contacts always disappear 5 seconds after adding them

When I add a new contact in the contacts app on my Mac, they stay for a few seconds, then disappear. They never make it to my phone. There is no error message or similar.

it used to work, and I haven't changed anything.

I have an iCloud account, but I don't use it for anything other than photo backup, and my Apple ID is not an apple email address (its just a catch all forwarder on a domain I own).

As I use PCs and also need contacts to sync to outlook on PC and Mac and iPhone, I have all my 2000+ contacts in my hotmail account (I tried using gmail as the host, but this would not sync correct to all devices and applications). I don't want to use iCloud as tomorrow I may be back to PC/outlook environment depending on if I need to develop for the Microsoft platform or the client requires it.

It's quite difficult being a freelancer without any ability to add contacts to Mac or iPhone. Currently I have to keep contacts in a spreadsheet in google sheets, and cut and paste phone numbers and email addresses. Its like going back to file o fax days.