The tale of one woman’s stunning revelation that she and her husband are actually first cousins after 30 years of marriage has lately gone viral on the internet, sparking a heated debate about how the pair should proceed.

Marriage is not always a smooth ride; you may encounter turbulence as you move through life with your spouse, but that is to be expected in any relationship. Nevertheless, one marriage recently reached a snag that was a little more serious than others.

It all began when a woman gave her spouse a DNA test as a birthday present.

The woman in issue, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote a letter to Slate’s Dear Prudence podcast detailing her harrowing experience. The woman said that she had purchased a DNA test for an ancestry site for her spouse, which is a popular present in today’s climate; nonetheless, the test revealed something unexpected. The results of the test revealed that the married pair are first cousins.

The finding has put the woman and her husband’s world in “tatters,” and she wishes she had never taken the DNA test in the first place.

“My husband and I grew up in the same small town. We have a two-year-old son. For a birthday present, I got both of us an ancestry kit. I wish to God I never came up with the idea […] This news unsettles me and has left my husband’s world in tatters,” she wrote to the podcast.

According to the woman, the couple is now sleeping in separate bedrooms until they can figure out how to move on.

Her husband, on the other hand, appears to be unwilling to discuss the matter, thus there appears to be little hope. This could be because, as they try to figure out how this is possible, there’s a potential her husband’s mother had an affair, which the husband is also dealing with:

“All my uncles are happily married — I thought. I find myself looking through photo albums of our childhood together and trying to figure out the truth,” she wrote. “All my uncles are happily married — I thought. I find myself looking through photo albums of our childhood together and trying to figure out the truth.”

The woman also appears to be having difficulty confiding in any of her close relatives.

She suspects her husband’s mother had a relationship with one of her uncles at the moment, but she can’t prove it.

As the scenario continues to have an impact on not just the couple’s marriage but also their son’s life, podcast producer Daniel Mallory Ortberg and guest presenter Connor Goldsmith attempted to offer guidance on how to deal with this bizarre circumstance.

Goldsmith didn’t think there was much to be concerned about, adding “You’re cousins. You’re not siblings. You didn’t grow up thinking of yourself related. There are plenty of places around the world where people marry their first cousins and it’s not considered that weird.”

Ortberg admitted that it would be difficult for them to live with the knowledge that one of their parents witnessed them marrying a relative without notice.