Discovered man I’ve been seeing for 5 years is a full-blown conman running a double life.

i feel sorry for his children.

You need to block. I’m willing to bet that you don’t know the full story even now. It doesn’t matter why he did it, it matters that he’s scum who claimed to love you yet treat you like a disposable AI gf.

Obviously you block and ignore and focus on yourself and why you let yourself get in this situation. Not saying it’s your fault. You’re probably a lovely person but you do need to be a bit wiser about men.

Get him out of your life and out of your head. You sound like you’re still engaging with what he is demanding. WHY?

My suspicion is that his wife found out he was (still) gambling, and he's either under pressure to stop and pay off his debts or she has ended their marriage because of it. He's desperate and is trying to extract money from you. You haven't lent him any money have you? I agree with all the other posters saying you should block and that he is potentially dangerous.

But what triggered the need to threaten him with the police?

OP, he shouldn't be having the chance to now be acting normally on the phone. Why haven't you blocked him?
Why did you need to contact police?
I fear this is either fiction OR we are not hearing the full story,and there is worse to come.
I'd recommend: Blocking, Claires Law Request, locks changed if needed, therapy, advice from Women's Aid or similar.
Above all, stop all contact.

He hasnt been living with his parents. He has been living with his wife and their dc. She is not dead.

You have been the mistress. Anyone can print off a certifucate. Anyone can fake a bank statement. Did you ever meet anyone that knew him well for more thsn five years?

He has played you. Why did you threaten him with the police? Skip to the end, block, igmore, move on, ask your mates why they didnt say anything. Get a hobby. Arrange to go away at christnas/ new year. Make plans.

Or, drag the whole thing out, exhaust yoirself with emotion, and let him fuck up your life a bit more.

How can he go on a weekend away when he has two bereaved young children to look after full time? It’s pure manipulation of you. He’s a master at it.

Not content with being a sick psychopath himself, he wants to draw you into the web of lies by expecting you to pretend to his children that you just met. Staging a fake meeting in the park so that they don’t ever let slip to their mother and or grandparents that you have been in his life for five years.
Imagine, if you can, the way his devious brain works to even suggest that whopper of a lie. He expects you to mean nothing to yourself in order to carry that out. He expects you to belittle yourself to support his deceit towards you.
He expects you to help him to use you. He draws you further in as his victim.
That’s his normal brain pattern.
Deceive deceive deceive. Betray manipulate and use. All under the guise of being a nice man who has been hard done by.
And he wants deceit to become your normal too so that you are both guilty deceivers.
Then he’s really caught you and got you pinned down, helpless to get out.

He never had anything to offer you in the first place OP. You missed every single one of the red flags including his debt.
That’s how clever a deceiver he was.

Your brain can’t undo five years worth of what you thought was a decent relationship overnight. It takes time to work out the immensity of the betrayal and deceit you have been subjected to. So you have to give it time.

But you haven’t got time. You now owe it to yourself to act quickly to resolve never ever see him or hear his words and gestures again. Anything other than blocking him on everything would be really wrong of you and would come back to bite you, further down the line.

Seeing him, or listening to him will mean you are betraying yourself, and your chance of getting out of this mess is then severely diminished.
Your brain is crying out for explanations to make sense of it all. But you must resist all your impulses to have him explain himself.
You won’t understand because it doesn’t make sense because it was all lies because he was using you, …the opposite of thinking well of you. He never loved you, only used you.

Cut him right off in every way you can think of. Get help to do it.
You are dangerously close to losing everything if you don’t cut him right off now.

Give yourself a chance OP. You didn’t deserve this. None of it was your fault.
You were his victim for five long years. Help yourself by never going near him again.

He's a selfish people-user. Even IF you accept that his wife knew/didn't care that he was sleeping with someone else—and I wouldn't believe that for a second—he used you terribly by keeping you in the dark. He lied about his children and parents, and then there's the gambling debt.

Unfortunately, you've trauma-bonded to a figment of this man's imagination. That person doesn't even exist. You should do yourself a favour and block him. You'll kick yourself later on if you waste any more of your time on this shameless liar. Next time, don't let someone string you along for years without meeting some of the other people in his life, seeing where he lives, etc.

I would probably do a Clare's law on him op

You could potentially run this by 101, just in case he has any proclivity at all to become a threat to you once you cut ties

I'm so sorry this happened to you, lock down all your finances because if he's an addict (gambling) he will see only his addiction and use whoever or whatever he can to fulfill his addiction.

