Problems with relationship to girlfriend abroad

About a year ago, out of the blue and unexpectedly I met a girl from the Philippines on the Internet. And NO – it was not on a dating site :-) The girl is about 10 years younger than I am and she has three kids from a previous marriage and at that time, she lived together with her mother. In the beginning we chatted together often in the Internet – we fell in love and I visited her the first time in the Philippines in the end of 2012. I´m living in Northern Europe. When I visited her the first time, I had no doubt that she really loved me and we spent a good time together and had some very deep conversations about life, our families and our past. When I visited her the first time we both stayed in a hotel but she had moved away to live at her friend’s house. Her kids still lived with her mother. When I met her in the Internet, she had just lost her job and had no real income. I was really in love with her and suggested to her that I would support her financially. Before that, she never mentioned or asked for money from me. I have heard many stories about girls from Asia (Thailand, Philippines etc.) just pretending they are in love and “scamming” foreigners to get their money. Somehow, I have always had this thought on my mind but like I said it was my own suggestion that I wanted to support her financially. Shortly after I went home from the first visit, I had some arguments with her – because I felt she was using too much money. It turned out she was paying for food, internet etc. at her friend’s house – meaning also paying for food for her friend, the friends husband and their kids as well as probably for some neighbors too sometimes. When I visit her and her friends, it seemed like it was almost expected that I paid for the food and drinks for everybody there because I was “the rich foreigner”. I know people there are very poor but somehow I found it a bit disrespectful to me because my financial resources are not unlimited. However, I just guess people there look different at money things and think all foreigners are rich. After our “incident” I almost broke up our relationship and I told her I did NOT want to support the whole neighborhood too. Afterwards I have been thinking that she paid no rent to stay there so maybe it was OK that she paid for some of her friends’ expenses. She then moved away to live on her own – away from her friend. In the following months, we still had some arguments about finances because I still felt she spent too much. She then decided to take some courses so it would be easier for her to find a job and try to support herself. My second visit to her in the Philippines was this spring where we again stayed together for 10 days and lived in a hotel. Once again, I paid for all her food and drinks and when visiting her friends I paid everything for them too – even when we went to the cinema and to different amusement parks etc. etc. When I visited her the second time, I still felt she loved me but I also felt she had changed, compared to when I visited her the first time. It was as if she was not the same person. When I got home from my vacation, I wrote her a long message and asked her what I am to her and if her feelings for me had changed. She told me her feelings for me had not changed and that she still loved me. She was sorry that she had not been the same person as the first time when I visited her but the reason why she was “different”was that she had personal problems with her family and she did not want those problems to become my problems. That was why she had not told me anything about the problems when I was there. Shortly after I returned home to Europe, she told me, she found a job and she could start working soon. We were both happy. However, the happiness did not last long. She was involved in a traffic accident and had to stay for more than a week in the hospital due to an injury on her feet. She had no health insurance so I had to pay for her stay at the hospital, which was very expensive. When she left hospital her coming boss called her and told her, they found another employee because they could not wait for her to get well. Once more, no income. After some time she found a new job, (low income but better than nothing). This job was time limited so she only had this work for about a month. After that once again she was lucky and found a new job where she could get a contract for 6 months. Once more bad luck struck her and she had to go to hospital to get an operation. Once more, I had to pay. In addition, this time it was even more expensive because she had to get the operation and stay for about 10 days in the hospital. When she left hospital, she got the same depressive message from her new boss. They could not wait for her to get well and had found another employee. In the meantime, also her daughter had problems and was bitten by a dog twice. She had to get a series of injections against rabies. Those injections were VERY expensive – and guess who had to pay. This is where we are now. She once again has no job and sometimes I just feel like our relationship only consists of me sending her money and acting like an ATM machine who sends her money when she needs help. But how can I not help her when she or her kids are sick? The problem for me now is just that I´m experiencing problems to make ends meet and I don´t know when she will have an income again. Furthermore – from time to time – I still find it a bit difficult to find out what I am to her. Our conversations when we chat on the Internet are not the same as in the beginning when we were deeply in love. I just feel something has changed, but she still tells me that she still loves me. Do I still love her? Some days YES – other days I just feel like I want to end the relationship. Why? Because some days I really don´t know if she still loves me. She says she still does and that her feelings have not changed. Furthermore, I´m tired that each month I am sending a large part of my salary to support her and giving me problems to make ends meet. To be honest (and I´m embarrassed to say it) I am also tired of all her problems and that our relationship seems to be nothing like problems. Furthermore, sometimes I just feel we are too different. Moreover, what about our future? After visiting the Philippines twice, I really cannot imagine to live there. I don’t really like the people there. I don’t think I would be able to settle there. When it comes to living in my country that is a problem too. The immigration rules here are VERY strict and that would require us to get married – but I don’t want to marry her without living together with her first. In addition, what about her kids? I don’t think they would like to live in my country and to say goodbye to school and friends in the Philippines. They would not feel well here. Some days I feel really sorry for her that she seems to have bad luck all the time but on the other hand I don’t want to go bankrupt just because I have to support her. I feel sorry for her because she has many problems with her family and she is trying hard to keep the family together. When we fell in love and our love was new, I really wanted to live with her and her kids and I even planned to move to the Philippines. But right now I don’t feel like doing that to be honest. In addition, I am afraid to break up with her. She once told me that if I leave her she would rather be dead or in jail because then her life would make no sense. That scares me a lot. If I break up our relationship, she will go back to living in poverty with big trouble making ends meet too. Right now I just don´t know what to do. Some nights I have trouble sleeping and all this really affects my mood and my life and makes me sad. I hope you can give me some inputs on what to do. Thank you.

best thing now is think things through objectively. think like a school counsellor. help her find a job. tell her that her reliance on you is unfair to you as well. but of course, don't leave her in the ditch, be a gentleman and see that she's well settled eg. a stable job and some insurance if possible. i'm sure you can try to do that. it might take some time but make a goal to get things done and don't worry so much! also, be sure to choose your girl more wisely next time, and just to say internet dating isn't a bad thing

Thank you so much for your reply. Yeah I know - story of my life - I always think too much and worry too much :-) You are right - internet dating is not necessarily a bad thing. The reason why i mentioned that I did NOT meet her on a dating site is that most people reading my post would probably consider her a \"scammer\" from the beginning, and she is not. You are also right about the objectivity. The problem for me is just that all those things and thoughts are always on my mind and always \"flying through my head\" so it is not always easy to look at it objectively and keep a cool head. I guess I just have to wait like you say - and hope her bad luck will end soon. About chosing the right girl: That is not always easy once you fall deeply in love with someone :-) But looking back I should probably have thought through the things more objectively. Having a partner with no job, with 3 kids, who´s living on the other side of the world is not always easy. I should have thought more about that