i have to convince myself

I was on a similar situation a couple of years ago (which didn’t end in a good way for me) so this might be a bit biased so take it with a grain of salt. So, you have a chronic illness and you can’t talk about it, complain about it, do anything about it besides enduring it and continue to provide for your girlfriend, who in turn, vents without any problem about how selfish you are for being affected by… yeah, a chronic illness. To top it off you are convincing yourself that you have to suck it all in and just roll with it, so you won’t lose them.

That’s all fine, but it’s not really fair for you. They call it a chronic illness for a reason, it’s not like a flu that you can just dismiss. I’m pretty sure you love your gf and her son, but i’d say the only healthy thing to do would be to make meet ends. You could try a little harder and complain a bit less, but your gf should try being a bit more sensitive about it when you do. Otherwise you might end up just resenting them and that’s the last thing you want.

Usually people have no idea how a chronic illness really is until they do have it, so yeah… try to get to a healthy agreement, i guess that’s the best for both parts.