I'm really sorry op, I was lied to over a period of years by my now ex and it's so bewildering and earth shattering.

So sorry OP.

What a hugely traumatic set of revelations. This is like the sort of thing you watch on Netflix - and I don't say this to make light of what you're going through; I say it because it's that batshit crazy, but I know full well that when you're entrenched in a situation, it can be very, very hard to comprehend just how mental a situation is. It's like, you know it's BAD, but it's also confusing because it's actually your life, and how can this be happening, and of course there's always the element of "but he's so great in so many ways too"!

You know there's only one way out of this, and it must end.

You will never trust him again (nor should you).
It's terrifying how some people are able to not just do the actual telling of these sorts of lies, but also do so, so shamelessly - this is not love from him to you.

This is what it is:

It's control. He's completely controlled how you see him - it's a fabricated reality; control isn't love. You need to go through a horrible process of not just grieving the loss of a relationship, but grieving the loss of a personality who never existed.

He "needs your support through this". What sort of bullshit is this! Does he not understand how his lies have blown apart your world? Or does he simply not care? Either one of these is a sickening representation of how out of touch with reality he is, and shows nothing but an astounding lack of empathy. It also reeks of one of the most damaging aspects of patriarchy: The woman must be a source of support and comfort for a man, even when it's at the expense of her own well-being.

He wants you to partake in the lying now! Utterly absurd.

You no longer owe him anything, but you owe yourself freedom from this awful fucking man.

Agree 100% with posters that suggest getting a good therapist. I'd also consider chatting to Women's Aid, they will give you really solid advice. You may have only been given a taste of the extent of his lies, given how easily he has lied, and seemingly without feeling shame or guilt.

As others have said this is a very dangerous man
Block him on everything and make sure you change your locks if there is even a chance of him having a key
There is no need to tell him or say a word to him just block him

Can't believe you didn't get suspicious when he refused to give you his address.

I’d get snooping because chances are he still has a wife and she really could do with a heads up.

Then I’d text him that if he ever comes near me again I’d call the police. Screenshot that then block him on everything. Get an sti check too as a matter of priority. And check no life insurance has been taken out on you or any kind of loan on your home etc…

Id also be inclined to share the story on social media and post him on one of those “are we dating the same man” facebook group thingies to warn as many people as I could.

This too. He’s told so many whoppers, why not one more?

Ghost the fucker

I bet his wife hasn’t died at all! Run as fast as you can away from this loser!

Please make sure you tell his wife. She needs to know.

A friend got caught out by a man like this and his loveless/sexless marriage (he actually claimed they had separated) was actually just a perfectly normal marriage with a very ‘healthy’ sex life…he was a lying cretin, spreading himself across two homes

Stay with him and you are DEMONSTRATING how you have no self respect and no boundaries as well as showing him he is the king of you and can do what he wants.

Sorry but he thinks you are worthless to treat you this way it’s so sad op. You deserve so much more.

Come on op. You never knew or been to his address - that alone should have rang alarm bells

Be wise and cut contact

He is dead to you. You block. You grieve the relationship you thought you had. You go to therapy. You tell friends who keep you accountable. But you get yourself WAY clear of his spider’s web and never go near it again.

Goodness me he makes the man I was seeing that I posted about this week look like Peter Perfect.

I’m so sorry. I was had by a con man, it’s a crazy story (that I had published). At the moment you are in the initial shock/discovery phase and I can promise you that there will be more to come on that front. The last 5 years of your life have been a lie and this will take a long time to recover from, mentally. Obviously you need to bin him off, pronto. You will never be able to believe a word he says. Block and please get therapy to help you recover from this, remember none of this is your fault, be kind to yourself. It’s easy to feel like an idiot when this is done to you, but I promise you he’s the only idiot here. I imagine at the moment you’re remembering more and more incidents/messages or whatever from the last 5 years that were more lies, this stage goes on for a while. You will get over this but the first step is to cut him off completely.

Has he taken / borrowed money from you? Does he have keys to your place? Check your bank cards and statements carefully. Contact the police if anything is amiss, I don't know if Claire's law covers financial abuse or just physical but would look into that too.

5 years and you didn't know?

F I V E Y E A R S ????

1,825 days !

Oh I hope you move on and fast.