CELINA, 37, and husband Joseph, 44, from Colorado, had the shock of their lives when they found out after three children and 10 years of marriage, they were in fact cousins. This all started when Celina decided to look into her heritage, however she never thought she would uncover a truth that would shake the very foundations of their happy family. Celina told Truly: "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." Despite this 'devastating' news, the couple had a loving family and decided to stay together. But when they shared their story online, they were met with a tirade of judgement and hate. The couple said: "People have called it 'sick', 'why would you marry your cousin?' It's 'disturbing' and 'disgusting', 'I'd be embarrassed if I were those kids'." Regardless of the hateful comments the family have received, Celina and Joseph remain defiant and with the support of their family, ignore the haters so they can continue their life together. Joseph added: "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."
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00:00This is Joseph. He fell in love with Selena.
00:05People have called it sick of our relationship after they found out we were cousins.
00:09Why would you marry your cousin?
00:11Disturbing and disgusting. I'd be embarrassed if I were those kids.
00:15Before the DNA test, did you have any suspicions that you two were related at all?
00:20Don't break it.
00:22Good job.
00:25We met at a Halloween party.
00:27We just decided, hey, let's go on a date. And then we went to bowling alley, right?
00:31I told her if I get one pin on this next throw, you have to give me a kiss.
00:36I got my one pin that I wanted.
00:38And we kissed.
00:42We were like inseparable after that.
00:44Some magnets got attached.
00:45Yeah, we were like this.
00:48This July, it will be 17 years of marriage.
00:51And we've been together for 17 years and four months.
00:54We had a short courtship.
00:56We have three kids, two boys, one girl.
00:58Grandpa's supposed to be coming over later. It's okay.
01:02You know, a happy marriage is your belly.
01:05It's through the belly.
01:09I started really diving into my DNA because I wanted to find out my heritage.
01:16My daughter, she's really dark skinned.
01:19And then my son, he has curly hair.
01:22My middle child, he's light skinned.
01:24When everyone would ask, like, what are you? What are you?
01:27I didn't really give an answer besides, hey, I'm Native American.
01:31Before the DNA test, we had no suspicion whatsoever.
01:35We sent in our swabs.
01:37There was a match.
01:40There's a database, a whole thing of cousins pull up.
01:43And he pulls up and I go, oh, goodness.
01:48When I realized that we were cousins, I was a little sick to my stomach.
01:53And he goes, no, babe, it's nothing.
01:57He was in complete denial.
01:59I was like, this is weird. I can't believe we're cousins.
02:04And then he started realizing little things started coming up.
02:07And he's like, okay, maybe we are related.
02:10The DNA test has confirmed that we are third to fifth cousins.
02:16In my head, I thought we were supposed to get divorced.
02:20And then I started more thinking to myself, like, hey, for our children, for our household,
02:26we need to keep it together and stay together.
02:30It was a pivotal moment for us because you're not supposed to look at your cousin or be with your cousin.
02:35And I didn't mean it, but it happened that way.
02:38We've gone this far.
02:40And to death, it was part of my book.
02:43So I wasn't going to leave over something like that.
02:46When you first told your children, how did they react?
02:49They didn't ask too many questions.
02:51My son, my middle, he goes, well, does that make us sister and brother and cousins then?
03:00I guess so, yeah.
03:02Bingo.
03:03How do you feel about everything?
03:05It's kind of normal because since they're my parents and like there's nothing really weird about it
03:09because they've been married for a long time.
03:11Sometimes I feel a little bit weird about it because it's not something you want to brag about
03:14or like put out to the world or nothing like that.
03:16They found out before they got married.
03:18I think there'd be something obviously wrong with that.
03:20But since they found out after, there's not one single problem I see wrong.
03:24I first heard about it and it wasn't that special to me.
03:30I just kind of forgot about it because I was pretty young.
03:32I am related to my husband.
03:35I was like sitting there one night and I was like, let's just put this in here.
03:40And I did not know it was going to blow up that big.
03:44I did not.
03:45One person on there said, this is so disturbing.
03:49Why would you marry your cousin?
03:51They look so much alike.
03:53How did they not know?
03:54I feel bad for the kids.
03:56Hopefully people don't bully them.
03:58I'd be embarrassed if I were those kids.
04:02And that's just the sensitive spot on me when they bring the kids up into it.
04:06For their social life, getting out as much as it did to the bully part of it,
04:10that was one of the first things that concerned me.
04:12It's irritating, but I stopped reading them.
04:15Like I said, you can't read into it and take offense to it.
04:19Because if you take offense to every negative post, you're going to be mad all the time.
04:23We accidentally married each other's cousin.
04:25It's like, whoop-dee-doo.
04:27And I did get a little backlash from that side.
04:31And I'm like, well, you guys don't want us to judge you,
04:35so why are you judging us?
04:49Did you ever have any ideas or suspicions about Selena and Joseph being cousins at all?
04:55No, I didn't.
04:56I wish we would have.
04:58But in a way, maybe we wouldn't be together.
05:01We're going to have three beautiful children.
05:03In a way, maybe it was a good thing we didn't know.
05:06Did you think they should have stayed together?
05:09Oh, definitely they should stay together.
05:12They're grandchildren.
05:13They're very good together.
05:15They complement each other, and they're our family.
05:18And they'll be together for a long time, just like me and my wife.
05:22I would have accepted them anyway.
05:24They're my family.
05:26There are a lot of people out there that will add their two cents to something
05:30without looking at everything.
05:32So, you know, guys, we love you, and we'll always be there for you.
05:37Guarantee it.
05:40Nothing's really changed since it all came out.
05:43Everything's been the same.
05:44To all the people that were giving us negative comments,
05:47it's easy to speak on the outside when you don't know the whole inside story.
05:50One year in, five years in, we found out almost 11 years later, three kids later.
05:55It's just not something you can just break up and walk away from.
05:58I think that the future holds a lot more good, you know, like our kids.
06:05I just want to see them succeed.
06:07And eventually down the road become grandparents.
06:09Long, long, long way down the road.