I (21) haven’t been speaking with my cousin (22F) for a year, but her health problems are making me reconsider our relationship even though it was draining for me.

Note, this is a repost: Very sorry for using prohibited words. I think there was only one and I’ve fixed it. Very sorry to anyone I upset using that word, I was quoting what my cousin had said but that’s no excuse.

I tried to keep this as brief as possible, but there’s a lot to the story so it's fairly long. Sorry about that.

TL;DR: My cousin and I were best friends. She was a catty wild child while I was a square. Her erratic nature made her make poor life decisions constantly, and she made me feel like a boring, embarrassing prude a lot. We got into an argument and stopped talking, but my family tried to get me to forgive her. I didn't want to before, but her recent cancer scare is making me second guess my decision even though I still think she's toxic.

My cousin and I have been very close since we were young, even after her parents split up and she stopped living in the same town as us. She would come over during the summer (and sometimes she would spend a year or two with us) and it was always fun even when her mischievous/rebellious nature got us into trouble. Eventually she decided to live in our town permanently, and I was thrilled, but things weren't always fun.

She’s kind of catty and very hot tempered. This leads to her getting into a lot of arguments/beef with friends and coworkers. Every time I met up with her (even if we saw each other just the day before) she had new drama about how annoying one of her coworkers had been or how they were b words.

She’s also a terrible judge of character, because a lot of times she would say she hated one person one week then the next act like they were best friends only to act shocked when that person went back to the behavior she hated them for in the first place. For her “real” friends she would also get into really petty squabbles and contests with them. Contests meaning trying to one up each other whether it was with clothes, jobs, money, etc.

She also often had guy problems, like a guy being disrespectful and gross and her still talking him (even though she told me herself she didn’t like how they were treating her and I encouraged her to set boundaries or stop talking to them) or her flirting (purposefully as she always admitted) with her guy friends (or even MY friends) and acting shocked when they want some space after she teased and hugged and kissed them before telling them she's not interested. Obviously she didn’t owe these guys anything, but I felt it was cruel to get their hopes up.

These things didn’t really affect me directly (except for when she flirted with my friends or when she was fighting with mutual friends), but I am basically the mom friend/therapist for everyone I know. I don’t mind it too much because that’s what I’m in school to do, but to constantly be told about other people’s problems and being asked advice (that was never taken) in your private life is very different from doing it as a profession. You don’t expect your clients to listen to you back, but you do expect your friends to. And though she always asked about me after we got finished with her stories, she was always on her phone while I was talking and I never felt listened to.

She also made me feel like I was an embarrassment to her. She was always odd, doing weird stuff in public like riding on top of phallic statues or structures or dancing/twerking while we walked around town or talking about her sex life in public. I never really told her not to unless there were kids or obviously uncomfortable people around because that’s just how she is and she’s just trying to have fun. But if I were to ever sing a song as a joke or something she would immediately shut me down acting like she was embarrassed. Though I would invite her to hang out with my friends, she would never invite me to hang out with hers because they’re drinkers/party people and I don’t drink (even though many times they would be doing activities without drinking and I’m fine around drunk people/in parties as our family goes apeshit during weddings and other family parties). She was also always trying to get me into makeup and trying to set me up with guys, and it always felt like I was a project to her.

Though I always spoke my mind when I felt she was being petty or unkind to her friends, coworkers, and the guys she was speaking to or making poor decisions, it was very difficult for me to talk about the ways she treated me which is my own mistake. I always felt it was easier to protect others than to protect myself, and she had also said in the past that I “get mad over every little thing”. Maybe it’s true, I’ll admit to being very sensitive in certain circumstances.

The last straw, though, was a guy invading one of the group chats we have with some of our mutual friends. We (the group besides my cousin because she hadn't replied until then) were all just having a conversation when she started replying very oddly. She kept asking us strange questions and wouldn't respond the way she usually did to certain key words (we have a code in case something bad happens as she meets up with guys she meets online often). I became extremely worried and started texting her directly, asking if it was a prank and that if it was I didn't want to speak to her again, and still didn't receive the right messages back. I told her I was coming over to her place (she shared her location with me long before this for the same reason we have the code).

The person on the other side tells me to chill. It turns out that (apparently) it's not my cousin but some guy that she had over. She was asleep and he got on her phone and started texting us to figure out if she was "disloyal". You may think that this isn't my cousin's fault, but she has a really long passcode on her phone that even I, someone who has express permission to be on her phone whenever and has a fingerprint in it, can't remember despite putting it in a couple times. It's just that long. This guy who she met ONLINE and hadn't known for that long (talking a month tops) apparently memorized it. Unless he's got a photographic memory I'm calling bullshit.

She would, not too frequently but often enough for it to be a possibility, prank call/text people through texting apps and other prank sites, and she's done it to me a couple times in the past. It's not a stretch to say that she was the one messing around or that she let her friend prank us for fun.

