‘We’ve been a couple for 19 years but we’re also brother and sister’

Brazilian couple Adriana and Leandro, who have been together for 19 years, discovered they are brother and sister after searching for their long-lost mother but vowed to remain united

A woman on a mission to track down her long-lost mum was left gobsmacked when she found out she had unwittingly tied the knot with her own brother.

Adriana and her husband Leandro, from Brazil, have been an item for nearly 19 years and have a daughter together. The pair, who opted not to reveal their surnames or faces, had spent their lives trying to find their respective mums, both named Maria, who had deserted them as babies.

Little did they know the women they were hunting for could be one and the same. Adriana, a cosmetics saleswoman, hadn’t seen her estranged mum since she was just one, leaving her dad to bring her up.

Leandro, a lorry driver brought up by his stepmum, knew his mum had also abandoned him in his birthplace of Sao Paulo when he was eight. While Leandro remained in the city, Adriana left their hometown to work as a housemaid, got hitched for 15 years and had three kids.

The couple crossed paths for the first time over two decades ago after Adriana’s marriage broke down and she returned to Sao Paulo. They quickly fell head over heels and set up home together, reports the Mirror.

Keen to locate her mum, Adriana turned to a local radio station for help back in 2014.

However, during the finale of Radio Globo’s ‘The Time Is Now’ show – which specialises in reuniting lost relatives – the mum revealed that she also had a son named Leandro who didn’t know her.

Upon learning her husband was also her brother, a devastated Adriana said: “I don’t believe that you’re telling me this. Leandro is my husband.”

She added: “Now I’m scared to go home and find out that Leandro doesn’t want me anymore. I love him so much.”

The pair fell victim to Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA), described by a GSA support forum as the phenomenon occurring between “two adults who have been separated during the critical years of development and bonding and are reunited alter as adults,”.

Adriana and Leandro, who apparently never officially wed, revealed on the radio programme they intended to stay together despite the bombshell discovery they were actually siblings.

The wife said: “Only death is going to separate us. All this happened because God wanted it to happen.

“Of course it would have been different if we had known all this before, but we didn’t and we fell in love. We thought it was funny that both our mothers had the same name, but it is a common name so we just thought it was a coincidence.

“At first we were really knocked by it all, but we had a family meeting and told everyone that we are going to stay husband and wife, whatever anyone might think. We have so many plans together. Nothing is going to break us up. Nothing.”

The pair revealed they harboured no resentment towards their mother for abandoning them and had chatted with her multiple times, hoping to arrange a reunion in the near future.