I think you made the right choice, Parakeet. Good job on having your head work alongside your heart!

I disagree with the people telling you to meet this man. What happened to marriage being sacred? He has shown you that he is willing to lie when it is to his advantage and that he would rationalize dating other women if you were the estarnged wife! We cannot allow ourselves to be governed by emotions and ignore evidence of blatant character deficiencies because someone flatters us and says things we like to hear. I am disappointed that society is not more censorious about such conduct. Decades ago anyone who dated while legally wed to another was shunned by polite society. I always ask a man who claims to be divorced the date that the marriage was legally dissolved. If he becomes evasive or rationalizes anything, I run!

why didn't he just explain it that simply from the beginning? It's a trust issue now.

I would go out with him and decide from there. There are so many separated people out there and divorces are messy and complex. Then of course there's differentiating separated from legally separated (and those are two vastly different things).

My divorce took seven years due to custody issues. Now I could have ended it before then if the right person had come along, but it would have had a devastating impact on my relationship with my son. There's not enough room (or probable interest) to go into details here, but I knew I could finalize the divorce in less than two years at any time. There was no way I would have married someone new in less than that, so it wasn't a big worry for me.

My marriage counselor actually advised me to lie about my status, for the exact reasons cited above. I did so once, and then felt bad about it and came clean before things really got underway. the girl was furious with me and wanted nothing more to do with me. After that I was honest about my status with anyone who asked.

I can tell you though, that I refused to discuss the details of my ex and I with anyone for the first month or two. If they asked too many questions I would ask them why they were so interested in the most difficult and painful aspect of my life, and then asked if there was anything terrible that had happened to them that they would like to discuss for a while. Needless to say, a relationship ender. Also, I had one girlfriend who thought it was useful to remind me that I was still a married man whenever she became irritated with me. Another relationship ender. Legally separated for years is vastly different than a married man betraying his family.

So yeah, he lied to you (he knew exactly what you wanted to know) but not because he was up to something devious or ugly. He lied because he doubted you could get a reasonable understanding of the situation without getting to know him first. Also, I've got to say that someone pulling a security check on me at the beginning of a relationship would be a major red flag for me. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you might not want to let people know you've done so.