To have confronted DH's cousin for flirting with him?

[Temporaryusernamename]

My husband and I have been together for 18 years, married for 12. We have two children, aged 15 and 13.

Years ago, long before our relationship, when DH and his female 1st cousin were teenagers, they had a brief, secret relationship with each other.

At first, I thought they just slept together, but over the years DH confided in me that he had slept with her once while staying at her house for a week during the summer holidays when they were both 16, but that they also wanted to be together but knew they could never tell anyone.

They lived in different parts of the country and rarely ever saw each other.

My DH has told me he's actually quite angry with his parents for putting them in this position. They were teenagers, who didn't grow up together, rarely saw each other, and yet when the family would meet up once or twice a year, they would always stay over and the kids would be put in the same room, on bunk beds and camp beds, without any thought of the fact that they were developing and going through puberty, just assuming they were innocent kids. He says the curiousity and strong feelings were inevitable and his parents and other adults should have been more responsible.

Anyway, noone at all knows what happened except DH, the cousin, and me.

When they reached young adulthood, the cousin emigrated to a different country and DH and I have only seen her twice in the last 15 years.
However, we are all currently all Holiday together! MIL recently won a large amount of money and took the whole extended family, 17 of us in total, away on a huge Holiday. Cousin is here.

We have been drinking every night and cousin, who is now in her late 30s, and doesn't have a husband or kids of her own, keeps relentlessly saying flirting with DH. Telling him he looks great in shorts, whistling when he takes his top off on the beach, making silly sexual jokes, and hugging him by coming up behind him and resting her head on his shoulder. Noone else seems to notice and DH says not to worry about it as he doesn't feel anything for her and nothing is going to happen and she's just being playful.
But I've noticed she's not like it with any other males here. Just DH.

The final straw for me came last night when she sat on DH's lap while we were all sitting around drinking and put her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek.

DH just laughed and told her to get up then got up himself and went to the bar.

Again, we had all had quite a lot to drink.

A few minutes later, I went off to the toilet and she was coming back towards me. She was quite drunk and came over with her arms out in front of her to give me a hug. I stepped away and looked her right in the face. I said "Stop flirting with my husband. Don't think I don't know your history. If you come anywhere near him again, I will tell everyone about you two." She looked utterly shocked. I walked away. She must have gone straight to bed.
Today, she's been really quiet all day. Everyone's commented on it but they've just assumed she's really hungover.

MIL and I were sitting on the beach and she commented that this trip has been good for her. She's had a hard time lately as a bloke she was going to marry cheated on her with his ex wife and then went back to her. She's really benefitting from being with family to support her as she's so alone out there.

I feel really guilty for saying that to her last night. I just got so jealous seeing her sitting in his lap, looking amazing in her tiny sundress, knowing their history and she was probably his first love, and felt so insecure. The stupid fling they had was so long ago and they were young and I know at least DH deeply regrets it and is embarrassed about it.

I'm worried I've now ruined her holiday. I didn't know she was going through that. I've been chatting to her to be friendly and get to know her but she never mentioned it

Was I unreasonable?

@Temporaryusernamename I think you need to talk to both your husband and also the cousin.

You need to tell your husband that her behaviour is making you uncomfortable and you would like him to be more proactive in shutting it down. Hopefully he will understand and be on board.

You need to tell the cousin that you are sorry about the threat you made to tell everyone about the past history but that her behaviour is inappropriate and when you said it needed to stop you meant it.

I hope she is behaving herself now.

She is not the least bit 'vulnerable' if she is so shameless she is flirting with another woman's man. A vulnerable person does not do that. At all.

Well we have to agree to disagree on that

Exactly. That is not how anyone vulnerable acts. She acts more like a predator than 'vulnerable'.

You have nothing at all to feel bad about and clearly her being "vulnerable" didn't stop her touching and sitting on your DH did it! 🙄
It's your DH that should have done something!!

Your husband had a single woman, beautiful and very attractive, sitting on his lap in public, flirting with him, and he enjoyed it. If he didn’t (for whatever reason, including not being attracted to her or feeling the cringe factor or being loyal to his wife and mother of his two children) then he would have shut it down. That is where your problem is. HE should have shut it down straight away.

And you had to watch a single woman flirt with your husband, including sitting in his lap, and you told her not to. The fact she has recently been through a breakup is neither here nor there.

