u/Extension_Strike_785

I am a 31-year-old divorced male posting this to get some perspective on a situation with a girl I deeply care about. I need some honest advice on how to read her signals and whether I should express my feelings again or give her space.
The Background:
I’ve known this girl since 2020 and have liked her since the moment I met her. Back then, we were on good terms, but she eventually married someone else. Tragically, the marriage lasted only 2 months because her ex-husband and mother-in-law were severely mentally and physically abusive. She fled the house, moved back with her parents, and has been stuck in a stressful, contested divorce process for nearly 3 years now because her husband refuses to sign the papers. Her whole family knows my history and my own divorce story.
The Mixed Signals & My Confession:
We’ve met a few times recently. I went to her house twice to invite them to my sister's wedding, and they attended the wedding itself. In person, she is incredibly warm, engaged, and our conversations are very satisfactory. In fact, at the wedding, she even asked her brother to click a picture of the two of us together. However, on Instagram, she acts completely cold and distant.
A few months ago, I gathered the courage to text her about my feelings. I told her how much I like her, that my family likes her too, and that I am completely different from her past partner. I asked her to give us a chance.
She refused, saying she simply doesn't trust anyone right now, is overwhelmed by the ongoing divorce, and doesn't want to give me fake hopes only to hurt me later if she can't fulfill them.
The Recent Twist:
Since then, we've been on-and-off. But recently, she reached out and asked if her brother’s wife (her sister-in-law) could join my business as an employee. I said yes, and she started working with me recently.
My sister-in-law just dropped two major pieces of information:

1. The girl speaks incredibly highly of me to her family, and her brother respects me so much he said he’d work with me for free just to hang out.
2. However, the SIL also confided in me that the girl actively tells her family she does not want to get married to anyone right now. She keeps herself aggressively busy all the time just to run away from her past and avoid dealing with the trauma.
   My Questions for the Sub:
3. How do I interpret this behavior? In person, she wants pictures with me and is very warm, she sings my praises to her family, and she integrates her SIL into my business. Yet, on text she is cold, and she tells her family she won't marry anyone.
4. Should I ask her again? I want to ask her one more time if she is willing to give us a chance, but I am terrified a second rejection will make things incredibly awkward, especially now that her SIL works for me.
5. How do I navigate this? Is she keeping me at arm's length purely out of self-preservation until she heals? For those who married someone recovering from an abusive marriage, what is the best way to handle this without pushing them away?

26-27 saal tak apne hi ghar me akele raho, fir ek din gharwaale baddi umeedo se tumhare liye ek phool si ladki laate hai, par jaane anjaane me vo aisi bandi le aate hai jiski itni baddi duniya me tumhse kabhi nahi bannegi, itni bandi duniya me jis se tumhari kabhi nahi bannne waali thi vo tumhari asliyat ban jaati hai, pehle uske saath rehne ki aadat padti hai fir divorce k baad uss se akele rehne ki fir se aadat daalni padti hai… tum akele to rehte ho parr uski yaadein nahi jaati, kahi na kahi tumhara vo ek aisa hissa jo us se behadd pyaar karta tha apne saath le jaati hai jiske bina akela rehna bhi acha nahi lagta… Mahine saal beet jaate hai, par jo dil me dard hai vo reh jaata hai..

In a few more years i am turning close to the exact age my dad was when our family's entire trajectory changed.
We come from a very humble, poor village in Delhi that is sadly famous for rampant gambling and suicides. It's a place where the newer generation falls into a toxic cycle of selling off ancestral lands just to buy flashy cars, or losing their entire future overnight at the tables.
When my dad survived a massive heart attack at 32, it was a wake-up call. He made a silent vow that his family wouldn't go through the struggles of the generations before us. Four years later, in 2002 at the age of 36, he risked absolutely everything to build something that would last. He built a school.
But I want to be completely honest—it was not a fairy tale. The first 8 years were a nightmare. The school couldn't get officially recognized, we were barely surviving financially, and the crushing stress broke my dad for a while. He became an alcoholic, falling into the shadows of the very trap he was trying to save us from. I saw the absolute worst side of him during those years. But here is why I respect him: he didn't stay there. He accepted he was wrong, took accountability, fought his way back, and together, we dragged that school into the light.
Fast forward to today. From those stressful beginnings, we’ve grown to an 8th-grade middle school with nearly 600 students. Between our monthly fee collections (~₹78 Lakhs annually), a yearly annual charge collected in September (₹12 Lakhs), and a yearly lump-sum government reimbursement for our special category students (₹52 Lakhs) this year, the school generates about ₹1.4+ Crore annually. Because educational institutions do not pay income tax or GST, and we run a very tight ship, about 55% of our total revenue is pure savings every year after every single school, staff, and personal household expense is paid. We still live below our means and only have one single EMI for our family car.
The most important thing my dad built wasn't the cash flow; it was the mindset. Out of our extended family, it’s just me and a few older cousins who managed to escape that village trap. Because of the foundation my dad laid—and the hell we walked through to secure it—I am now in a position where I can start building a ladder for them to get to where I am. We rise together.

I wanted to share this because sometimes you forget to step back and look at the bigger picture. This is what decades of relentless hard work, flawed human struggle, redemption, and a father's ultimate promise looks like.