Please be kind.
I'm a freelancer and currently developing a project with another freelancer who I believe to be intelligent, creative and ambitious. We gel very well together when it comes to our values and ideas, however, I'm struggling to work with her. I have thought for a long while that she's neurodivergent, possibly ADHD but undiagnosed (or diagnosed but not telling me).
She's a good person, but she's becoming increasingly challenging to collaborate with. It's a shame as the project we've been working on is a great idea and we're almost at the point to submit our funding application for a big grant. But she just can't meet deadlines, reply to emails/ text/ voicemails when I've asked her to, etc.
It typically seems to be on her terms, and she's only compromised when I've been incredibly hard on her or threatened to pull out of the project. She's also very controlling and seems to somehow create division between people we both know.
She has a lot of enemies where she lives - or so she tells me - but I can never be sure as I think there's strong paranoia at play there too (which in turn can create enemies). And there are lots of rumours flying around about her.
Her partner isn't really part on her life from what I see although they live together and have a child, but I've been tempted to get in touch to ask for some clarity. Or I can just bin what could be a brilliant project and walk away from her and our friendship.
I'm not a hard person by nature, but I do have boundaries, and she's overstepped them repeatedly, and just can't seem to give me reasonable explanations other than the same old excuses (been too busy, family issues, being bullied by her 'enemies', etc).
Any advice on how to handle this? Walk away now or push for more information about what might be causing this behaviour?