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

Don’t make it her fault. These men are very skilled in deception. Thousands of women get caught out by men like him. He isn’t that rare. He’s plausible because when he lies, he believes it, so there’s no ‘guilty look’ tell. The truth is what he wants it to be in that moment, and it can be the exact opposite the next day, but it will still be the truth to him. A god in his own universe, everyone is supposed to just fall into place.
They have no empathy. Everything is about them. Their wants are paramount.

My husband of 20 years met my father 10 years after we married and my mother 3 years after we married. My in laws never met my parents. I wasn’t a dud. I just wasn’t interested in my parents

Also try and cast your mind back to MAY was he acting different when his wife passed away ?
This is such a strange situation
A man that does this to his wife and kids is not a good man .
If I was you I would cut contact block him on everything request a Claire's law and maybe even tell the police your new found revelations .
Because then there is a record of him just in case he starts hassling you .
It's going to hurt really bad your going to feel angry shocked betrayed allsorts of emotions but you can do it !!
Stay strong and get him out of you life big hugs 🤗 🌺 🤗 🌺

For five years you didn’t know where he lived? This is crazy!

You clearly block and move on.

Please be careful when leaving him. It can be a dangerous time.

I don't understand why your natural reaction wasn't to tell him to unhide the name?

I'm really confused. What would be the point of hiding her name but showing you the date on the death certificate? Are you saying she's not really dead or she is dead? If she is dead then are you saying he's been married and living with her all this time and wants to bring you, his other woman, out of the shadows a few months after he death and introduce you as his 'new' girlfriend?

If that's his plan then why would be try to hide her name from you? None of this is making much sense. Least of all that you've been with this man for 5 years and have accepted so much of what he's told you on trust without insisting on seeing more of his actual real life. Surely curiosity / suspicion would have got the better of you long before now?

What has happened to make this all come out now?

Hes a bad person. Evil.

You must not see or speak to him again

I'm also confused about threatening him with the police until he spilled the beans.

Can someone really go to the police and say "I think my boyfriend is lying about being married"?

he has now said he was in a loveless sexless marriage where they agreed to do the best for the kids when young and live separate lives.

Ahhh, that old chestnut, you'd think that blokes would have thought of something more original than that tired old line by now, sorry this waster has conned you OP, run for the hills and don't look back.

I'm so sorry OP. 💐

This is so much more common than people realise.
A woman I know her husband died suddenly. They had been married for a decade and had DC and a business together.
It was only at the funeral she learned he had been married to another woman for far longer than their marriage and that her H had DC with this woman (they lived in the same small town) and that the only thing my acquaintance actually owned was the business they had together.
She lost everything other than that and luckily made that business work.
Her H that she adored was someone she never even knew.

These men are dangerous fantasists who are deeply unhappy with themselves and will say and do anything to live that fantasy and they don't care about who they take down in the process.

Please block him on every level and take good care of yourself. You don't know him 💐

So the mother of his children died 4 months ago and wants a new mother for his grieving children? Those poor kids. Do not meet them! They need years to get over their mum not weeks.

I bet my house she's not dead....

He met me on a dating app claiming he was single/divorced. He has kept me completely isolated from his home, parents, and workplace for 5 years. I never even had his physical address, and after he kept cancelling and postponing my meeting his parents these past few months - he’s finally admitted last week they have no idea I exist

I didn't need to read further than this. I have had friends in deep denial in a similar way, man not letting them come to their house, always available at 11pm when they are walking the dog, no contact with work. Normal people are proud of their partners, they meet the odd friend, or chat on the phone and say hi to their parents even if they don't meet them in person, or come meet them for lunch at their workplace. Did you not think it odd that he never invited you to his home, said hi to his parents or met any work colleagues, not once, in 5 years?

This is an awful situation, as clearly you had a bond and an affectionate loving relationship, but I'm amazed any alarm bells weren't sounding before that point, or perhaps they were and you ignored them or he explained them away.

This is slightly victim-blaming; I do think it's probably pretty sensible to check out who someone is, their genuine name, their workplace, google them, wonder why they are isolating you when you meet them, it's like relationship due diligence.

Just move on. And PLEASE don't let a relationship go on for years without meeting friends and family. I don't understand how you could think this was normal?

In this case, he told OP he was living with his parents.

@PurplepenguinZ please take some deep breaths, as tempting as it is to seek closure you will not recieve this from him and he will use this to reel you back in. Some men are like this unfortunately and will lie and cheat and it can turn nasty once they've been discovered which usually results in violence, theeats and agression.
Cry and feel all your emotions and then start detaching yourself. Write down your feelings if you need to, to get them out of your mind. At somepoint seek therapy if you can. If you can stay with a family member for a week or so that will be helpful. Contact any agency you think will be helpful you, I agree police you can do, if it's easier report online just so its recorded. You have a long healing journey ahead but you will get there, once the shock wears off, then you will be angry then very sad but you will definitely come out of it a lot better in the long run. Good luck.

I do feel for you in the situation you find yourself in but how on earth were you not suspicious after the first year of not going to his home or meeting his family(you said you had no physical address for him)

So he's going to introduce her to the kids and ask them to pretend she is? How the hell would that work?

Why is this a police matter? I mean, the OP could do Claire's Law, but is it a police matter to tell someone a pack of lies about living with their parents and having a wife and kids instead?

Unless he's harassing her, which would require her to make a firm 'do not contact me ever again' statement and him to breach that, it could go in that direction, but gullible women and lying men are unfortunately extremely common and he's not a 'con man' in the sense I'd think of it, which is lying for material gain.

He's a real person, just a shitty one.

As much as you crave it, and as much as you deserve it, you won't get the truth from this user. You don't need the truth to move on and have closure, the closure is you didn't sink more time on this utter liar. Please don't try and engage with him further, just tell him your piece and block, it won't be easy but you can move on, you're not old! You're better off without an abject loser like that who has strung you along, how could he look at you so bare faced while knowing you knew nothing true about him. He's a psycho.

I don't think you need to know any more "truth" and in any case you'll never really know what is true and what's not and by engaging with him, you are just give him an opportunity to try and talk you around. His wife dying is the ultimate sympathy opportunity, isn't it?

I would block him and chalk it up to a rather sad and distressing experience and know to see the red flags next time and not ignore them.

It's very distressing, but just look after yourself and take it day by day but don't engage with him anymore.

And financial and emotional abuse. Op has not yet confirmed if she bankrolled him in any way. Having debts from gambling would screw his credit rating so he might have needed help with phone contract, unsecured loans, credit card…