5 years long distance, planning to be together

[RVC1003]

Hi,

I've been thinking about posting this for a while. I have been in a long distance relationship with a woman from Bangladesh for approx. 5 years now. We are both 25 years old, we met online and talk to each other every day. Last year I met her in person in Bangladesh and stayed for one week during their Eid holidays. I know that's not a long time; I returned to the UK after that to attend my graduation ceremony.

We talk to each other every day so we have shared hundreds of thousands of messages between us. That includes everything from day to day conversation, motivating each other, discussing our relationship to what we dreamt about last night and other random topics. If we ever present this as evidence could we extract one day from each month we've known each other, assuming that's not still too much when printed on paper?

We would like to eventually get married and live together. I'm a British citizen with a job here earning 25k (outside of London). We want to come up with a realistic plan to do this so I'm posting here for a reality check. I have looked at plenty of immigration statistics and forum posts but I haven't been able to get a clear idea of what to expect in our situation.

The following is our current plan:

We want to both go to Thailand this year to spend more time together, for about 2-3 weeks. We will be able to take more pictures together which might help (I suppose), it should be a good time anyway. I'm limited by the amount of leave I can take from work.

Next year she will apply for a visitor visa in the UK. She will pick up a call centre job (alongside her independent studies) when she gets back from Thailand as it's convenient and hopefully provides proof of economic ties that would otherwise be lacking. In the UK she would stay with me for about 3 weeks during which I'll also take leave from work. She can meet my family as I've met hers, and will return to Bangladesh when I have to go back to work. I will sponsor the trip completely; I have a 2-bedroom apartment which I'm renting privately. If the visitor visa is rejected I suppose I will see her somewhere else.

The year after this we would like to apply for the appropriate visa to get married in the UK.

In terms of evidence for the visa we have those extracts of our long messaging history, video call logs, photos together from holiday trips, small gifts, plane tickets, screenshots from social media, possibly letters from family.

My worry is that all visas for her to the UK will be against the odds, considering we haven't lived together for any period of time. Is our plan realistic? If not, should we be considering an alternative (like a job with a NGO or moving to a third country) while there's time to make adjustments?

Thank you,

RN