Words mean nothing. I can't stress this enough. Essentially what's happened is he's said things that tom has basically outlines to him, almost directly on occasion, are what he should say.
I almost spat out my tea laughing at him offering to show her his phone now. Oh wow! What openness and generosity of spirit! It's like a child handing a parent a school report clearly written in the child's handwriting. Bloody hell.
Okay, here's my take. From having been on both sides of this is the past.
He was shocked Tom kicked him out. He has a serious ego issue and is narcissistic and pumped up on being loved from all directions. He contacted the OW and they resumed an affair that has probably been ongoing off and on throughout the whole time. I suspect she has recently made it clear she doesn't see a real future for them (she may be smart enough to have noticed how he's behaved and his emotional hedging, NEVER a good sign). L:eft in a position of Tom or nothing, of course this man is going to go for Tom, he can't bear to not be loved, and of course a part of him is going to realise that he does have issues, he's not a psychopath. But being momentarily humbled and afraid is not the same as dealing with a whole personality issue, it's not the same as apologising and taking full responsibility for what has happened by RISKING something by being honest with Tom and starting from a place of broken contrition.
I am tempted to talk about things from Tom's point of view, to say, if I were going to take him seriously in ANY WAY he would have to blah blah blah but I think that's a misreading of how to look at it and puts too much pressure on the betrayed who can never know the full truth right now.
Here's what, from HIS point of view should be happening. He should admit to Tom the full story of why he didn't show her his phone. He should even show her correspondence (if she wants) between him and the OW so she can get the full picture. He will have this. All lovers do. He will have forwarded it to some anonymous, secret email address or something, for keeping. He should break that whole thing open to her so she can see his compartmentalised worlds, not just for her, but for HIM, so he can finally exhale and say, look this is who I am, this is who I've been all round, this is the problem we're dealing with, can you possibly think about watching me deal with it as I fight to be better for you?
All this fucking managing, this saying the right thing, this offering a newly deleted phone it's such pointless shallow BOLLOCKS. It's such WORDS. It doesn't challenge the centre of the thing, the risk, the awfulness, what's really hard. He needs to admit and admit properly. Not manage his admittance like showing someone a fucking phone he's already managed the truth of. Sigh.
I dunno, tom. I say this isn't your decision to make. Get on with your life, detach, be strong and beautiful and wild. You know who you are. This man really doesn't want to look at who he is yet.