Do I call out DHs lie or keep quiet?

[TheDancingHorses]

Bit of background - DH and I have been together 16 years. All generally good except for his sister who, many years ago, decided she didn’t like me and set about trying to make my life a misery. She turned their parents against me, slagged me and my kids off to anyone who’d listen, tried to split me and DH up, etc.
Unfortunately, DH never really did anything about this and, if anything, actively put his sister first - for example, telling me he didn’t want to get married to me as he didn’t think his sister would be welcome and insisting she came to our children’s birthdays as she’s their aunt and had a right to be there. Apparently (according to DH) they have a ‘special bond’ and she’s always been good to him’ but, over the years, his stance has hurt a lot.

Anyway, we were talking earlier about his sister and I asked when he last spoke to her. He was a bit shifty and gave a vague “ oh a week or so”. Over the years he’s only ever called her when I’m not around and i’ve said that he doesn’t need to as he should just call he whenever he wants. I’m not bothered or interested in what they’re talking about. If anything, it seems weird him only talking when I’m not around, it’s as if he’s hiding things like them talking badly about me.
I’m not proud to say but he was being shifty so I looked at his call log on his phone and can see that, sure enough, he called her yesterday while I was out for the day.

i’m now torn - why’s he lied about phoning and what else has he been lying about over the years? Or am I an even worse person for looking at his phone?
I feel like I should keep quiet as it’s my own fault for checking on him but I also know that the knowledge he’s lied is not going to go away.
Any advice on what to do would be great, thank you!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

But I’ve said countless times now that I’m not listening in on his calls, he can speak to his sister whenever and wherever he likes. He can call in front of me or in a different room or whatever he wants to do. I’m not and never have tried to control who he sees or speaks to. I agree, he’s a grown man who can make his own choices and decisions. My issue is that I feel he makes it suspicious and odd by only calling when I’m not around and then feeling the need to lie about it. I also don’t like that he has chosen countless times to prioritise his sister’s feelings over mine (sometime that he’s admitted when we’ve spoken about it) so it’s a crappy situation all round.

Could you perhaps give some examples of the ways in which the sister has been bad to you, OP? At the moment the only specific examples you've given are of you seemingly banning her from your wedding and her nieces/nephews birthdays. It might help to give a better understanding of the dynamic here.

🙄

Well clearly you're the spoiling for a fight type too whereas I'm more quiet life so won't be matching your ire, but several people on the thread take my view too, so it's not so cut and dried no matter how angry it makes you.

Ah yes the old “I’ve never stopped my gf from going out with her friends”, “I’ve never told my gf what to wear”, “I’ve never said she couldn’t speak to her family”….

We know that men very rarely tell someone they’re not allowed to speak to their family or go out etc - they don’t say it with words but it ends up causing an argument and over time it wears them down.

My friends DP has never told her she’s not allowed to go out, in fact leading up to it he encourages it.
Then on the day, he suddenly gets upset about something (sometimes becomes ill or claims the DC are ill), they argue and then she has to choose between going out with her friend to have fun and leaving her poor upset DH or staying with her DH and making up with him.
He’ll claim she obviously cares more about her friends than him and if she questions it, he says he’s the one that encouraged her to go out in the first place.

OP may have never used the words that DH can’t speak to his sister but I can guarantee that it has caused arguments and he feels he can’t talk to her in front of OP.

You can’t say that OP is fine with her DH talking to his sister, when she then admits to snooping through his phone to see if he’s spoken to her - how can you not see how fucked up that is.

Good god, all this venom in order to process a pretty bog standard case of disliking someone.
Many MANY other responses are available.
He lied about it because he knows your responses to his sister, not because he is a liar. He wouldn't have lied if you had found a more productive way to dislike someone.
However I realise this is 2026 and disliking someone these days is the equivalent of a statement of war. 🤷‍♀️

YABU
I call my sister or my mum when I’m on my own. Not so I can hide it from DH but so I can have an uninterrupted, private conversation. It would seem a lot weirder/rude to go into another room & shut the door. Also pointless because in our house a closed door is a magnet for kids wanting something in that room!

If you don’t get on with SIL then it’s completely reasonable that he would be vague about his interactions. Especially if saying ‘I spoke to her yesterday while you were at the shops’ would lead on to some big argument.

It’s hard to say whether DH has let you down in his behaviour over defending you because you are not coming across as a reasonable person. But overall the advice would generally be that if he keeps in contact with his sister he doesn’t bring her up in conversation with you. Which seems to be what he is trying to do.