Couple with three kids discover they're cousins after 10 years of marriage
After spending years together, you'd reckon that a couple would know all there is to know about each other.
You would know how your other half takes their cup of tea, their favourite film and what side of the bed they prefer to sleep on at the very least, right?
And you'd certainly have established that you're definitely not related before starting a family together, wouldn't you?
Well, not this couple from Colorado, US.
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Somehow, Celina and Joseph Quinones spent the best part of two decades in a relationship before finding out just how similar they were - right down to their DNA.
Take a look at this:
The pair had been together for 17 years - happily married for ten - and had welcomed three children into the fold when they made the shock discovery.
Celina had decided to dig into the details of her family tree in 2016 by sending off her DNA to see what her ancestry looked like - but now probably wishes she never bothered.
That's because instead of finding a distant cousin in another state, she discovered that she had a relative much closer to home who was actually sleeping beside her in their marital bed.
The mum was left mortified when she found out that her husband was in fact her 'cousband'.
Although she now reckons it's a 'good ice breaker', the news obviously came as quite a shock to Celina and Joseph.
Describing the moment she found out as 'devastating', Celina said the fact she was blood related to her spouse 'really freaked her out' - but now, she 'wouldn't change it for the world'.
"Cousband and wife for life! There is a reason why good couples look alike," she joked. "I am just over here raising awareness."
The mother-of-three decided to share the information in a video on TikTok in March last year, which subsequently went viral, alongside a screenshot of their shared ancestry results.
The document showed that she and Joseph have a match of 62 cM, or centimorgan - a unit for measuring genetic linkage - which basically means that the pair both had the same ancestor eight generations back.
Celina explained in the clip: "Married my husband in 2006. Not thinking anything of it, we had three kids. Come to find out we were related and cousins.
"My kids and my husband are my everything and we looked past it. All our kids have 10 fingers and 10 toes. It's a good ice breaker lol. No, we didn't know till we did a DNA test.
"This was three kids in that I found out we were related. I did my DNA test I think in 2016 and yeah it was devastating because I was like, ‘Babe we're related, are we even supposed to be together? This is weird’."
Despite the strange discovery, Celina said she and Joseph are more loved up than ever, adding: "I ain't gonna let a little bit of blood destroy what we created, this beautiful family."
Celina also isn't interested in hearing the opinions of social media users, as seen by her sarcastic responses to trolls on her TikTok posts.
She responded to one commenter: "Let me divorce him because we didn't know. Let me just tell our kids their parents are not together anymore because of other people's opinions.
"No thank you, we will just be staying cousins, spouses and lovers forever. Now go throw up in your mouth some more."
The last piece of advice she left people with was 'do a DNA test if you don't want to marry your cousin on accident', while pointing out that Colorado isn't that big of a place - so other couples might be secretly related too.
I think we're going to have to get Dr Phil out of retirement if the whole state starts sending off ancestry tests.
Topics: Parenting, Sex and Relationships, TikTok, US News
Olivia Burke