Ask his wife.

If she is ok with it, he's not cheating.

There really isn't any other way to know.

When the ex wife and me split up (she did, but didn't bother to file for divorce, so I had to) the first time I made a mistake in filing, so things didn't proceed, then did again. After all it took four years (yeah we could have expedited it, but we were on ok terms, so why bother)

In the end we were only divorced 4 years after we split up. Legally in my country there's a mandatory 1 year separation phase anyway.

The only sad thing, I met someone whom I was interested in in that time, and (she communicated right from the beginning) that was something of a "no go" for her.

I was quite sad about that, specifically it would have been quite easy to confirm I'm not cheating by having her talk to my ex wife for once.

The ex and me do have children, so we'll be meeting each other every now and then for the rest of our lives. I do know her new partner, she knows mine.

Talking to each other can give a lot of information in such cases. And OP would quickly find out if the guy is cheating by suggesting to all talk to each other for once. If he is blocking, I'd be careful, if he's in a similar situation than I was he'd be very happy about that idea.

No judgement, but unless you contact the wife, you're both cheaters.

For what it's worth, I went through the same situation from the other side. We separated, but remained married for several years because she would have been uninsured otherwise.

I was in another relationship for several years before I was actually divorced. Fortunately, my first wife had a job with insurance by the time I wanted to marry my current wife, so it all worked out. And there were never any secrets to keep.

You can't be certain about this guy without finding out more, but the situation does not necessarily mean he's cheating.

100%

Not sure about South Korea but I was technically married for 2 years after we separated. It was just a pain to go find a lawyer and figure out how to serve them in another state.

We weren't living together so it was easy I assume for my partners to confirm I lived alone when they came over...

Never, ever trust someone who tells you this. Insist on speaking to the wife first. This is the most classic lie to get some side action if you are already married.

In general, good. Very good.

Apparently, South Korea has a fault-based divorce system. TIL.

That's an important bit of context, and makes it somewhat more likely to be true. Either way, if he doesn't want you contacting his wife it stinks.

Can you spend a week-end at this place ? That's an easy way to test.

Divorce can take a lot of time close, but if they're still living with their hex, they're not just married on paper.

I was married already when I met my now wife. My first wife lived overseas and we hadn't been together for about 8 years.

Our two children lived with me, but we didn't have a separation or legal custody agreement. Doing all of that internationally, getting all the documents professionally translated, court dates, etc. was extremely challenging.

So we waited several years until both kids were legally adults and we just had to deal with the divorce (which itself took almost 3 years) before making things official.

That said, my case is much less typical than a guy just lying about his domestic circumstances.

Pretty likely he's just cheating.

Not necessarily, but likely.

To me it sounds like the marriage is over but not finalised legally yet.

Tell him you want to make sure his wife is ok with anything that happens

I had a friend who was married, but he didn't live with his wife. They had a son together, and she had a son from a prior marriage.

He stayed married to her, but they lived separately. He said it was so she could stay on his health insurance. He also gave her money for her rent.

For several years they lived in different states. He'd take two weeks off from work to visit her every year. He'd spend one week with her, then spend the second week recovering from visiting with her.

To my knowledge he never went on so much as a date with any other woman and he showed absolutely no interest in cheating on his wife or even divorcing her. His attitude seemed to be that one woman was more than enough.

Some states require separation before the actual divorce. Could be legit.

Unless the wife has confirmed it, I'd assume he's cheating... it's just such a classic cheater-story.

I'd tread carefully and request some elaboration from him on the situation because just based on what he said that could be all over the place, and I'm not too familiar with the culture and laws in South Korea so you're probably going to want to do some research on their divorce laws and how their culture views divorce.

This could be anything from he's cheating to to they're both living totally separate lives, have agreed their marriage is over and just haven't done the paperwork to make it official for any number of reasons.

Off the top of my head, in no particular order here's a couple plausible-sounding scenarios, and it's not meant to be an exhaustive list.

He could be straight-up cheating and lying through his teeth to you.

Maybe he's even hoping to be caught cheating because he wants to get divorced and his wife doesn't and he's trying to goad her into it because it's in some way advantageous for him if she's the one who files for it. Maybe it gives him some kind of legal leverage to not be the one filing for it, maybe he just wants to be able to spin it as being her fault so he can claim to their friends or family that he was willing to work on their marriage and she wasn't.

It could be that they're totally on the same page, have agreed to see other people, and are staying together on paper because there's tax incentives for married couples, or wonky inheritance laws at play and by staying "married" it's easier for them to make sure the other spouse can inherit their assets to help take care of their son if something happens to one of them.

Or maybe they just haven't had the time or money to money to do the paperwork and just don't feel like it's a pressing issue right now.

Maybe they don't want to saddle their son with dealing with the fallout of a potentially messy divorce until he's older, either due to legal/financial reasons, or because of some kind of social stigma.

Maybe he's not even in contact with his wife and they haven't seen or spoken to each other in years, and it's just a pain in the ass to track each other down so that papers can be served, or they just really don't want to have contact with each other and are avoiding it until there's a real need like if one of them wants to remarry (I've known a couple people in similar situations in the US)

Again, I'd say try to push him for more details, it can be a touchy subject for a lot of people and he may not want to air all of his and his wife's dirty laundry to someone he just met, and that's understandable, but you also should be allowed to understand what kind of situation you're getting yourself into. Find out if his wife is aware of it, confirm with her directly if possible. If he won't let you talk to her to confirm that could be a red flag that he's cheating, but it could also be that she's unstable and it's really better to not talk to her and risk her getting aggressive towards him, you, or their son, so tread carefully. Trust, but verify. There could be a whole novel squeezed in between the lines here that you need to be reading.

When a man says that, it is usually a lie with a purpose. Not just the cheating itself, but wanting to keep the gf with promises. Empty promises to be precise.

This is pretty typical cheater wording, I was fooled by it too when I was young.

If he can't get his own life in order he's not going to make the best fuck buddy either. Guys like that can be a vector for STDs, stay safe

Marriage can be complicated to get out of. Especially when there are kids involved, it can become a legal headache. It could very well be that he is telling the truth and is "only married on paper".

My sister is still married and dating, not cheating. I say if he's given you no reason to doubt him, you shouldn't.

1.0.

Do you have any mutual friends that might be able to corroborate?

sounds likes he weighing his options, and look for a backup in case his other relationship doesnt land.