To preface this whole thing, I am a VERY easy going dude and can handle a lot of disrespect up to a certain point, but one thing I can't stand is when people either spread rumors about me that aren't true or just straight up talk shit about me behind my back. I think that's a pretty cowardly thing to do.

A bit of backstory:

So basically, my cousin (22F) and I (23M) used to have a great relationship. A couple years back I had gotten an apartment with her younger brother after living with their parents for a while, and she happened to get an apartment in the same building with some friends of hers. Some 6 or 8 months passed until she broke the lease on her apartment because her roommates were apparently disrespecting her a lot and she felt the need to move out. I don't know the details on that story, but after that whole ordeal I offered for her to stay at my place rent free as long as she helped out with stuff around the apartment like cleaning, taking my dog out when I was at work, etc.

She honestly was an amazing roommate and I loved having her around. We'd hang out all the time, watch shows, smoke weed together, it was a great time all around. But then I lost my job and I was no longer able to pay my part of the rent so I had to move to my home country and give my dog to a trusted family (he's living the dream life now). While I was overseas I did some school and got a job but while I was there, I found out that I could do this same job but in the U.S. for a lot more money, so my cousin and I started having talks about me potentially moving back after I had money saved up and getting an apartment together.

Now this is where things start to go downhill. I started to realize that the logistics of actually moving back to the states were more complicated than I planned and I believed I'd have to stay in my home country for multiple years so that I could have more concrete work experience on my resume before jumping ship and moving away again. My cousin seemed to take this lightly at first, until every FaceTime call was just her saying I was gaslighting and manipulating her for any reason. Like we'd be on FT and we'd be talking about something and then she'd make some skeptical expression or something and I'd ask her what's wrong and she'd reply saying "you know exactly what's wrong stop gaslighting me." Like... okay? Weird but whatever.

Fast forward to a few months back when I'm FaceTiming her younger sister and come to find out, after things have gotten worse between me and my cousin, the reason why she's been so hostile towards me is because she believes that I'm in cahoots with her ex boyfriend and his friends and that I'm conspiring against her to ruin her life. WHAT??? So of course I have to prove my innocence and I screenshot all of my messages and apps to prove that I have never sent a single text or exchanged a single call with these people. So then that issue seemed to go away. But then, a few weeks after that, I spoke to my ex girlfriend (we're on good terms) and she said that her younger brother had insisted on hanging out with my cousins for Super Bowl weekend (the younger cousins are pretty young and still good friends with my ex's younger brother) and while they were hanging out, my cousin apparently started slandering me to my ex saying that I was a liar, piece of shit, all the insults in the book. Now, my ex, not really being the confrontational type, just shrugged her shoulders and said nothing but made sure to tell me all about it once she was home. I'm glad she did, because after that I found out she had been talking about me in the same way to her entire side of the family. Saying that I'm not to be trusted, I'm a manipulator, a liar, all these things.

Now before I start getting comments asking about what I did, I swear on my life I never have and never would do anything to intentionally disrespect anybody in my family. I love em all. But for her to talk about me like this... it's insane. I asked her so many times to tell me what it was that I did that made her so upset and she kept regurgitating the same phrase, "you know exactly what you did, stop gaslighting me." So after that, I had had enough and I blocked her on everything and told her mother that until my cousin stopped slandering me, and had the guts to tell me what I did wrong, I wouldn't be speaking to her. She understood but was also reasonably upset at the whole situation. I learned later on that after I blocked my cousin, she had started doing the same stuff to her family that she had done to me. So I was very confused.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I learned that apparently my cousin planned to reach out to me and apologize because she had finally gotten over whatever manic episode she had been going through. So I decided to unblock her. She messaged me saying she had been thinking about me, and I haven't replied. I guess I just don't know what to do or say. I kinda wished she had opened with an apology instead of reaching out like I was some distant friend she hasn't spoken to in years.

What do y'all thing? Also if I need to clarify anything definitely let me know in the comments because there's definitely more context to be said I just didn't want to ramble on and on.