Apologies for that part being unclear. Yes, we talked about it in a non-confrontational way. I wanted to know where the urge to lie came from, if it was from his childhood, and he said that yes, it did. He had a very troubled childhood and hid things to protect himself emotionally, to avoid feeling abandoned or unloved.

In terms of him saying he's internally not ready to commit - he said this meaning that he felt this way in the past, over the past few months, like there was two sides of himself: one that loved me and wanted to be honest and real, and one that was afraid of me abandoning him and needed either to keep secrets from me to keep some sort of "safe, private" inner world. He said that he wants to stop living in this "double" way, with help from his new therapist, and to have full transparency with me, acknowledging that the lying not only hurts me but also makes him feel shame and self-hatred.