Dear Readers; I've been sleeping with my cousin for the past year and now we want to tell our family

From a female reader
I guess I should start by specifying that
we’re not first cousins, but I don’t know if
we qualify as second cousins or not. His
mother and my grandfather are brother and
sister, in a family where there are as many
aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings as
trees in a forest. The two of them are
separated by fifteen years, six siblings, and
enough difference in upbringing that they
would often talk about how they felt more
like uncle and niece than brother and
sister. I think that their disparity in
childhood is probably a lot of the reason
why we felt it was okay to do at first,
because it was barely even like they were
siblings.
We were so used to the big family reunions
where everyone would get lost in the mix, and
there were always new babies being born and
new marriages and new extensions to the
family tree — it was easy to pretend like we
didn’t know what the situation was.
But we know, and since we first kissed outside
a bar just over a year ago (on a night that was
more about having shots and finding excuses to
get close to each other than it was about
welcoming him to Austin), we have been a
couple. We are very private about our
relationship — no PDA, only a few select friends
know, never any evidence or anything on
Facebook — but it’s a huge part of both of our
lives. We are lucky to live far enough away from
our family (they are almost all back on the east
coast, we are here in Texas) that we can be
pretty free with who we are. But if we are being
honest with ourselves, we know that we share
the kind of history and family relationship that
would make most people cringe at the idea of
us being together.
No one who knows that we are a couple know
that we are from the same family. And although
I often wish that I could confide in a close
friend, I am simply not ready for the kinds of
questions and judgment that would follow. They
would tell me that it’s wrong, that it’s gross,
that it is unnatural, and that I’m insane. And
there is a good chance that they’re right, but
the situation is just so hard to understand
unless you’ve lived in it. Although it’s true that
we are blood relatives, we only saw each other
about once or twice a year. As I said before,
the difference in age between his mother and
my grandfather is enough that they are amongst
the least close of all of their family, and I am
much more familiar with a lot of my other
cousins than I am with him. Even though I knew
I could always see him at a family reunion or a
wedding, I never really got that “close-knit
upbringing” feel that you share with someone
who you knew well in childhood. Hell, I even
have friends from elementary school that I feel
more of a kinship with because we were
together for a lot of our important moments.
Nick (a fake name, of course) was only there
for the big stuff.
But I knew I loved him pretty young. We would
always be the two kids at the event who would
go off and play by themselves, and when we hit
our pre-teen/teenage years, the bond that we
had formed playing in the backyard at a family
gathering turned into something much more
profound. I could tell him things, he listened to
me, he knew who I was in a way that almost no
one else did — even though we saw each other
very rarely. By the time I kissed him that night
(I was 23), it felt like the release of something I
had been waiting for my whole life. I wanted
him to be with me, and only me, because I had
always felt like I had to share him — with my
family, with the girlfriends who would ask if he
was single because they knew I could never be
with him, with my parents who would make us
leave an event early and take me away from
him. For once, I had him all to myself, and I
finally knew that he felt the same way about me
that I did about him. I could be honest for the
first time, even if it was only with him.
That night, we spent about three hours
frantically Googling everything from local laws,
to genetic risks, to “How to tell your family
you’re in love with a relative.” We were insane,
and scared, and completely lost — but so happy.
So in love. Every day I look back on that night
fondly, going from the computer to the bed
trying to find out if the way we felt was okay,
even though we knew that nothing we were
going to find would change our minds. On some
level, we realized that day that we were going
to need to tell our family members. But at least,
at the time, it was something we could
procrastinate on.
I thought a long time about writing this, in a lot
of ways it felt like the first real step to telling
our family, because I finally have to put it all in
words and acknowledge that it’s true. We
decided, out loud for the first time not too long
ago, that we would accept the consequences if
our family could not have us around anymore.
It’s a terrifying idea, and the loss of a family as
big and amazing as ours would be a lifelong
wound, but it’s something that is simply
necessary. It is legal for us to get married, and
if we won’t have our parents at our wedding,
we’re going to do it some day. Nothing in the
world makes me happier than the prospect of
telling Nick, in front of anyone who is willing to
watch us, that he is the love of my life. In many
ways it feels unfair that we were burdened with
the same blood, that we could have been just
like any other couple around us who has the full
support of everyone they love. But if we hadn’t
been born who we are, we may have never met.
And even if it costs me my family, it is a choice
I am willing to make.