Blood is thicker than water. If you refused to talk to your cousins when you were young, for whatever reasons, it's on you - to them, they had an unfriendly cousin who wouldn't talk to them and, possibly, were hurt by that.
I have a cousin I'm close to, an absolute brainiac otherwise, who's very conservative, politically. I disapprove, obviously, think she's naive, and gets news from limited sources, primarily Fox, and she knows it. We joke about our differences, don't talk about politics, but, blood is thicker than water.
You make adult rationalizations for churlish childhood behavior. It's pretty lame, all in all.
