'I'm marrying my first cousin. Because we fell in love.'

By ANONYMOUS

No one writes the book on who you should fall in love with. You can’t help the way you feel. I am engaged to be married to my cousin, my first cousin. Australia allows this.

You may be thinking it’s wrong, it’s disgusting and it’s against nature. I can assure you that I thought the same things when I first fell in love with him. It started off as a silly little teenage crush that I brushed off.

I was an adult when I realised I couldn’t hide it any longer. When I told him he was shocked, and admitted he felt the same way. We both agreed that was fine but we could never do anything about it. But we had to, we honestly loved each other immensely.

You may wonder how it felt the first time; it felt natural, it didn’t feel evil or wrong. We managed to hide it for a while, scared of how our parents would react. When we did eventually tell them, honestly, they didn’t care. We both have supportive parents (and Aunties I suppose!)

We have been together for six years now, and yes, we have a child.

Yes, people have made insulting remarks. This annoys me, they have no right to personally attack me. Others have put it politely that they do not agree with it, and I don’t mind that. People have a right to tell me how they feel, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We have family who do not support it, but they have haven’t stopped talking to us, they love us too much.

Before you judge me; think about how many well respected individuals have married their cousins. Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Jerry Lee Lewis, H.G Wells, Sir John A. McDonald, Samuel F.B Morse just to name some. Imagine how different the world would be if not for Einstein, Darwin or Morse.

Most of the time I don’t even think about it, it’s not like I look at him and am reminded he is my cousin.

We work, we pay taxes, we are normal.

We don’t tell people we are cousins, but we are not ashamed of it. We live in a very small community, and with our daughter going off to school next year; we don’t want to suffer from it.

What will we tell her when she get’s older? The truth.

For now the truth can wait, she will have to wait till she is old enough to understand the possible implications of telling people. I don’t know how she will react, obviously.