A Treasured Love Denied Marriage

From Full Marriage Equality:

I have one sibling and that's my half-sister who I'm in a relationship with. I have a son from a previous relationship; let's call him Billy Jr. Currently I live in the UK. It's illegal here to marry or be with any family member including family members who are married into the family such as step-fathers, step-mothers, step-sisters, step-brothers.

[...] Growing up, we never met; not once. I had heard about her from time to time over the years but never thought anything of it. I never really saw my dad a lot. Couldn't say I wanted to. [...] He mentioned her a few times but told me because he'd never been in her life, she never met him once, and that I couldn't get in contact with her and that was the end of it. He passed away and somebody told her about it a year on. She looked him up and found out about me. She contacted me and it went from there. [...] Growing up, I always wanted a sister and she always wanted an older brother so we were overjoyed to have found each other.

[...] I noticed straight away, when she added me on Facebook. The first thing I thought was "pwoarrrr she's gorgeous" when I looked through her pictures. At first I thought nothing of it because some brothers have no problem thinking their sisters are beautiful. It wasn't until I met her for the first time that I noticed the attraction was more than any brother should have for his sister. I felt a spark from the moment I laid my eyes on hers.

When she gave me a long, emotional hug, nothing ever felt as right as it did in that moment. I felt safe, protected, loved, every positive feeling possible in one hug. It's like nothing I ever felt before. The whole time of being around her, I smiled, my eyes kept catching hers, her eyes kept catching mine, we had the most sincere unforced smiles on our faces, it was the first time I ever seen anybody's eyes twinkle for me.

[...] I kind of noticed it way before we ever did anything, way before we even kissed.  We would cuddle constantly. We thought it was just because we were close. Well I say that, but I think that was something we said to mask our deeper feelings for one another.

[...] Our first kiss was when we were watching a movie and I told her she was beautiful. I was stroking her hair with her head on my chest. She looked up at me and I thought "okay here comes twenty [pecking kisses] in a row." By the time we made it to the tenth peck kiss I noticed her mouth opened a little and her tongue gradually met mine. From there it spiraled into pure passion. We stopped to look at each other and say "this is crazy," "did that just happen?" Neither of us cared either way.

[...] Quite a few people know about us. They had to know, because we told people beforehand that we were half-brother and half-sister. Our grandad on our dad’s side was the first person to encourage me by saying "I can tell you have a thing for each other, it's obvious. If you ever find out she feels the same one day, don’t be shy and don't let nobody tell you it's wrong. If they got a problem, buggar ‘em."

I told my family and they just accepted it. I told three of my closest friends. A joke here and there, but they didn't care. One didn't agree with it from his own beliefs but said so long as I was happy, he'd support me on it.

Her mother didn't agree with it and is dead set against it even. She wouldn't even discuss it or hear out an opinion that wasn't hers; just gave us reasons to feel ashamed.

We don't really act like a couple unless we are behind closed doors. If we’re in a place where nobody knows us, it's great. Nobody realizes a thing and we can act like a couple. Other than that, we had to delete our Facebook accounts as people were getting suspicious and I just really didn't like the idea of being on there as brother and sister only. It felt really heartbreaking knowing we couldn't say we were more, so we prefer to live our lives in private away from that sort of stuff.

[...] Having to hide away has just been very exhausting and anxiety producing. We know we haven't done anything wrong to anybody; we haven't harmed anybody either, yet we feel like were criminals on the run just waiting to be caught.  Personally, I couldn't care less what people think about our relationship. If the law didn't have a say in the UK, I would happily walk around with my head held high. At times there's been a lot of heartache and tears, mostly because we realize we hit the ceiling quite a lot with the limits we have. We both have circumstances that prevent us from living together and living each day as a happy couple together, mostly due to peoples’ opinions on our relationship, yet even with all that in mind, it's not something I'd trade for anything in the world and I'll happily fight whatever comes our way, even a jail sentence if I have to, just to be with her, because I couldn't ever be happy being without her.

[...] I had a friend I went to school with. He was in a long-term relationship. I was friends with him all the way through college. He found out his girlfriend of eight years was actually his full-blood sister. She was a year younger than him and at the time his parents gave her up through being too young to have two children. She was adopted and knew nothing about her birth parents or him. When she looked into it, that's what they found out. Everyone on both sides was against it, wouldn't hear a thing about it. To please people they broke up but lived a good few months in nothing but the worst possible agony I could imagine. It really made me realize why they were so close, even without ever knowing of their connection to each other. He used to tell me it felt like an invisible rope pulling him towards her. Eventually they both caved in and couldn't bear to be without each other ever again. For most it was weird. For me, it was the sweetest thing I'd ever seen. It actually made me tear up. They live abroad now and because they have different last names, they managed to get married; credit to them.

[...] One day I hope to marry my half-sister, or at the very least, live with her and live a happy care free life where it isn't illegal to love and be with each other. I feel torn in half when she isn't in my arms. It's a dream at this point in time but hopefully one day it'll be a reality.