Am I ignoring some major red flags...or is this normal

I met a very nice man online the last week of Aug 2014. Upon further discussion with him that night, he told me he lost his wife of less than a year to breast cancer TWO MONTHS ago (keep that in mind) and that he wasn't really looking for a relationship but just someone to talk to...I guess just to meet new people. I told him I respected what he was looking for and I was here to be a friend whenever he needed to talk. We talked/texted non stop for the next few days and it was obvious it would be difficult to keep things between us just as friends. I expressed this to him as he did to me as well. He made sure I knew that even though he liked me that he wasn't ready for a commitment and I completely understood that and promised to be patient with him. My curiosity got the best of me one afternoon and I looked online for his late wife's obit and discovered she had actually passed not even 2 weeks prior to us meeting on the dating website. I confronted him about this and asked why he lied and his response was he felt guilty as it was for meeting someone and didn't wanna seem like a douchebag for meeting someone so quick and he felt it would give me the wrong impression about his intentions with me. We worked through that and from that moment we began to share very sweet and intimate things with eachother. He new I was a safe place and he could cry on my shoulder on his bad days when he was missing his late wife. We talked about her, her illness, their relationship/marriage, looked at pictures of them two together. At this point, I really felt a strong connection to this man and began getting excited of what could potentially become of it (of course though, after quite sometime when he was ready to commit.) One afternoon about 4 wks after we started talking, he left the room to go outside to his truck and get his phone charger. His phone laid next to me on my bed and I opened it and saw a "goodnight babe" text he had sent the night before in response to this woman's picture she had sent him of herself laying in her bed. Should I have looked at his phone, no. But I really trusted this man so much so that I really wanted to see for myself that he's the "good boy" I think he is and that there's not another woman he's talking to but me. I confronted him about this when he came back inside. He didn't deny it. Actually he became very embarrassed. I didn't get angry, I only expressed how shocked I was because this was the last thing I expected from him after the picture he's painted over the last several weeks. His reasoning for talking/texting this other woman (whom he also met online just before us finding eachother) was because he needed an "outlet" when he felt like things were getting too serious. He felt like his feelings for me were becoming too real at times and she was his go to chick to make him feel like he wasn't in this semi-committed relationship or whatever it was that we were in. My heart shattered and I cried. He looked me dead straight in the eyes and just stared. When I asked him what he was looking at, he told me he's remembering this face of mine because he never wants to see this expression of hurt come across my face ever again. We got through that and he promised he stopped cold turkey talking to this woman...and also swore up and down he never met her in person and it was strictly phone conversations. Things really haven't been the same since this day about 2 1/2 months ago. We argue a lot over the smallest details and it's stresses him out so much so that he begins to pull away. In the past 4 months I think we've called it quits and gotten back together 3-4 times. This last time though is different from any other time before. He still contacts me but it's only after I've contacted him first. And I can't remember the last time I've heard his voice over the phone bc he won't go there with me right now. Needless to say, it's been 2 weeks since I've seen him too. He says he really misses me but maybe that this is just for the best right now because the stress and pressure out relationship is putting on him is too much emotionally for him to handle. He has yet to really even discuss with me what's really going on between us...he won't talk about it. Anytime I try to discuss it, I get very vague 3-4 word responses or he's busy and can't talk about this right now. I've begged him to please come see me so we can talk face to face, but as I just mentioned...something has always "come up" for nearly 2 weeks now. I really want to continue to pursue a relationship with him because he's everything I want/need from a man and as a father figure to my child. But I fear he might be done for good this time and the only reason he still talks as little as he does right now is because he doesn't wanna come off as a complete asshole. Then there's my fear that maybe there's another woman in the picture? I know that all my concerns are legit and for good reasons. But what I don't know is are these signs I'm seeing from him an obvious "get the hell outta there girl" kinda signs or are there exceptions to the rules when dating a widower?