Dear Tineoidea,
My legal situation isn’t anything “illegal” per se, and certainly not something which could have put her in trouble.
Right, so it cannot be a reason for her withdrawing.
Well, her behavior is certainly weird, starting from the fact that she sought contact with him, even though he attacked her and badmouthed her, and then refused to apologize:
He became rather nasty with her, treating her like a lesser being. She had suffered a lot over it, cried a lot. I was intent on cutting him off since he simply refused to reason, apologize and own up, instead he kept doubling up on his abuse of her and made me lose more and more trust in him. Meanwhile, she kept wanting for things to work out, didn’t want me to lose an old friend, and so I kept trying to mediate.
Usually, narcissistic people don’t tolerate someone talking rubbish about them, so the fact that she did tells me she isn’t a narcissist. It’s almost as if in the beginning she cared more about your friendship with him than she cared about herself? She had some strange attraction to this rude, abrasive person, even if he’s offended her multiple times, and he also worked against you (I must say that he also endangered my livehood, and she was aware of it.).
In any case, whatever her psychological profile is, she is a troubled person, and I do believe she has some self-destructive tendencies. You said she has a history of being stuck in abusive relationships. It seems to me that she rejected a promising relationship with you for an abusive, manipulative relationship with your former friend. And it can only be because of her unresolved emotional issues, probably stemming from her childhood.
I think there won’t be any revelations until she disengages herself from him and re-arranges her mind.
I don’t think you should hope for her to renew the relationship, until she’s worked on her issues. Because she is unstable and unable to assess the situation properly, and as she herself admitted, “she doesn’t know herself”.
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