Quarantine Dating For Almost A Year

This might be kind of a long story, but I guess I have a lot to say and don’t know who to open up to about this besides my therapist. I don’t really have friends available to talk to. I have been seeing this guy for almost a year. We pretty much started chatting with each other when the pandemic quarantine started in my area. We started off mostly texting for a month and finally had the courage to do a facetime date. We were both busy with work at the time. It’s been rough for both of us at the start of the quarantine. He was made to work from home and I’m in healthcare so I ended up putting longer hours. I think interacting with him has been some of the best choices I’ve ever made. We met for the first time in person during the summer. We’re most comfortable chatting through text and prefer deeper conversations in person. From hanging out with him I realized my primary love language might be quality time. We go on in person dates about once-twice a month and maybe facetime once a month. Dating during quarantine is a struggle for sure. I don’t have a long dating history honestly. I never had a serious relationship. For context I struggle with social anxiety and part of me feels like I wasted my early 20s being in a bubble. I didn’t start attempting to date until a year ago. I had one toxic relationship with someone in highschool where the guy was emotionally abusive. And I didn’t seek therapy until a few years ago. I finally felt strong enough to try dating again. I have been through a few bad dates... and then he comes along. I haven’t been seeing or talking to anyone else since I met him. I really want to ask him if he’d like to be exclusive. We briefly talked about it when he first kissed me which would be about mid october 😅. I told him a little about my past and he was very encouraging. He said, “we’ll take it slow if you’re not comfortable.” I really appreciated that he said that. I don’t think a guy had ever really said that to me before. After processing it for a while... clearly a long while. I’d like to ask him about our relationship. He does still seem interested in me because we still text everyday and we’ve actually been hanging out together in person a lot more frequently (once a week) thanks to the nicer weather in my area. He’s also the first person I ever spent Valentine’s Day with 😅 Did I wait too long to bring up a conversation about our relationship? Despite the evidence that he’s still interested I can’t help but worry about every bad possibility. My therapist has encouraged me to speak up to him as one of my goals or “homework”. I’m not sure. Just like every social interaction in my life I get so overwhelmed with doubt. Thank you for listening. I’ll stop here for now. I really do appreciate the 7cups community.