I married my sibling!

[ElapheG]

Originally Posted by Joostik

Couldn't he just have said they had the same condition? Telling them they had the same father would be uncalled for and way out of line.

The only thing that matters is their genetic condition. They have been tested, are aware, and know they should avoid having children. That's all they need to know. It's up to them to continue the relation or not.

Sometimes what you don't know doesn't hurt you.

If I recall correctly, he didn't want to tell them, and tried not to, but they pushed for more information about the condition. It came out that the probability of them having it and not being related was very slim, after which the couple put two and two together.

Kind of reminds me when one of my cousins on my mom's side married one of my cousins on dads side, when i went to the wedding the usher asked bride or grooms family I answered both

[kajerayn]

My aunt A married our cousin B's ex-husband C, which made B & C's kids both A's cousins and her stepchildren. Made for some interesting times at the family reunions.

Yes, I do live in the South, why do you ask?

This is a fairly good argument for getting a full blood work up done before marrying someone.

[Adelaide]

I'm going to be very vague because there is no way I'd ever want the relevant parties stumbling across this thread and knowing that I was referring to them.

Someone that I'm related to (X) was being raised by his single mom until he was 2, and then his mom married and the new guy adopted X. For various reasons, which I strongly do not agree with but are ultimately not my business, they decided not to tell X and raised him to believe that his dad was his bio-dad.

He's an adult now, and got married about a year ago. When we were emailed a picture of the lovely couple, my first thought was that X's fiance looked an awful lot like X. That may be because she also looks somewhat like X's mom, but what had me concerned was that maybe the similarity I was seeing was through X's unknown bio-dad.

I've heard different versions over the years about whether X's bio-dad even knows of X's existence. I don't really think that X and his new wife are blood related, but my shock at seeing the resemblance got me thinking about how that (unknowingly marrying a half-sibling) had always been a possibility for him.

[RivkahChaya]

IIRC, one of the arguments against making adopted children part of families, and the legal children of their parents was the problem of consanguinity. For a long time, some adoption agencies always placed children out of state to avoid this.

It probably does happen occasionally that half siblings or first cousins, or even aunt/nephew uncle/niece pairs marry without knowing they are related.

However, when a general population diverse and large, one consanguinous pair doesn't increase its incidence of birth defects. The problem of pervasive genetic defects happens in small, isolated populations, where there may not be any brother/sister couples, but everyone is at least second cousin to anyone else.

[ica171]

Originally Posted by ElapheG

If I recall correctly, he didn't want to tell them, and tried not to, but they pushed for more information about the condition. It came out that the probability of them having it and not being related was very slim, after which the couple put two and two together.

I believe they pushed for more information and Foreman said something along the lines of, "There is no good reason you should both have the condition if you aren't related" or something similar. They were next door neighbors growing up; one of the things mentioned was that they had the same green eyes. The girl was immediately disgusted and the guy wanted to stay together. Foreman said that biologically, yes, they were related, but they weren't *really* siblings because they hadn't fought in the backseat on car rides or changed each other's diapers, etc. It was kind of up in the air at the end of the episode.

I honestly don't know what I'd do if this came up. Seems like one of those things where you can't really know unless you're living it.

I do agree with Vanilla; the way it's written it doesn't seem very likely that they couldn't have known or that it would never have come up. I suppose maybe if the father(s) were not welcome, maybe it was just something the extended family rarely talked about. I do have to say, I don't think I've ever mentioned my father to my husband by his first name; same for DH and my dad. It's always "my dad," but I'm sure it's different for different people. It's obviously come up at some point, though, because we both know the other spouse's parents' names.

After my daughter became pregnant, and broke up with her son's father, she discovered, he had more than one child with more than one women. All around the same age, given 2 or 3 years.

We joke that when he starts dating he is going to have to make doubly sure the girl could not possibly be his sister...LOL

[Hastings]

When Mr Hastings and I started dating, people we met sometimes thought we were brother and sister.

We discovered that both my father and his mother were in the same (somewhat restricted) line of work.

I mentioned Mr Hastings' mother's name to my dad.
He said "Oh! I've known J for a long time!"

... Mr Hastings and I looked at each other for a few seconds, and then I asked: "How long?"

Only about twelve years at that point.
Phew.