My boyfriend got into this relationship out of pity.

Honestly, i dont know what to do anymore. Me (22F) and my boyfriend (22M) got into a relationship 6 months back. I had a crush on him for a while before he asked me out, and so i immediately said yes. We went on a few dates and were in the talking phase and honestly i liked him so much, i just wanted to spend every second of my day with him. Now, you can only go so far in the talking stage and things had gotten a bit awkward. I was scared we'll end up ghosting each other that i started trying to have deep conversations with him. One night while i was talking to him, he started telling me how his childhood has been pretty difficult and he finds it hard to open up to people. THAT IS LITERALLY ME. whatever he told me about his fears, all of it was so relatable.. so much so that i ended up telling him everything about my childhood and parents I am a person with toooo many traumas (deeply rooted) and I've hardly ever talked to anyone about them but when i opened up to him, i felt peaceful. Next day, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I didnt see this coming but was extremely happy and said yes almost immediately. Lots of time has passed since then, and yesterday we were talking and i asked him what he liked about me, or what he was attracted to in me when he approached me. His reply was pretty shocking-

He said that he came to know through a few of our mutual friends that I had a crush on him and that was solely the reason why he decided to give this relationship a chance. which is fine, but it hurts me to know that THIS was why he took interest and not for some exclusive quality of mine like looks personality or anything at all. then he went on to say that when we were talking and i told him about my traumas, he FELT SYMPATHY FOR ME. he felt bad for me, felt pity and decided to show me kindness. that was what he said. literally.. he proposed to me out of pity because my life has been pretty fucked up since forever. this bothered me so much so i immediately tried to leave. he stopped me and said that im misunderstanding what he said, its not like that. he may have initially gotten into the relationship out of pity, but now what he feels for me is true love..he keeps on telling me that he loves me a lot and would die if i got distant but this has been bothering me so much i dont know what to do. i need genuine advice on what to do.. its really humiliating to know that the foundation of this relationship was pity.

edit: guys, the crush thing is not what i consider pity 😭 its the fact that even though we had been in the talking stage for a long time, he had not proposed to me or asked me to be his girlfriend officially. he did this the next day after i opened up to him and he told me it was initially out of pity and his feelings have evolved over time, but it still hurts me to know that the only reason we started dating was because he felt sorry for me and wanted to show me kindness. is it really okay for the relationship to be based on pity?