Hi all
My first post here after browsing for a while. I've read some of the relationship threads with interest as I try to work out if my relationship with a Filipina has the future that I hope it does. I've taken quite a bit from the discussions here, but I thought my best bet might be to describe my own situation and get an outsider's perspective on whether I'm a complete idiot or not.
Okay, so the background. I met my girlfriend through an online dating site about 4 months ago as I was planning a short trip to the Philippines. We had some great conversations and began spending hours every day chatting right up to when I arrived there 6 weeks ago. I was only there for a week and we spent every available moment together and the feelings that I'd already started to develop grew into something much more real once we'd had that face to face time. By the time I left, I was in love and it seemed she was too. We were saying the words and officially became boyfriend/girlfriend (just ask facebook).
When I got home, we chatted even more on yahoo and began making plans for her to visit me. She had been employed right up to the time I arrived, but quit her job so that she could spend the week with me. She's from a poor family but as the youngest daughter, she was supported through university and received a degree, although she hadn't found work in her field and had been employed in a call centre.
I'm not a wealthy guy. I'm a single father of two girls and live frugally in order to save the money to travel at least once a year. But I am obviously in a better financial position than her, and I began sending money so that she could begin putting together a visa application. So far, I've sent a lot more than the actual cost of the visa as there were always new expenses that I hadn't anticipated. She needed to have some teeth extracted, for example, and obviously I hated the thought of her in pain, so I sent money for that. Then her sister borrowed some of her money and didn't repay it, so I had to send some more. Although it was stretching me financially, I was fine with that. I just wanted to get her over here.
During this time, she began working through an online employment site, doing data entry etc. She was offered employment by a businessman who wanted to contribute to some Filipino charities and needed an assistant to act as a go between. The job sounded a little fishy to me from the beginning, but she needed the money, so I didn't make an issue of it when the guy wanted to meet her for dinner to discuss the job. Privately, I was thinking that this guy had seen her profile picture on the website and fancied her, so he was basically inventing a job for her as an excuse to get to know her. When she came back from the dinner, she told me that the guy was really nice, reminded her of me and had been very flattering. They met several times over the next few days and she told me that he was taking a romantic interest in her. She said she'd just do the job for him and then that would be it, knowing that I was uncomfortable with a wealthy businessman courting my girlfriend while I was all the way over here.
But as time went on, they remained in contact, chatting on yahoo often and exchanging text messages. I know this because she was telling me about it, and that fact made me try to rein in my jealousy. If she was planning to cheat she wouldn't tell me any of that. But still, I was concerned that they would continue getting to know each other better and that he might steal her from me. Yes, I realise that seems very insecure. But from my point of view, the job had been completed and now she was simply socializing with a man who had obvious intentions, despite the fact that she is in a relationship with me. I asked her to stop seeing him and eventually she said she understood and agreed to do so.
The guy continued to contact her and invite her places, including on a trip with him to Hong Kong. She declined, but when he asked her to accompany him to dinner again while he met with his godchild (that he apparently sponsors), she told me she would go. I wasn't happy about it and eventually she said she wouldn't. The next day, she lodged the visa application and texted me afterwards saying that she was really exhausted and was going to go straight home and sleep. We chat every night, so I thought it a little odd that she wouldn't want to get online and at least briefly talk about what had happened with the visa. I texted back and asked her to just get on for 15 minutes before resting. No reply.
About an hour later, while she should have still been on her way home from the embassy, I called her phone and she didn't pick up. Over the next few hours, I called and texted several more times. By this time, I was starting to suspect that she'd decided to meet this guy after all. I guess my texts made it clear what I was suspecting even though I didn't make accusations (more along the lines of simple "where are you?" and "what's going on?"). Still no response until eventually, her phone stopped ringing and I was unable to connect at all.
I had convinced myself by that point that she was with him. I didn't expect that she was cheating, but the fact that she'd lied about not seeing him and then made a lame excuse and gone anyway...I was upset. But as the hours ticked by without word from her, I began to feel genuinely worried that something had happened to her. By the next day, i could see only two possibilities: she'd been in an accident and was dead or in hospital, or she'd stayed with the guy all night.
She finally contacted me at around midday Philippines time the next day, saying she was sick and had come straight home, taken some medication and passed out for 14 hours. I was relieved that she was okay, but I'm not buying the story. At best, she went out and met him, got home late and slept until midday. At worst, she spent the night with him. I don't want to believe the worst because why would she be so open and honest about the guy if she had any intention of sleeping with him? But then, I'm still upset if she saw him at all because it means she completely disregarded my feelings and lied to me.
We still haven't spoken properly today, just a few text messages in which she's let me know that she didn't appreciate the tone of my early messages (in which I clearly suspected she'd lied). She's mad at me apparently, even though I'm the one who had a sleepless night wondering if she was dead, injured or screwing some other guy.
Sorry about the length of this post but I wanted to get it all off my chest. There's still some things I could continue babbling about, but based on the information above, am I being paranoid and possessive or is it likely that I am being deceived and used?
