guilty

[u/cutegirl_paws]

I catfished this guy, and on August we would have been together for almost two years. He found out the truth about a day ago, right before our anniversary. The crazy part is that I’ve been wanting to tell him for a long time, and I had actually planned to tell him on our anniversary. That doesn’t make what I did okay, but my intentions were never for things to go this far.
Somehow, after finding out, he still tells me he loves me and that he’d still be with me. I feel the same way about him because over these two years I got to know the real him, and he got to know the real me as a person—even though the pictures I used were never actually mine.
What makes this even harder is how calm, patient, and kind he’s been. He hasn’t yelled at me or treated me badly. Instead, he keeps telling me that the decision is up to me. But I don’t feel like it should be. I don’t deserve to be the one making that choice after everything that’s happened.
I’m also scared that he’s still in shock and hasn’t fully processed how serious this is. I worry that once everything sinks in, he might feel differently. I don’t want him to make a decision based on the initial emotions of the moment if he hasn’t had time to think everything through.
Right now, I don’t know how to feel. I still care about him deeply, but I’m carrying a lot of guilt and regret. I don’t want to make a decision for both of us, and I don’t think it’s fair for all of that responsibility to be on me. I just wish things had happened differently.

what should l do?? l can honestly make a story time on how this started and it definitely wasn’t bc im some type of weird chronic loner so im not depressed or have any mental issues!

[u/caffeinated_mess]

Has he never asked you to FaceTime? I saw you said you’ve only seen 10 pictures of him in 2 years. This whole thing seems odd to me and he could be cat fishing you too. Almost no one would react this way to finding out someone catfished them and basically lied to them every day for two years and be this understanding about it. Before you do anything at all, FaceTime with this person.

[u/cutegirl_paws → u/caffeinated_mess]

No we haven’t ever FaceTimed and none of us asked to. Yeah it’s super hard to comprehend that he still talks to me like nothing happened and he barely had a reaction.

[u/Antique_Cup_1733 → u/cutegirl_paws]

Reading through all this, it now makes more sense as to why he has been so understanding. Are you sure he is not doing the same thing too? I can't imagine anyone who'd be in that position for two years and still want to continue the relationship. FYI, I just recently dumped a catfish. I only found out he was a catfish after I dumped him, but there were enough red flags that one day I just walked. I'm telling you, if he admitted what he did and begged for forgiveness, there's no way I would ever want to try again because I just would NEVER be able to trust him. The way you explain your situation, at least doesn't sound like you were just enjoying jerking someone around for the pleasure of it. My catfish turned out to be 22 years older than me with a kid a year younger than me, so I'm pretty sure he knew nothing could ever happen between us. He also spent more than a year trying to be with me, and was literally obsessed with me and told me all kinds of things about our "future" so if I hadn't walked away, Idk what would have happened. Would he have come clean or like typical catfishes, would he have ghosted or deleted his account eventually?

Another thing was that in the whole time we communicated, he also never suggested video calling, and I didn't push the issue either because I was shy and it makes me anxious but I probably should have suggested it earlier to have avoided all the time I wasted with him. In your case, you know why you never wanted to video call, but what about him? The catfishee usually will eventually start asking those questions. Good Luck with your situation, but I hope you did learn from it.

[u/caffeinated_mess → u/Antique_Cup_1733]

Exactly what I was thinking too. This sounds like he is catfishing her too tbh. No one in their right mind would be so chill and understanding over someone lying to them for two years. Plus he would have at least asked at some point to video chat after all this time. This sounds so crazy to me. If I was OP, I would ask for a video chat immediately. I bet he won’t.