I lied to my boyfriend that I have a dead sister for attention

Hello guys, this is quite long so that’s the warning lol. A couple years back when I was 15 I was in a relationship with a guy, lets call him Max. We were young and stupid but he was incredibly emotionally abusive to me during the whole course of the relationship. I was having suicidal thoughts daily, I was incredibly depressed and had 0 self esteem. Despite all this being blatantly obvious, he still never cared for him. One night during a heated argument about me smiling at some guy or something I said something that to this day haunts me. Craving the slightest bit of attention and care, I made up a lie saying that I had a sister who passed years ago. I know how terrible it sounds please believe me and I hate myself for it to this day because it’s a terrible and disgusting thing to lie about, I just really need you guys to understand how mentally unstable I was at the time. He obviously believed it and was nice to me for 3 days before his old personality came back. In retrospect, of course something like that didn’t work. I was a stupid, hurt, and desperate 15 year old and if I could go back and stop myself I would. Later on, I broke up with him because being with him and his abuse was really driving me to suicide. Years later, we bump into each other and start talking about us and our past. To cut a long story short, we’ve been together for 2 fantastic years now. I went to therapy and am now generally confident and mentally stable, and he is an unrecognisable person. I really do see spending the rest of my life with this man. However, my past is creeping up on me. He remembered what I said about “my sister” and has questions about her (naturally), and without thinking & due to embarrassment I gave her a name and backstory. For 2 years I’ve never had the courage to come clean about that moronic lie. Now I don’t know what to do. How the hell am I meant to spend the rest of my life with the love of my life when he thinks somewhere in the world I have a sister buried there. I know it’s either come clean or end it. I just don’t know how to come clean, I don’t know if he’ll understand because even typing this I can hear how horrible it sounds, ESPECIALLY with the fact that it’s been going on for 2 years now. I’m do scared that jf I tell him I’ll lose him and it’s my worst nightmare. Please help me. I’m so stuck and hate my past self for doing this. It meeps me up day and night. What do I say, how do I say it?

Hi Catlover27, I can understand and see why you said lied because you wanted him to be nice and caring towards to you and you really wanted to see another side to him so you could like or love him(?) you were 15, you were young, you knew it was wrong to lie but when your under that amount of stress and craving attention you do make things up. Sometimes people copy the toxic persons behaviour. Toxic relationships really do damage people’s self esteem and confidence and make people really feel worthless. Maybe he had problems going on in his life at the tome but that was no reason to take it out on you I think if you don’t tell him the truth now it will only come back later and bite you. It is hard because it was to do with his behaviour and how he used to treat. I would write it down, take your time writing it. His reaction towards you and how he deals with the situation will show you how much he has changed. I think even when you do write it, it will take the weight off your shoulders. Keep Updating if you want :-)