I'd say the most valid reason he has brought her up (and I'm assuming she is real, just that he's likely severely overstating the relationship) is to like you said, provide validation to himself and his fans for why he needs to keep the house.
An interesting point is that Phil so far hasn't given a figure on what it'd take to pay off da tax man. There was a post (which was probably deleted as I can't find it) on Phil's forums openly speculating that if the figure were 10k it'd show his income was like $100k USD a year or greater.
Call me suspicious, but all this tax shit comes up, and Phil's "stretch goal" is only eight hundred dollareedoos above his normal goal?
It could be possible that Phil spieled about this whole 'emergency saga' and then once he saw that post realized that people would be able to figure out how much money he's thrown down the drain over the past 4 years based upon any fixed goal that he set. Especially when he's taken fire recently for talking about possible CT condo income being "only $500-800 tops".
Phil now looks like he's trying to play the emergency as smart as possible by not actually mentioning any financial figures. Based upon him clearing up somewhere in the region of $500 a month on stupid bills (phone/cable tv) etc, we can logically assume that he's been living fairly comfortably however still has a huge amount of debt looming on his day to day existence.
I can see that its easy for him to live comfortable in the now, but he surely knows that actually repaying this debt is nigh on impossible and he's only ever going to be able to stave off the creditors just long enough to make the next payment (and the payment after that). In terms of actually changing up his shit, moving/selling/whatever it's probably never going to happen.
If he were doing a gofundme or similar, this would be the point where people should logically ask for proof of his finances, but as he isn't pushed by anyone, that'll likely never happen.
Getting a dollar amount out of him for what his backtax amounts are would provide the most concrete evidence of what his income is/has been, and because of that he's probably going to keep his mouth shut.
