Woman Finds Out Her Fiancé Is Her First Cousin

At the beginning of January, a 22-year-old woman made a long post on Reddit after finding how that she is related to her fiancé:

Almost four years ago, I got into a great university far from home. My grandpa drove me down to campus and helped me move in. During orientation, I met Tom (not his real name). We clicked instantly. Same humor, same values, and a connection I had honestly never felt before. We became best friends very quickly and soon started dating.

Tom is also from far away, but our hometowns are extremely far from each other. Over the years, I spent some holidays with his family and he spent some with mine. My mom, my brother, and my grandpa (who passed away around Thanksgiving this year) all adored him and were very vocal about wanting me to marry him. His family accepted me just as warmly. Last year, his parents even gave him a large gift to help pay for an engagement ring. He proposed this past August, right around the anniversary of when we met. We are planning to get married in June, shortly after we graduate.

One more piece of context before the actual problem. Tom and I became sexually active about a month ago. We were both virgins when we met and had decided we wanted to wait until marriage. After he proposed, we decided together that we were comfortable taking that step, especially since I am on birth control and we were already planning a wedding. Our parents assume we are waiting, but no one has ever directly asked. Until now, this has not been a point of stress for us.

She doesn't say which state they are in, but there are several southern states that still allow cousins to marry: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I would encourage cousin couples to remain virgins until marriage. I would also suggest an ancestry test to determine that you are actually related and health testing or a visit to a genetic counselor to see if there is any risk to potential children. She mentions that their mothers are twins, but doesn't specify whether they are fraternal or identical. She says they don't look alike which seems to imply fraternal, but it might be possible for identical twins to drift apart in appearance if they have vastly different diets and lifestyles. If the mothers are identical, then the couple would be genetically equivalent to half-siblings or double cousins (which North Carolina does not permit), although technically they are not those relationships even if genetics implies that they are. My own personal definition of inbreeding is when the parents share at least 20% of their DNA, but regular cousins would not fit into that category.