A woman who discovered she had inadvertently married her own cousin said the revelation made her ‘sick to her stomach’.
Celina Quinones, 37 and her husband Joseph, 44, from Colorado in the US, met at a Halloween party and immediately hit it off.
They agreed to go on a date and ‘were inseparable after that’, according to Celina.
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Within months of meeting, the pair got hitched and went on to have three children together.
However, 10 years into their marriage they made the bombshell discovery that they were actually related.
Celina told Truly the couple had no idea they were relatives and only found out after she began to do some research into their heritage and ancestry.
Recalling the moment she made the life-changing discovery, she said: "We decided to do our DNA test and that's when we found out. I was a little sick to my stomach. In my head, I thought we were supposed to get divorced."
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Their shared ancestry results showed that they have a match of 62 cM, or centimorgan - a unit for measuring genetic linkage - this basically means that the pair both had the same ancestor eight generations back.
Despite having the truth in black and white, Joseph was initially in ‘complete denial’.
"The DNA test has confirmed that we are third to fifth cousins," Celina explained.
After considering divorcing, Celina said she began to consider what that would do to their three-kids and eventually they agreed to carry on with their marriage.
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She explained: "I started more thinking to myself like 'Hey for our children, for our household we need to keep it together and stay together.'
"It was a pivotal moment for us because you're not supposed to look at your cousin or be with your cousin and I didn't mean it but it happened that way."
Joseph added: "We've gone this far and it's til death do us part in my books so I wasn't gonna leave over something like that"
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The couple decided to share their story on TikTok were flooded with nasty comments from trolls who branded their marriage ‘sick’.
But they’ve remained stronger than ever, with Joseph saying: "To the people who were giving us negative comments, it's easy to speak on the outside without knowing the whole inside story.
"We found out almost 11 years later, three kids later... It's just not something you break up and walk away from.”
The pair are set to celebrate their 17th wedding anniversary next month and say their kids have accepted the unconventional set-up.
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@realestatemommazTopics: Sex and Relationships, TikTok