You might be right. Seems like they've been encouraging and happy how well-rounded she is as far as having a balance between western culture and their religion but never acknowledging dating within their home and just hoping/expecting her to find someone within their community (she wouldn't be interest in the shy fobby types and the chadjeet cheated on her) left her torn and confused.

I'm all for people embracing and holding onto their culture but when you're a minority population I think you gotta release your kids from the burden of unrealistic expectations of your life that make YOU happy and not necessarily them.

From our eyes it seems simple. But from her parents perspective and culture we live wrong. I live in a very Indian area and have dated a lot of them. I’d say in the 20 range... they are not all the same but at the end of the day it’s typical they fall back on what their parents want. Many do marry outside and that’s becoming more common but it does depend on the parents and sometimes even more the grandparents.... they care about what the community thinks and if you’re a white guy you better be something special. The chadjeets all cheat and it blows my mind what attraction there could be.

The younger Indian girls can be smoking hot though but they don’t age well at all... show me a hot 50 year old Indian woman. Getting off topic here.

Also off track but this culture lies a lot... they lie to their parents all their lives and I have been lied to. To me this was the biggest issue for me dating Indian girls. Just my thoughts.

Wow....OP, I'm not trying to hate, but it's very clear you are completely ignorant about her culture, and how families within those cultures operate, what the expectations are, and what virtues are important to them.

If doesn't matter if you are the most charming MF'er on earth, and every girls parents like you - hers will NEVER approve of you. "Never ever?" "Yes, never ever ever".

You are white, atheist, divorced, have a child, not of their culture, not of their religion.

The fact that you are even considering this girl as the type you would consider getting serious with after saying you were only staying together due to convenance during COVID should send up all kinds of red flags (co-dependent?) it should also call into question your judgement with regard to relationships after already having a failed marriage.

This is a summary of what you are talking about....in case you didn't know[ul]

Marrying into a family in which the in-laws will never accept you

Putting your wife in a terrible situation which will cause damage to her family relationships

Marrying into a family & culture which you clearly do not understand, or have chosen not to educate yourself about regarding the cultural differences / expectations / values

Considering bringing a kid into that situation

Not having a conversation in advance about how the child would be raised - which culture, which religion, which values?

What happens when the in-laws object to your values or the raising of the child? What happens when you object to theirs? How will you manage this? Your wife will be stuck in the middle - what's the solution?

[/ul]
Find someone who shares your values man, this clearly isn't going to be good for either of you, and it's for sure not going to be good for a future child.

To inject a little of the Misc into this: This sounds like something a tradie would do

Some extreme assumptions/judgments in there that probably aren't correct or as black and white as you think but also some good points made that I do need to consider.

strong this.

can only assume like you said thy're so used to lying from an early age to please their parents, not just in regard to relationships.
parents of such backgrounds tend to be extra judgmental of anything their child does, so they have virtually no free reign unless they're particularly assertive.

but this happens from such an early age that they're almost conditioned to believe lying is better than putting their foot down. It's sad in a sense because it isn't their fault, but we deal with the result of that.

Above is sort of what I was getting at. A brown girl I was dating lied to me a lot and I finally asked “why do you lie so much, what causes you to do this?” We had a good conversation about it and she said “we grow up lying to our parents, grand parents, friends, brothers”. She said it just becomes easier... this was the last time I dated a brown girl seriously because it caused some damage.

I totally hear you man. I've been lied to a lot as well. Their rationale does make sense but also doesn't really excuse them from not having a filter of who to lie to. Once they realise not everyone is gonna judge them, that logic goes out the window.

It's also quite commendable the girl in question was able to have that honest conversation with you, given the nature of the topic you were discussing. Surprised she didn't just double down and lie more.

No one really wants to be seen as a liar let alone known as one.

Appreciate the discussion.

I don't think she has to outright lie much because she told them if she was going to move back home then she did not want to have to explain where she was/who she was with/why she didn't sleep at home/etc all the time to them given she's an adult in her late 20s, hence the "don't ask don't tell" policy.

There are many issues here that may cause this not to work, including maybe me deciding I don't want to pursue another marriage+kids.
From the perspective of the cultural differences, her parents, my child, etc, there have been a few things brought to my attention in this thread I will be thinking about and potentially addressing with her.

Yes I have been divorced and made a bad judgement call to take that relationship as far as I did but I'm supremely confident with the experiences/observations/maturing I've done since then that I won't make another poor judgement call when it comes to the character of any woman I date seriously. Lots of potential issues and obstacles I'd have in a serious relationship with this girl (which have been mentioned throughout this thread) and I/we may very well bail on it before it gets to that point but she is, in my opinion and the opinion of some of my close friends who have gotten to know her, "wife material" w/ no residual baggage or w/e from past relationships which I know can be a rare find these days.

I think you need to weigh out everything that has been discussed in this thread. I would be concerned about never really being welcomed into her family and more so your son... what does a family gathering look like to you.

She’s probably an attractive girl, smart, funny and people like her but can you connect with her and be on the same level relationship-wise. She may just not be able to give you what you want despite not having the baggage you mentioned. Sometimes I think baggage makes people who they are. Your baggage has put you in a mindset of knowing what you want and don’t want. Just an example.

100% on both the topics of what's best for me/my son and the baggage part.

With me living alone and not having her involved in my son's life, I'm able to have my son spend a ton of time with my family and I at the moment when I have him as they know they can come over whenever they want and there'd be some compromising that'd have to be done if we got more serious.

While she doesn't outright say it and understands my experiences made me who I am, I can sense the "if you didn't have a kid this would be much more straightforward and you would be pretty much perfect for me" attitude sometimes but I know for a fact my experiences w/ my divorce and being a father played a major part of becoming this version of myself that makes me "a catch."

Will rep once I can fyi.

there's always the argument if you were xyz then this would be perfect. im sure you could find things in her which in an ideal world you'd change to suit your favour.
but our differences make us human, and in healthy individuals we can see past this - to form a compromise, and learn from one another, to grow and improve more ourselves. find someone who realises that

I was going to say something like this also... she thinks you’re perfect but... well that but is a part of you and your son isn’t some huge screw up in your life. You always preach acceptance in your posts but this time seem to feel you don’t deserve acceptance...

Well said and all very true.
She is of course self-aware of the fact that implying/thinking that way is not realistic/productive/fair/etc and we've talked about how it's her that'd have to make more adjustments to have to adapt to my life than the other way around if things got serious but perhaps she should've never gotten into a situation where she is compromising so many things she doesn't really want to for the sake of trying to make a relationship work.It's not that I don't think I deserve acceptance, I know I do, I was just very understanding and patient at the beginning when there were hiccups moving forward due to my situation but after ~8 months of that I started to feel differently due to the excessive amount of time it was taking.
I don't want to be with someone who normally wouldn't be open to my situation but wants to make an exception for me. I want someone (& their family if they are going to be a big part of my life) who is going to be welcoming from the get go.

Not sure if you answered all of this for yourself with the above response. I think you have to ask yourself if it’s realistic to have this with her and her family.