Looking for advice regarding rental history on applications (TX)

After a few years of financial hardship my partner and I are finally getting back on our feet. We're looking for apartments to rent and we meet almost all of the common requirements for rentals in our area. The one thing I'm worried about is our rental history.

Most places want 3 years of history, and in that time frame we've only had one rental of 1.5 years, the rest of that time was spent living with family. Our payment history was less than stellar. My income was all we had and we ended up missing maybe 4 months, and were only able to pay back about half of that.

Im trying to figure out the best way to go about applying for apartments now because of this. Our landlord wasn't a big leasing company, it was just a man who owned property and rented it out, and honestly didn't go about things like landlords normally do. He didn't even have us resign a lease at the end of our 1st year, and we had no formal month to month agreement after that. I have no clue if or how he reported his records or if our payment history and outstanding balance will show up on a rental background check.

My options are

1. be entirely truthful with prospective leasing companies about our past and possibly be denied or required to have my mother cosign with us. Im not sure she'll meet the 5-6x income requirement to cosign.

Or 2. Just say we've been living with family that entire time, possibly be found out through a rental background check and be denied anyways.

Is there anyway I can see what a landlord would see on one of these background checks? That would be the easiest way for me to know how to proceed. I know for sure that the address shows up on my credit report, but given that I don't know if he even reports details to any online service, I'm unsure if it will be connected to him as a rental property.

Any advice you can share is appreciated 🥲❤️