I am unable to forgive myself and move on.

Hi Everyone,

I am struggling to forgive myself and move on.
I had a topic posted in May 2023 here "I lied to a girl online and I am very guilty about it."https://www.psychforums.com/remorse/topic222244.html and I am still struggling with all of it.

I feel extreme remorse for everything I did, all the lies I told the girl. I never wanted to harm her or fool her or play her. It just all snowballed, and now I miss her every day and I am unable to talk to anyone and even if someone is kind to me even after knowing my story, I feel I do not deserve it.
I just feel super lost. I just want to disappear sometimes. I hope I could forgive myself but I am not sure how. Its been really hard to move on.

I've been there. I wish I had the answer, but I don't. I think we have the hardest time forgiving ourselves, because we hold ourself up to the highest standards. I think it's the sign of a good character and integrity. However, forgiveness and compassion are also signs of good character, including towards ourselves.

Hang in there, I know you have the strength to get through this.

I'm so sorry you're still struggling with this. It's hard to let go of your own mistakes. For what it's worth, I forgive you. Maybe you'll find some healing in doing something good - volunteering somewhere?

It sounds like you know that the problem here now isn't that you lied to her, it's your inability to let it go. It's good to have remorse about doing bad things, but there comes a point where it's not doing any good anymore. It becomes a self-indulgent kind of punishment that you're inflicting on yourself.
I think it might help to change your mindset that what happened is no longer the issue, the issue now is one of not being able to move on. Maybe it's not that you can't forgive yourself, but that you are experiencing an OCD fixation? I would suggest doing some reading on Pure-O type OCD and devising a strategy for steps you're going to take to move on from this.

All the best!

I read your other post. Personally, I don't see anything particularly blameworthy that you've done that requires remorse or forgiveness.

People can be hesitant to reveal true/accurate information online, especially with so many scammers around, and you can never be sure who you're talking to or whether the person you're chatting to is really what they say they are. So, lying about details in the first few days of meeting this person is not so unusual, especially if they were pressing you for information and you felt you had to respond. Perhaps in those early days, it was not so much about this girl, but the fact that telling a stranger that your mother was alive, gave your imagination the freedom to imagine that this was true which brought you comfort. Lots of people use their time online to escape reality.

After that, you developed a friendship which reached a stage where you exchanged phone numbers. This complicated things because your "online" life merged with your real life. You obviously felt that you could not come clean at that stage because perhaps you were scared that the girl would cut off contact and stop speaking to you. You carried on with the lies you'd previously told, but you wanted to come clean about the fact that your mother was not in your life, so when your aunt died, you told her it was your mother who'd passed away. You're thinking about this as though you couldn't stop lying, but in fact, you were trying to come clean in a way that did not risk jeopardising your friendship with this girl. You were right to fear this outcome because, in the end, she did cut you off. So there's nothing to feel guilty about.

As for your "relationship" with this girl, it seems one-sided. For you, it gave you routine and you formed a habit with the daily messages over 3 years. Normally, I wouldn't read too much into people not "Initiating" text messages - I only text if there's an important reason / need to communicate, and I don't personally enjoy pointless messages when there's nothing to say. However, you sent her birthday flowers, but she didn't consider reciprocating that gesture by asking you when your birthday was, so she clearly didn't share your feelings (IMO).

Also, after your confession, there were two ways this could go after the initial hurt of being lied to. One, if her friendship / emotional connection had been genuine and mutual, she may have overlooked these lies, assessed your friendship / relationship on its merits and forgiven you in time. Or, two, she could cut you off. I knew from reading the details you'd given that she was going to cut you off. Not because your lies were bad, but because this "relationship" was one-sided and she was probably looking for a good excuse to break off this friendship with you, without feeling guilty herself.

The bottom line is that you don't know this person. You had a relationship with an idealised version of her, in your head. I wonder if the real emotion you're feeling is actually grief for the loss of this "relationship"? But you're stuck in a loop of thinking that you caused the breakdown of the relationship with your lies, which probably isn't the case, but that's why you're thinking of this as an inability to forgive yourself rather than a need to grieve the end of relationship that you were invested in?

Firstly, I apologize to everyone who replied to me for not replying back sooner. I was in a very bad spot most of last year, and then had some issues going on with my father's health.. so been a pretty rough year.. I tried my best not to fall down deep into depression. I wouldn't say am 100% OK now, that would be lying, I can say, I am like 35% OK, and having some good days and then some bad ones. Hopefully, this year, I am planning to work more on myself.

@Blue Panda - Thank you so much for your kind words. I do want to think I have the "good person" inside me and I am trying to forgive myself slowly. And like I said earlier, I do have good days and then some bad ones. Hopefully, I will slowly get better, have more good days and find peace.

@Catnaps - Thank you so much for your kind words. Thank you for forgiving me. I did give me a little relief when you said that. I do understand that I am punishing myself, and also I have become so used to the routine, that I have become OCD i guess. I have been trying very hard to break the habit, I think I haven't texted her for about an year now, nor have any texts or pictures am holding on it. But, the thoughts do cross my mind when I am not busy. I am trying to work on those. I will definitely look into pure-O OCD details. Thank you very much for your suggestion.

@AnneOnymous - Thank you so much for your kind words and understanding and taking your time to explain things like seeing it all from my POV. Yes, like you mentioned, in the beginning, it just started as a silly online thing, (which i am not saying i should be lying, but I was scared and also I wanted a different world) and then she got close to my heart, and then I didn't want to lose her... and every day for the past 3 years, I wanted to tell her the truth, but was scared of losing her... and then tried to tell her the truth or as close to it as I could... donno ... it all feels wrong now.. but i donno... and no evil intentions ever.. trust me... but thank you for understanding my side of the story. In the beginning, she was very loving n caring and then it kind of became one-sided.. I guess, you are right, it was all in my head... I am trying to let go ... a little everyday, trying to better myself... career wise and health wise too.. Hope I will make more progress moving forward.

I am sorry for the late responses, I wasn't in a good shape for the most part of last year.

And thank you - all of you for being kind and understanding...!! God Bless you ...!!

@Me4love4me

Thank you for your lovely message.
Wishing you happiness and all the best in life.

Take care of yourself xxx

p.s. I can't send PMs so I hope you see this message.

Hi AnneOnymous,

Thank you so much for your wishes...!! I wish the same for you...!!
Pls take care of yourself... xx..

Hi me4loveme
I want to say I don’t come from the same exact situation. But I have a similar burden. I wrote out a drawn out letter of how guilty I feel for telling a few lies to someone, and how I want to tell the truth and hope they will forgive me or atleast not try to punish me so harshly. But I actually didn't send it out yet. I will do so before the year ends. Though many people that I told to online about what I did, ironically say what I did wasn’t a big deal. But anyways, I’m very sorry to hear that you found yourself in that situation and you are struggling to forgive yourself and move on. I don’t have much advice. But I hope therapy will somehow help. If you need someone to connect with here, I’m here from time to time. And of course other users here have offered great insight as well.