Dear Prudence,
I’m 23 and have been dating my boyfriend, “Matt,” who is also 23, for a little more than two years now. We went to college together, but I was somewhat local, and Matt’s family was from across the country. We don’t live together at the moment, but we live near enough that we are still able to have regular dates and sleepovers. Matt has met my family a few times, but I’d never met his parents. Matt and I recently visited—his parents live on the outskirts of a city that is somewhat of a tourist destination, so we went for dinner on the last night of the trip.
I know that Matt had a younger sister, “Marie,” who died when she was 17 in a car accident. We started dating a few months after she died. Matt has shown me a few pictures, and I thought she looked superficially like me, but just because we have similar skin tone, eye color, and wear glasses. At his parents’ house, there are family pictures everywhere, and I saw that Marie and I look very, very similar. Not just the physical features (though we have a lot of physical similarities, too. In the photos in their house, I could see more clearly that Marie’s skin tone, hair color, and many of her facial features look a lot like mine), but also the mannerisms. The way she’s acting in those photos reminded me a lot of myself.
It’s not that we are identical, and anyone could easily tell us apart, sitting next to each other. But I’m starting to feel really strange about it all, especially since it feels like the photos Matt showed me were deliberately poorly lit ones, and when I tried to bring up some of those similarities casually at dinner, Matt’s dad immediately tried to change the subject. I can’t help but get a pit in my stomach thinking about it all, but Matt hasn’t ever talked about his sister in a strange way. I am confused and could use guidance.
—Confused and Concerned