Should I tell him the truth?

[Eviee]

Okay, recently I have been reading older posts on these forums, and I found some very similar stories that I never thought anyone else did, but me.

 

A long time ago, I took a girls picture and faked to be this person. I had a fake name and even faked my life, the only real thing about me was my personality.

 

At the time I was very young and I didn't think too far ahead about what could result from this, it was about having fun and also deep down, I wanted to be accepted and liked by people.

 

Eventually I met someone, a guy, and he was 19 years old. I was a lot younger so I lied about my age. We ended up talking a lot and decided to start dating. This went on for a year or more. I never in my wildest dreams thought that this would result in me falling deeply in love with this person or that it would become as serious as it had. Everyday I was in pain, I felt extreme guilt and thought that I couldn't tell this person that I loved dearly, who I really was.

 

Of course you think, well if you loved him you would of told him the truth, possibly. Maybe I wasn't in love, but it sure as hell felt like it. And believe me it hurt so badly that I just couldn't build up the courage to tell him. I was so afraid of losing him(which I realize was selfish thinking) and hurting him, I just couldn't do it.

 

As it became worse and worse and the closer I would get to telling the truth, I went to people for advice. They of course told me what a horrible and sick person I was, and told me if I told him he would surely hate me as I deserved it. This made it even worse so I still kept lying to him.

 

Finally one day I just told myself I couldn't do this to him anymore. I loved him so much and it hurt knowing he didn't love the real me. As much as it was going to hurt not to talk to him anymore, I decided to stop contacting him since I couldn't get the courage to tell him the truth and it was really leading down the road to no where anyway.

 

Well here I am, 24 years old, and married. I have been ashamed of this story, but started to grow out of it and now I have told a few friends and my husband what had happened.

 

He thinks that to clear my conscience, I should tell this guy the truth. Mind you it has been many years since I've talked to this person, and I've told my husband that I think it'd be selfish of me to bring the burden upon him just to make myself feel better.

 

I didn't really think this bothered me that much, but talking about it has made me realize I still feel guilty.

 

The only thing I would like to know is what would you do in this situation? Do you think it would be selfish of me to tell him after all this time what I had done just to clear my conscience?

 

From my view, it would just be to have one less regret on my shoulders. Ya of course I'd still regret lying to him, but that's one less thing I'd feel guilty about in my life that I can possibly change, telling him the truth.

 

And I see this comment around here a lot lately, but no I would not do this because I want to have a relationship with this person. I am married and it is actually my husband that put this thought into my head and woke me up to the guilt I still feel.

 

So anyway, seeing from my point of view, but ESPECIALLY his, what would you do?

[RedDress]

I think you should just let it go...

 

You aren't thinking about the guy, here. You are LONG out of his life. How will telling him what you did benefit him in ANY way? It will make him feel betrayed... it will make him feel stupid... it may give him trust issues in future relationships... and why?? Why do you want to do this to him???

 

You are thinking about yourself and your guilty conscience.

 

If you really, REALLY want to make amends... go volunteer some time at a food bank or something. Consider this act paying Karma back...

 

You have NO reason to tell him anything. It is YOUR cross to bear.

 

Sorry... but that's honestly what I think. Now go out there and do some good!!

[ForumGuy]

Everyone makes mistakes, even moreso when we are young. You might end up feeling worse once you tell him about it. Unless it is significantly interfering with your good health, I think you should let it go and chalk it up to youth, you are human.

[catfeeder]

You've already confessed this to the people who matter to you, what good would it do the guy?

 

I didn't grow into earning a conscience until I was around 30. It wasn't something I ever absorbed though osmosis or rote acceptance of anyone else's beliefs or value system, it's something I needed to carefully cultivate. One of the biggest issues for me to tackle was, because I'd sledgehammered my way through life without regard for who I crushed along the way, I really needed to grapple with the concepts of 'confession' and 'amends'.

 

It occurred to me that lots of people ignore the big issue of fairness when they decide that unloading all their past sins is cathartic and beneficial--to THEM. But whether digging up old wounds to correct old information or confess a betrayal is actually helpful for the injured party is debatable, and in most cases negligible. I decided to stop making everything about me, and I used discretion to avoid bludgeoning others with my new-found 'honesty.' In some cases, people hide behind a banner of truth to adopt a different form of attention-seeking. I'd question that carefully and factor it into your decision. Meanwhile, good job of raising this with people in your life today.

 

Head high.

[Batya33]

I thnk you just need to deal with the guilt and perhaps google him to see if you can see if he is now doing well in some way (career, marriage, generally happy, whatever)but leave him be. For all you know he might want some sort of revenge.

[savignon]

I disagree with some of the previous responses. I think it could be a gift to him as he's probably always wondered what he did wrong or why you stopped talking to him. We all carry around pain with us about previous relationships and he might be wondering about all his next relationships if that person is just going to drop him without cause or explanation. For him to know, even after all this time, that it had nothing to do with him may be something that frees up a part of him.

A friend of mine in HS dropped me one day for no reason I could think of. I spent weeks crying and trying to talk to her and it really left me sad for ages any time I thought about it because it just didn't make sense. Well, fast forward about 15 years and we get in touch on facebook and she explains what was going on in her life at the time and it felt really good to finally know what really happened even though in the grand scheme of things it probably didn't matter. In addition the fact that she still thought about it after all those years made me realize it wasn't just this easy thing for her like I had thought. She felt bad about it for years which validated for me that our friendship was important to her at one time. Of course I still look back on the whole experience as being very painful and wish she had just been honest at the time, but it was certainly healing to hear from her after all those years.

Just another perspective.

Good luck making your decision.