PHD said something interesting yesterday, they have just bought a car together which she hopes the powers that be in Australia will see they are a real couple.
That's a bit odd. I've had two friends fall in love with someone from America online. One moved out there, the other bought his girlfriend here. Both were very easily able to prove their relationships were real quite easily. A lot of faffing around to get stuff done, but their relationships were easily proved to the powers that be to be real. In both cases they had to get married quite quickly, but it's all worked out perfectly, which is lovely.
In both cases they had lots of evidence, hours of messages per day for a couple of years, you can't fake it. As you can imagine, a couple in love that are divided by a vast distance and time zones spend a lot of time messaging each other. The rules are strict, but as long as you meet the financial criteria, proving the relationship is real is pretty easy, as long as the relationship is real.