Celina and Joseph Quinones didn't know they were related until 10 years in to their marriage
A couple who found out they were cousins a decade in to their marriage have revealed how their children reacted when they told them.
Life was going great for Celina and Joseph Quinones, with the happily married couple from Colorado in the USA having three children and closing in on a decade of marriage.
It was around this time that Celina, now 37, decided to take a DNA test to find out more about her ancestry after wondering why the skin pigmentation for her kids was different.
After sending off their swabs to biotech company MyHeritage, the results left them in complete shock. Celina and Joseph were related.
The results confirmed that the married couple were in fact cousins. Not first, but third to fifth, meaning the connection is pretty distant - but family nonetheless.
Celina revealed to the Love Don’t Judge YouTube channel that she initially felt they should get divorced, with Joseph in denial about the revelation.
"I thought we were supposed to get divorced and then I started more thinking to myself, like, 'for our children, for our household, we need to keep it together and stay together'," Celina said.
The couple stuck it out and remain loved up to this day, 17 years in to their marriage. But as part of this, the Quinones realised they had to tell their children about the discovery.
On the moment they told them, Celina said: "They didn't ask too many questions. My middle son, he goes 'well does that make us sister and brother and cousins then?'. I guess so, yeah."
Speaking to the podcast, the Quinones' daughter said: "It's kind of normal since they're my parents and there's nothing really weird about it because they've been married for a long time."
Their oldest son said: "Sometimes I feel a little bit weird about it because it's not something you want to brag about or like put out to the world or nothing like that.
"If they found out before they got married I think there would be something obviously wrong with that but since they found out after there's there's not one single problem I see wrong."
Some people following Celina on social media have decided to troll her over the relationship, labelling it as 'disturbing'.
But she isn't having any of that, replying to one troll by saying: "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."
After one troll posted 'I'd be embarrassed if I were those kids', Joseph revealed that the 'sensitive spot' for him is when the children are brought in to it.
He said: "It's irritating but I stopped reading them. I said I can't read in to it and take offence."