I immediately got the most angry I can be, and that meant I got really cold and stopped texting back. I was angry for a couple days and ignored any texts from her that weren't important like about school or other incredibly personal conflicts she was going through. Every text I sent back was polite but frigid. I know it was childish, but I truly didn't have the energy to talk to her anymore and was still so angry.

Eventually she texts me telling me she wants to see me and I say no. We have a long text argument where I basically said I was tired of antics like this and that I didn't want to be friends anymore because it was so exhausting worrying about her whenever she carelessly doesn't think things through and gets herself into trouble. She responded by saying stuff like you don't care about yourself either, referencing the self loathing and depression I've been dealing with since we were very young. I, somehow, got even angrier and told her that while that's true I don't actively choose options I know will hurt others carelessly as she does. She texted back, but I told her that I was tired of her not reading and really thinking about what I was trying to say and to stop texting me.

Months go by without us talking to each other. My mom and our grandma asked why we weren't talking, but I wouldn't say as my cousin always hated when the family spoke about her business. Even if it was my business too, I didn't want to make it seem as if I was trying to get them to be against her. This may have been the wrong decision as, eventually, my mom and grandma were telling me to talk to her. That she misses me and that I shouldn't be so angry and unforgiving. Though they said they don't know what happened, I have a feeling she told her side of the story and made herself out to be the victim (something she's known to do). At a family event earlier this year, my grandma told me to call her. When I said no, she told me I had a black heart (cultural thing, basically I'm unkind and unforgiving and basically just rotten). I felt upset and guilty. When I talked to my mom about it she told me I didn't have a black heart, but that I was really stubborn, also making me feel guilty.

A day later my cousin texts me an apology that I didn't feel was genuine because it was laced with guilt (a "I know you're cold and don't care about me, but I'm sorry." kind of apology). I said that I appreciated the apology and never texted back.

Recently I've heard from my mom and uncle (a mutual uncle, not her dad) that they found she had a tumor/growth in her lungs. Cancer is in her family history and she smokes, but I didn't hear if it was cancerous or not. I feel really guilty and contemplated reaching out, but I don't want to just jump back into a relationship with someone I feel is toxic. I would definitely go with the family to visit her in the hospital regardless of my feelings or the severity of her illness, but I was always so stressed and worried when we were friends and don't really want to go back to that.

Am I right to feel guilty? Am I being too sensitive and stubborn by wanting to just stay regular cousins rather than friends? Any advice at all? If there's any additional info you need before sharing your thoughts, go ahead and ask (though I do feel like I wrote a book lol) and I'll try to answer. You may not believe it, but I omitted quite a bit for privacy reasons.

