Is my coparent lying to me about Marketplace? [OH]

I'll try to keep this concise and coherent! Thank you so much in advance.

My children's dad lost employer health insurance on August 31st via job loss. He was offered a new job at that time, but declined the offered employer insurance, and emailed me to tell me that he was planning to utilize Marketplace.

In early-November, he emailed me and told me again of his plan to utilize Marketplace—as in, it hadn't happened yet. At this point, I realized that he was outside of the 60-day window for using a SEP and advised him that he would likely need to re-do the application and cite the open enrollment period for eligibility instead. As far as I understand it, the application won't automatically convert to the correct eligibility opportunity for you.

Without getting too deeply into emotional stuff that doesn't belong in this subreddit, he is someone who is more prone to hide his mistakes than face them, and also has a casual relationship with the truth. Some of the things he started telling me didn't make any sense to me; I have used Marketplace for years. Does the following seem true?:

He told me that he'd applied but had not "heard back." One thing he said was "I had no idea the marketplace would move so slowly." It's now December and he's saying he's still waiting to "hear anything about" his application, be allowed to choose a plan, or even find out when a policy might go into effect. Every time I've gotten Marketplace insurance, I've selected my plan immediately; while the policy didn't go into effect until the 1st of the next month, it was clear that I had obtained it and there was no waiting to hear back from anyone. I was able to submit various types of proof at a later date. However, I know things are always changing and I want to give the benefit of the doubt that maybe HHS is in chaos and applications are in fact taking a long time.

Thanks so much for any feedback.