She Just Found Out She Unknowingly Married Her Cousin After Uncovering A Big Secret From Her Family’s Past

This 26-year-old woman is in love with her husband, who is 28. But, she just found out possibly the most shocking news ever– her husband is actually her cousin.
How she came to marry a family member is an extremely wild story, too.
She grew up in a tiny, “semi-reclusive” area close to the Appalachian mountains. And her community did not welcome a ton of newcomers. At the same time, individuals who left did not tend to go back.
“It’s a pretty traditional town. Women tend to marry young and stay as housewives. However, it’s still pretty affluent– especially if you’re higher ranked in the church,” she explained.
“The church leaders are made up of the descendants of the original families. Apparently, it can be traced back to a village in Eastern Europe. I grew up like this and didn’t realize how strange it all was.”
But unlike other women in her community, she grew up always wanting to become an architect. She loved building bridges and constructing houses using sand and twigs.
So, from a young age, she knew that architecture was her calling– before she even knew what the profession was called.
Her family was not happy with her career aspirations, though. And since her parents were a part of the church board, they refused to pay for her architectural studies. Instead, they told her she could only enroll in a community college nearby.
These obstacles did not stop her, and she just worked extra hard to earn the best grades in school possible.

ID 34932705- © Julia Pfeifer – Dreamstime.com
Then, she applied for various scholarships and was ultimately able to land a full ride to a state school that was a couple of hours away.
She opted to wait to tell her parents that she was going and only broke the news one week before she was supposed to leave for college. It was then that utter chaos ensued.
“My family begged me to stay and even had me meet the top church leader. I humored them but told them I would still leave,” she recalled.
“When I met with him, I was extremely scared, but I knew what I wanted. When he realized I was not budging, he had me sign an NDA that I wouldn’t speak about the church to anyone outside of the area.”
Afterward, she finally got out of the community and went to college. It was also there that she wound up meeting her husband, Antonio, who is multiracial.
She met Antonio while she was a junior, and he was a graduate student. They quickly hit it off, fell in love, and even adopted a poodle mix named Sunshine together.
She also learned that his mother had passed away when he was just a young boy, and his father moved back to the Philippines one year before they met.
Anyway, after they began dating, she did not introduce Antonio to her family because she knew they would not accept him on the basis that Antonio was not from their community.
However, she did not consider how her family would react to the fact that Antonio was multiracial.
“I know it was very ignorant of me not to consider how they’d react to his race. I had a lot of educating during college, and I know it’s my responsibility to continue learning, and it’s not my husband’s job,” she noted.
Still, once Antonio proposed to her, she did introduce him to her family. And in the beginning, they were quite cold to him.
Her parents did eventually start asking Antonio about his family, though, which she initially took as a good sign.
But, after her then-fiancé pulled out a photo of his parents, all of the color drained from her mother’s face.
Out of nowhere, her family made up an excuse and asked her and Antonio to leave. Then, her parents started begging her not to marry Antonio.
However, she refused to listen to them and tied the knot with him anyway. Afterward, her family “begrudgingly” accepted their union, and she kept in contact with her parents.
But, more recently, her husband went to visit his father in the Philippines. That’s why she decided to stay with her family while Antonio was away since she works from home anyway and was recovering from a leg injury.
While at her parent’s house, she also decided to look through some baby photos– because, apparently, she and Antonio planned to start trying for a baby once he returned to the country.
As she was looking through the attic, though, she stumbled upon some shocking photos of her mother.
“And my heart dropped. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was holding a picture of my mother and my husband’s mother hugging and posing in front of our house,” she revealed.
At that point, she decided to keep searching, and she found photos of her mother and Antonio’s mother together when they were as young as 5-years-old.
She then confronted her mother about the pictures, and the truth finally came out.
Her mom and Antonio’s mother were sisters. But Antonio’s mother was disowned at 19, met Antonio’s father on vacation, and gave birth to her husband.
“They told me they didn’t approve because of his [Antonio’s father’s] race, and in order to let them leave, they both had to sign an NDA,” she retold.
As you can imagine, this news was like a punch to the gut. She was beyond shocked and yelled at her parents for never informing her that she was marrying her cousin.
But her mother just begged for forgiveness and claimed she could not say anything due to the NDA.
Since then, she has returned home and brought with her a trunk full of documents. She also claimed to have uncovered even more news that is even worse.
“Apparently, my mom’s sister was promised to the church leader from birth, who is currently 75-years-old. You can do the math,” she said.
“I found multiple newspaper clippings, and it seems like he marries every 20 years or so. I’m not sure if he’s married to multiple wives or where they go. I have never seen the other women.”
It is an understatement to say that this entire situation has been a whirlwind for her. And now, she has no idea what to do and how to tell her husband the news.
Can you imagine uncovering such shocking news? How would you cope with this situation? How do you suggest she tells her husband?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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