Submitted October 05, 2019 at 12:09AM

Note, this is a repost: Very sorry for using prohibited words. I think there was only one and I’ve fixed it. Very sorry to anyone I upset using that word, I was quoting what my cousin had said but that’s no excuse.I tried to keep this as brief as possible, but there’s a lot to the story so it's fairly long. Sorry about that.TL;DR: My cousin and I were best friends. She was a catty wild child while I was a square. Her erratic nature made her make poor life decisions constantly, and she made me feel like a boring, embarrassing prude a lot. We got into an argument and stopped talking, but my family tried to get me to forgive her. I didn't want to before, but her recent cancer scare is making me second guess my decision even though I still think she's toxic.My cousin and I have been very close since we were young, even after her parents split up and she stopped living in the same town as us. She would come over during the summer (and sometimes she would spend a year or two with us) and it was always fun even when her mischievous/rebellious nature got us into trouble. Eventually she decided to live in our town permanently, and I was thrilled, but things weren't always fun.She’s kind of catty and very hot tempered. This leads to her getting into a lot of arguments/beef with friends and coworkers. Every time I met up with her (even if we saw each other just the day before) she had new drama about how annoying one of her coworkers had been or how they were b words.She’s also a terrible judge of character, because a lot of times she would say she hated one person one week then the next act like they were best friends only to act shocked when that person went back to the behavior she hated them for in the first place. For her “real” friends she would also get into really petty squabbles and contests with them. Contests meaning trying to one up each other whether it was with clothes, jobs, money, etc.She also often had guy problems, like a guy being disrespectful and gross and her still talking him (even though she told me herself she didn’t like how they were treating her and I encouraged her to set boundaries or stop talking to them) or her flirting (purposefully as she always admitted) with her guy friends (or even MY friends) and acting shocked when they want some space after she teased and hugged and kissed them before telling them she's not interested. Obviously she didn’t owe these guys anything, but I felt it was cruel to get their hopes up.These things didn’t really affect me directly (except for when she flirted with my friends or when she was fighting with mutual friends), but I am basically the mom friend/therapist for everyone I know. I don’t mind it too much because that’s what I’m in school to do, but to constantly be told about other people’s problems and being asked advice (that was never taken) in your private life is very different from doing it as a profession. You don’t expect your clients to listen to you back, but you do expect your friends to. And though she always asked about me after we got finished with her stories, she was always on her phone while I was talking and I never felt listened to.She also made me feel like I was an embarrassment to her. She was always odd, doing weird stuff in public like riding on top of phallic statues or structures or dancing/twerking while we walked around town or talking about her sex life in public. I never really told her not to unless there were kids or obviously uncomfortable people around because that’s just how she is and she’s just trying to have fun. But if I were to ever sing a song as a joke or something she would immediately shut me down acting like she was embarrassed. Though I would invite her to hang out with my friends, she would never invite me to hang out with hers because they’re drinkers/party people and I don’t drink (even though many times they would be doing activities without drinking and I’m fine around drunk people/in parties as our family goes apeshit during weddings and other family parties). She was also always trying to get me into makeup and trying to set me up with guys, and it always felt like I was a project to her.Though I always spoke my mind when I felt she was being petty or unkind to her friends, coworkers, and the guys she was speaking to or making poor decisions, it was very difficult for me to talk about the ways she treated me which is my own mistake. I always felt it was easier to protect others than to protect myself, and she had also said in the past that I “get mad over every little thing”. Maybe it’s true, I’ll admit to being very sensitive in certain circumstances.The last straw, though, was a guy invading one of the group chats we have with some of our mutual friends. We (the group besides my cousin because she hadn't replied until then) were all just having a conversation when she started replying very oddly. She kept asking us strange questions and wouldn't respond the way she usually did to certain key words (we have a code in case something bad happens as she meets up with guys she meets online often). I became extremely worried and started texting her directly, asking if it was a prank and that if it was I didn't want to speak to her again, and still didn't receive the right messages back. I told her I was coming over to her place (she shared her location with me long before this for the same reason we have the code).The person on the other side tells me to chill. It turns out that (apparently) it's not my cousin but some guy that she had over. She was asleep and he got on her phone and started texting us to figure out if she was "disloyal". You may think that this isn't my cousin's fault, but she has a really long passcode on her phone that even I, someone who has express permission to be on her phone whenever and has a fingerprint in it, can't remember despite putting it in a couple times. It's just that long. This guy who she met ONLINE and hadn't known for that long (talking a month tops) apparently memorized it. Unless he's got a photographic memory I'm calling bullshit.She would, not too frequently but often enough for it to be a possibility, prank call/text people through texting apps and other prank sites, and she's done it to me a couple times in the past. It's not a stretch to say that she was the one messing around or that she let her friend prank us for fun.I immediately got the most angry I can be, and that meant I got really cold and stopped texting back. I was angry for a couple days and ignored any texts from her that weren't important like about school or other incredibly personal conflicts she was going through. Every text I sent back was polite but frigid. I know it was childish, but I truly didn't have the energy to talk to her anymore and was still so angry.Eventually she texts me telling me she wants to see me and I say no. We have a long text argument where I basically said I was tired of antics like this and that I didn't want to be friends anymore because it was so exhausting worrying about her whenever she carelessly doesn't think things through and gets herself into trouble. She responded by saying stuff like you don't care about yourself either, referencing the self loathing and depression I've been dealing with since we were very young. I, somehow, got even angrier and told her that while that's true I don't actively choose options I know will hurt others carelessly as she does. She texted back, but I told her that I was tired of her not reading and really thinking about what I was trying to say and to stop texting me.Months go by without us talking to each other. My mom and our grandma asked why we weren't talking, but I wouldn't say as my cousin always hated when the family spoke about her business. Even if it was my business too, I didn't want to make it seem as if I was trying to get them to be against her. This may have been the wrong decision as, eventually, my mom and grandma were telling me to talk to her. That she misses me and that I shouldn't be so angry and unforgiving. Though they said they don't know what happened, I have a feeling she told her side of the story and made herself out to be the victim (something she's known to do). At a family event earlier this year, my grandma told me to call her. When I said no, she told me I had a black heart (cultural thing, basically I'm unkind and unforgiving and basically just rotten). I felt upset and guilty. When I talked to my mom about it she told me I didn't have a black heart, but that I was really stubborn, also making me feel guilty.A day later my cousin texts me an apology that I didn't feel was genuine because it was laced with guilt (a "I know you're cold and don't care about me, but I'm sorry." kind of apology). I said that I appreciated the apology and never texted back.Recently I've heard from my mom and uncle (a mutual uncle, not her dad) that they found she had a tumor/growth in her lungs. Cancer is in her family history and she smokes, but I didn't hear if it was cancerous or not. I feel really guilty and contemplated reaching out, but I don't want to just jump back into a relationship with someone I feel is toxic. I would definitely go with the family to visit her in the hospital regardless of my feelings or the severity of her illness, but I was always so stressed and worried when we were friends and don't really want to go back to that.Am I right to feel guilty? Am I being too sensitive and stubborn by wanting to just stay regular cousins rather than friends? Any advice at all? If there's any additional info you need before sharing your thoughts, go ahead and ask (though I do feel like I wrote a book lol) and I'll try to answer. You may not believe it, but I omitted quite a bit for privacy reasons.