I [m30] am staying with my girlfriend [f33] because her son [M14] reminds me of my dead brother.

Some background...

When I was 16 my 10 year old brother died in an accident. Despite the age gap we were very close and he was one of my best friends. We were both in to computer games, loved going out on our bikes together and I'd sneak him in to my room to watch South Park at night and we'd inevitably get caught when our parents would hear us laughing. A couple of years after he died I moved away from the town we grew up in to a city a few hours away and started a job I worked for nearly 10 years before moving back to my hometown in 2016 as I moved to a new company.

It was great to reconnect with old friends who still lived in the area and one night I was invited out to a party where I met my now girlfriend. It took some time for us to become serious and though she said she had a son I assumed he was around 4 or 5 the way she spoke about him and our ages so it was a bit of a shock to me when I finally meet him and this 12 year old kid greets me with "hey dingus". My little brother would say this whenever I walked in to a room and this kid is the spitting image of my bro too. I start laughing and although my girlfriend is pissed at him we actually get on really well. The first year of being together is great. Every day I look forward to seeing the pair of them after work. I play video games with the kid, make the same stupid jokes I used to make with my bro and I'm the happiest I've been probably since the accident. I even start to think that he's my brother reincarnated, he was born 2 days after my bro died and because he was taken so unjustly I think God gave him another go around.

Fast forward to present day and I'm no longer in love with my girlfriend. She isn't particularly interested in me or even herself and is happy floating along in life, not really doing anything, achieving anything or going anywhere. I suggested a holiday this summer just gone and she said it'd be too much effort, too much money and we might as well just take time off work and stay home and chill out. In the end I didn't take the time off because I'd rather be doing something than nothing.

I can't leave her though. She's recently started letting her son watch South Park and he absolutely loves it. It's funny the way he laughs at all the same jokes my brother did. We're 4 seasons in and I love rewatching them with someone who's never seen it before. I know if I leave her then it'll end the relationship I have with the kid and I don't know how I'll cope losing my brother again.

Tl;dr - I'm conflicted about leaving my gf because it'll mean losing my dead bro again.

Submitted October 13, 2019 at 12:06AM

Some background...When I was 16 my 10 year old brother died in an accident. Despite the age gap we were very close and he was one of my best friends. We were both in to computer games, loved going out on our bikes together and I'd sneak him in to my room to watch South Park at night and we'd inevitably get caught when our parents would hear us laughing. A couple of years after he died I moved away from the town we grew up in to a city a few hours away and started a job I worked for nearly 10 years before moving back to my hometown in 2016 as I moved to a new company.It was great to reconnect with old friends who still lived in the area and one night I was invited out to a party where I met my now girlfriend. It took some time for us to become serious and though she said she had a son I assumed he was around 4 or 5 the way she spoke about him and our ages so it was a bit of a shock to me when I finally meet him and this 12 year old kid greets me with "hey dingus". My little brother would say this whenever I walked in to a room and this kid is the spitting image of my bro too. I start laughing and although my girlfriend is pissed at him we actually get on really well. The first year of being together is great. Every day I look forward to seeing the pair of them after work. I play video games with the kid, make the same stupid jokes I used to make with my bro and I'm the happiest I've been probably since the accident. I even start to think that he's my brother reincarnated, he was born 2 days after my bro died and because he was taken so unjustly I think God gave him another go around.Fast forward to present day and I'm no longer in love with my girlfriend. She isn't particularly interested in me or even herself and is happy floating along in life, not really doing anything, achieving anything or going anywhere. I suggested a holiday this summer just gone and she said it'd be too much effort, too much money and we might as well just take time off work and stay home and chill out. In the end I didn't take the time off because I'd rather be doing something than nothing.I can't leave her though. She's recently started letting her son watch South Park and he absolutely loves it. It's funny the way he laughs at all the same jokes my brother did. We're 4 seasons in and I love rewatching them with someone who's never seen it before. I know if I leave her then it'll end the relationship I have with the kid and I don't know how I'll cope losing my brother again.Tl;dr - I'm conflicted about leaving my gf because it'll mean losing my dead bro again.