A Colorado mom has revealed that her partner of 18 years and father to her three children is actually her biological cousin.
She is now urging other couples to look into getting a DNA test before settling down.
Taking to social media to share her story, Celina Quinones reveals that she and her husband Joseph have been together for nearly two decades.
Celina revealed the news on TikTok (under the handle @realestatemommas), where she often shared videos and posts about her family's unique life. In one post, she captioned the video: "Married my husband in 2006. Not thinking anything of it we had three kids. Come to find out we were related and cousins."
Per the Daily Mail, Celina had been putting together a family tree to discover more about her lineage, when a DNA test suddenly revealed that she and Joseph were cousins.
"Seventeen years with my 'cous-band'," Celina states in one video (via an auto-voiceover). "No, we didn't know until we did a DNA test."
She continues: "We had a four-month courtship before we got married. He is still and will always be my everything. I ain't gonna let a little bit of blood destroy what we created; this beautiful family."
In another post, she recounts: "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," she then jokes.
Screenshots of Celina's video show that the husband and wife's ancestry results indicate that they are a match of 62 cM (or centimorgan a unit for measuring genetic linkage).
The mom replied in another post, explaining: "Colorado seems so big, but it’s really not that big. Everyone knows everyone, and most likely, everyone is related."
"We're probably fourth, maybe fifth cousins," she adds.
With Celina's posts quickly going viral, more and more people were taking to the comments section to share their thoughts on the situation. And it's safe to say that reactions were mixed.
"You couldn't torture this information out of me. We could have taken this to the grave," one person commented.
A second added: "Kudos to you for putting it out there."
"This is something you don't tell anyone," another TikTok user wrote.
But the dedicated wife snapped back at her critics calling for her to end her marriage, writing in one post: "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."
"This was three kids in that I found out we were related," she said in one post. "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'. It really freaked me out."
But at the end of the day, Celina is happy with the life she has made and the man she has chosen, saying: "I wouldn't change it for the world... Cousband and wife for life! There is a reason why good couples look alike. I am just over here raising awareness."
Celina is also encouraging people to learn more about her life in her book, The Dream Catcher’s Keeper, which is available now on Amazon.
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