One of a MILLION stories I've heard - SAME STORY, DIFFERENT WOMAN and it always ends the exact same every single time. The men turn their back on the woman and never look back.
Sorry for this brutal honesty but, yes, they start relationships with non locals because they will sleep with them while the local woman will not. I mean, where are you going to be with him intimately? Does he take you to some private apartment or a hotel? Qatari men are absolutely allowed to marry non-Qataris. There is a process for it. If he's not marrying you, it's because he doesn't want to marry you. If he keeps telling you that his family doesn't agree......most likely he's never even mentioned you to them and it's his way to string you along thinking that it will be some fairy tale that he went against his family to marry you because he couldn't live without you. He most likely won't if he hasn't by now. It is true that Qataris have married foreign women, but if a Muslim man has been sleeping with you for the last year and a half, there is no way he's going to marry you. Sorry for this, but that's just how it is. I always feel so bad for those women I see dating the locals. Those men are just getting something for free because you allow them to. Think about this - how much does the Qatari man have to go through to marry a Qatari woman! He has to go to her family, her father and brothers, get their approval, get her to accept, pay for this huge, extravagant wedding and go through SO much just to take this woman as his wife. Why are you giving yourself to him for nothing. That Qatari woman knows she's special and he treats her that way. That's why in Islam we don't have intimate relations before marriage and that's why we cover ourselves. . .this man is disrespecting you by being with you. You are better than that.