Someone Wonders "What's The Worst 'Cousin' Story You've Ever Heard?" 36 People Respond

I have a cousin who, in the last month or so, made local news for all the wrong reasons. He subjected his girlfriend to constant domestic abuse for years, both physical and emotional, to the point where she took her own life. He’s only serving a sentence of 3 and a half years for the abuse and not her death, but his girlfriend’s mother made a request to the local council about putting in a request to have a law amended so that anyone who inflicts domestic abuse to the point of the victim taking their life, the abuser would be charged for manslaughter.

Doing a hike with two of my cousins and an uncle of ours. One of my cousins found a ball shaped cactus, and wanted to take it with him for no reason (he just thought it was cool). He didn't have any container so he had to carry it in his hand, causing the cactus to sting his fingers continually.
After a while, my uncle told him to throw it away, because he was getting harmed. My cousin did it, but in the most stupid way: He threw the cactus in the air and kicked it (like a goalkeeper) causing the damn thing to get nailed to his foot.

I have a cousin who has slept with several of our first cousins. Was even going to marry one when they were teenagers. There was a letter written to my aunt, which my mom read and can vouch for. My aunt was totally fine with it, while my mom was like 'yo, what the f**k.'

For context, Indiana and Kentucky.

I have an awesome cousin story. As a kid the thing to do in our little town was go to the neighboring town to roller skate. Long story short my friend meets a girl spends all night making out with her behind the rink. End of the night my buddy decides to stay behind and wait for her parents to pick her up, being a gentleman. Monday at school I ask him “how’d the restt of the night go”. Turns out his father had an estranged brother the family never talked about. The girl was his cousin. “She didn’t want to make out anymore”

A couple years back I heard about a guy who traveled for a family reunion. He decided to have a drink at the bar near his hotel. He got into an argument with a guy at the bar and they decided to take it outside. He accidentally [ended] the other guy in the fight only to find out it was a cousin he had never met that was also there for the reunion.

I have family members who were dating each other for years and didn't know they were actually cousins.They were even planning on getting married until they found out

I have been dealing with mental health problems since I was 12 due to abuse by my dad. Where I was in my mid 30s I decided to move from Texas to Colorado so I could be closer to my mom. I have this one female cousin that is 2 years younger than me that has always had an attitude problem. Just after I moved there I was talking privately with my mom and aunt about where can I go locally to find a good doctor and then the cousin butts in claiming that I don't need a doctor, that I never had any kind of mental problems and that I was making it all up just so I can get some attention. The b***h hadn't seen me in 15 years and all of the sudden she knew everything about me. This was also what led to me and my mom stop talking to her, my aunt and her 3 older sisters.

I had a friend in high school and he kept telling his attractive older female cousin seemed to be flirting with him and trying to sleep with him. We called him out for his obvious lies. I was over at his house like a month later and his cousin stopped by with her family. We were in the basement and the whole time she was flirting with him and rubbing his arms and thighs. She was his first cousin. It was like watching a modern p**n video intro.

My 29M cousin is currently doing a sort of walkabout of America. His plan is to walk across the country without any money, relying on the generosity of strangers and churches (he's a super duper Catholic). He started in New Jersey about 4 months ago and he's currently in Georgia. Most of us thought he'd be hurt or worse by now, but apparently he's been doing really well by relying on churches. One of his goals was to prove that humanity is inherently kind, which no one really agreed, and *so far* he's proved his point.

I think it's pretty admirable what he's doing, but there are some criticisms to be had. He's essentially roleplaying as a homeless man.

My cousin robbed my dying uncle, then Walmart, then sold a car he did not have a title to. He got arrested for it.

Then the story was in the news (online local paper). It read "Eric is charged with robbery, breaking and entering, and car theft".

Eric decided to comment on the story "I didn't steal a car".

Trashiest thing ever.

My cousins on one side of my family suck and are the trashiest people ever. One cousin (female) dated this poor guy, got pregnant then, had his kid. He was a super nice guy but dumb as hell. Anyway, they split up and my cousin immediately gets knocked up by her ex-boyfriends brother and had another kid.

So her kids are cousins and brothers at the same time. Jerry Springer s**t.

Not nearly as bad as some of the other stories. I was seeing this guy in high school for like a year. I have a feeling he’s cheating on me and long story short he was, we break up. I’m catching up with my cousin a couple of weeks later. She’s describing how she was seeing this guy and really liked him until she found out guy was cheating on his girlfriend with her. He cheated on me with my cousin. He also had no idea we were related he just has a type I guess. 

When I was young, probably around 12-13, I was flirting with a girl that I met through a friend. She was flirting back too. She was so cute.

I asked her her full name, and I remarked, "oh, that's my mom's maiden name" (not a common name). She said, "Aunt xxx?!"

She turned white, and said "oh my God, you're my cousin", and practically ran away.

Damn!

My cousin was a pretty big partier in college, so we all assumed he'd done more than just drink alcohol. When he was in his mid 20s, he lived in California and called his parents who lived in Florida (3 hour time difference) at like midnight Florida time yelling "I'm dying" and then hung up the phone and didn't answer when they called back. He finally called them back and kept telling them that he was dying. His girlfriend took the phone and explained that he'd eaten an edible and was totally fine, just way too high and was convinced that he was dying.

I have a cousin who is a nurse. She rose to a small bit of TikTok fame by posting videos talking about how she would have no problem unplugging someone’s ventilator at the hospital to plug in her phone. There were a few of these videos and each one made you wonder what was wrong with her. She was promptly fired from her job.

I once walked into my cousins [making love] (brother and sister) we silently agreed nothing happened

I lived in the Middle East for two years.

Way too many women there are forced to marry their first cousin. A woman my ex knew through work was trying to escape the country after she was forced under the threat of death to marry her cousin.

Scientists looked into this and found two conflicting forces in action. People tend not to find close relatives attractive but people do subconsciously find people who look like close relatives attractive. Various tests were done and found that the decider was whether you spent a lot of time with that person as a child. So we tend not find those we were brought up with attractive. This explains why sometimes cousins, siblings and even parents and children separated at birth can unwittingly find each other wildly attractive - they didn’t grow up together but have a strong similarity.

I have to say, I find the strong reaction of US folks to this topic amusing. In many places in the world it’s not such a big deal as long as it doesn’t happen too often. Darwin, Einstein, Edgar Allan Poe, Queen Victoria, J.S.Bach all married cousins.. probably more common back in the day due to smaller populations and less travel opportunities.

Not my story, but a friend from my old work (We’ll call him P) told me one time he had a very drunk friend of his and 2 ladies come into his pub and was inviting him to spectate and possibly join in on their regular, saucy threesome.

P then recognised one of these ladies as his mates cousin and was like “You’re inviting me to watch you f**k your cousin?…” to which his friend replied very straight faced “yeah? I f**k her all the time.”

P refused to participate.

My cousin once asked if I wanted to watch a video of him [making love]. I said no so he called me gay.