd be saying there were red flags everywhere

A PP says wife beats family. i don't agree with this. It shouldn't be a choice anyway but sad to say marriages end, (good) families are forever. I would never turn my back on my brother or parents for a spouse/partner, and if they asked me to it would be a dealbreaker.

I do wonder what the other side of this is, if OP's DH was saying that his sister wouldn't be welcome at his wedding then it doesn't sound like OP was quiet about her feelings either.

I also don't think this was a big lie, if he'd said he wasn't in contact with her but was that would be one thing, but being a few days out doesn't make much difference. I think you need to let him have that relationship, happily, OP, and try to build bridges where you can or at least not interfere or quiz him at all about it.