I think your husband has some hard work to do to regain your trust though.

No, she is mad because a woman is flirting with her husband. Women would be mad at any woman flirting with their husband, even if they just met.

How do you know she is attractive? OP never said that. The only way you'd know, is if you are the cousin.....

Lastly, it doesn't matter whether the woman flirting is attractive or not. You commenting on her looks is very misogynistic.

You're husband shouldn't have even entertained her getting with arms length. He's loving it as much as she is. I wouldn't let him out of my sight the rest of the holiday and id be having a serious conversation when we got home. But you did the right thing by telling her

But true.

Consider my position. I have 56 first cousins. Several I have never met due to family schisms, about 5 I have only met once or twice. About 10 that I have probably seen less than 5 times as a child and about the same as adults. The other 30 or so I know very well.

I am fairly sure one of my cousins is attracted to me by their behaviour. It is perfectly legal for us to marry. They are in the second camp and I can only recall meeting once as children and have only met a few times and that was after we were 40 +. So they are a virtual stranger. So would it be weird for us to marry?

I must add that there is no way I would do it, but it's legal and as I say we didn't grow up together nor are close as adults.

Yes.

He told me about a (gross) mistake he made at 16

It didn't come up again for over a decade, when he brought up his own teenage mistakes in the context of discussing our teenagers.

If he didn't want her on his lap she wouldn't have been sitting on his lap.

In fairness, the OP said she was a good looking woman with a nice figure and wore tight, skimpy clothing while doing the flirting and lap sitting. That's what's making her feel so inadequate and demoralised by this.

@BeckyAMumsnet I thought you were sorting this out? It’s unreadable.

Nesting replies? I don’t know what it’s called.

I agree with this. Blaming the adults for 'putting them in that position' is absolutely ick. He put himself in that position, taking advantage of the parents good opinion of them all.

That would make my stomach churn as much as the cousin shagging thing.

I think you did the right thing. She was taking the piss and you have something over her now. Over the pair of them actually.

So would it be weird for us to marry?

If your parent and their parent are siblings, yes, IMO it would be weird for you to marry. Regardless if you’ve met once, a hundred times, or never.

It's well known that cousin marriage creates a higher chance of having a disabled child, the actual statistics I don't know, but that is due to it being incest.

It's well known that cousin marriage creates a higher chance of having a disabled child, the actual statistics I don't know, but that is due to it being incest.

Um, just because it is 'legal' in some countries, does NOT mean it is not incest. It is still incest by it's very definition!

Isn’t it repeated generations doing that? I think just one generation doesn’t have a significantly higher risk than any random members of the public?

edited - oh it goes from 2-3% to 4-6% apparently.

Your DH should definitely have told her, very firmly, to stop.

He's not stupid. He knows what she was doing, and he knows how it would make his wife feel. It's WILDLY inappropriate behaviour, regardless of their past, and he should have stopped it. I would be having a frank conversation with him about this - why didn't he? Because you trust him implicitly, and you know he knows right from wrong, so why did he not stop this desperate woman dripping all over him in front of everyone? Her behaviour sounds grim - it would stop her looking like a twat as much as protect your feelings.

You did nothing wrong. Her behaviour was bang out of line.

Sitting on a man's knee crosses a boundary. Sitting on a married man's knee trampled a boundary. Sitting on your male cousin's knee is just ickky and weird.

And the same in reverse for a man who allows a woman to sit on their knee, a married man, a male and his female cousin.

The past sexual and emotional history makes it even worse.

Your DH has no right being angry with other people for choices he made at 16, excuses of being a teenage boy and the needs of puberty are pathetic enough when plead by still teenage boys, nevermind grown men.

It's legal in the UK. The royal family and a lot of the aristocratic have done it for centuries. The Pakistani population do it to protect family wealth.

The problem of course is that in breeding leads to issues such as the hemophilia that relatives of Queen Victoria suffered from. The radio 4 programme "born in Bradford" has highlighted several issues as a result of cousin marriage.

I've gone through all sorts over the years but it has never led me to wolf whistle at my cousin and sit on his lap and give him kiss. I never shagged my cousin and I wouldn't cross that boundary we are family and my mum's sisters son. The op was right to set boundaries a line was crossed and it shouldn't be normalised.

Ah I missed that. Thanks.

It's an outdated law that needs to be changed. Can't they go to the next village for a shag or meet their partner.