Oh Lordy. My DH "accidentally" proposed to the BM. He doesn't even remember what he said, but she took it as a marriage proposal and there he was, too stupid to stop the trainwreck.

well will ya....I JUST DIED!!! LOLOL

I have a very similar story. DH - who is an eternal optimist and passive, people-pleaser by nature - hit his early 20s. MIL - who has always been a nag and has told DH how much of a disapointment he is almost since birth - told DH that he better hurry up and get married because he does not want to end up like his bachelor uncle. Then sadly, DH's father was killed in a car accident. DH was naturally grief-stricken and decides that he needs a relationship to make his pain go away. He meets BM through a personal ad (seriously?!). He is repulsed by her physically, but yet, still continues dating her and with MIL's warning about ending up sad, unhappy, and alone, and his desire to heal his grief, he decides at 25 that the time is right to marry. This is despite protests from his best friend - who lived with him for 5 years  and was like a brother to him - that he is making a terrible mistake because BM is not nice to him. Even on his wedding day, this friend said to him (in all seriousness, not in a joking way), "she hasn't walked down the aisle, yet, you can still walk away." DH told me that he seriously contemplated divorce less than 2 years into his marriage to BM, but his eternal optimism and misplaced sense of loyalty led him to stay in the marriage and then 3 years later to have children in the hopes that children would "fix" their relationship (has that ever worked?!). Six years after the children were born, BM meets a new man and files for divorce. DH tries to fight her on the divorce because again he is loyal and also he believes that married parents (even miserable married parents) are better than unmarried parents. This again is largely due to MIL who told DH that the day he told her he was getting a divorce was "the worst day of her life" (worse, MIL, than when your husband was killed in a car crash?!) and DH has "brought great shame upon the family" (no, they are not Catholic and MIL's beloved brother has been married three times). It was only after a full year of therapy, with the counselor who initially saw both DH and BM and told DH "divorce will be good for you, because she's abusive" (leading BM to storm out and never go back), that DH realized that BM's treatment of him was not okay and not normal. He still lived in the fog of putting up with it until I came along and put my foot down and told him that I wasn't going to be in a relationship with a man, who was so beholden to a crazy ex wife. 

Now being in this situation and having read extensively on the subject out of sadness for my own lot in having to deal with HCBM and dysfunctional MIL and also out of a morbid fascination, I have decided that there is a clear type of man who ends up in these situations. He is usually passive, easy-going, and has a domineering mother. Perhaps, the domineering mother is the most important trait, because this hapless man doesn't realize that the behavior exhibited by BM is not normal and he should not be expected to put up with it. 

My thought was thank God he told you about the dress making you look pregnant. Can you imagine the tongues wagging ?   Brutal honesty is preferable to me also.  No wondering about thI he. 

I'm sure there is a moment in all our lives where one decision changed our whole lives.   And sadly I knew I was making a mistake marrying XH.   I just remember a week before the wedding thinking to myself that I was settling.  Sadly my parents were never ones to push their kids to ever leave the small town we were in.  I wanted to leave so bad but didn't have the guts until much later in life.  
 

Dh, however, had the perfect chance to get out and didn't take it.   I don't know too many details because DH is very vague about it but I do know a bit.   He and BM met over sports.  Both athletic and loved basketball.  BM was a very unattractive tomboy and DH wasn't really a looker back then either.  They dated for at least a year before they got married.   Then about a month or so into the marriage something big happens and they separate for a few months.   Dh starts dating and BM begs him to come back.   The only thing DH would imply about that time was that BM was a spoiled brat and he sent her packing back home to mommy and daddy.   Sadly he let her return after a few months.   He probably needed his laundry or dishes done.  Haha   Too bad he didn't stick with it!

Oh my!!!

my MIL actually apologized to my DH last year....MIL basically forced the marriage to BM. They had been dating for like 8 years and DH didn't want to marry her.....BM and MIL teamed up on him and he proposed.

DH said that whole week and day of the wedding he was wanting to call it off but just couldn't.

So BM and DH we're together for a total of almost 25 years......MIL told him how sorry she was and that she never should have forced his hand.

DH stupidly knocked up BM before he knew her well, you know, the old "birth control fail."  He stayed with her because he swears she was not crazy then. (Even though he found out when she was 7 months pregnant that she was still married to someone else, not sure how that didn't register as crazy). She got a quick divorce.  She was then pressuring him to get married, and he finally succumbed when SS was around 3. Shortly thereafter, everything started going downhill and she was having affairs before they'd been married 3 years.

Toxic women move fast, secure their partner, and then lose interest.

My DH really made some stupid mistakes and was a bachelor for a very long time. He really had his stuff together which really baffles me that he fell for BM...I've asked him many times How in WORLD did he end up with her. But DH was a wild child, still is to some degree. But definitely more manageable and responsible now.

He met BM and thought she was really cute, they had a few mutual friends. They dated for what sounds like 2 months and according to him, he then realized she was "crazy" and broke it off with her. Didn't call her, didn't return any of her messages and in his mind she was history. Some time went by, not sure how long...So he's out one night with friends at a bar and she's there. They chat, one thing leads to another and they wind up in bed. Yes, alcohol was involved (not a shocker). So he has his "one night stand" and goes on with life. She shows up a couple months later with a positve pregnancy test, at his work. He went bananas from the sounds of it and really showed his ass. He had no relationship with BM whatsoever. She literally popped up out of nowhere. DH said she told him she was on BC and he was the dumbass who didn't use a condom. For the last 19 years BM has made his life a living hell.

And thats the short story...

DH and Meth Mouth we're dating when he moved out of state for work.  The relationship should have dried up but Meth Mouth mysteriously gets pregnant and it's DHs or so she claims.  DH did the right thing and married the hag.  She likes to pretend the baby was born early but they were married and four months later here comes Spawn.  DH still swears she had the baby early....sure sure. 
 

At the time he met Toxic Troll, he was into some bad things, and so was Toxic Troll. Thats what happens when your living the rock star lifestyle and doing crazy things, you hookup with someone crazy. He sais that she pursued him when she was living with another guy (see my blogs, hes knife guy) and he was living in his mother's garage.

He swears the first 15 years were good. But then I hear stories of her insane jealousy and her digging her nails into his neck, her alcoholism and throwing things and being destructive. I think hes the optimistic, rosy glassed, wanting to see the good in everyone, make everyone happy and avoid confrontation guy.

They had 2 children, unmarried and he said that Toxic Trolls father pressured him to marry her so they married once at the courthouse and had a ceremony at his sisters house. He told me that it was stressful for him, everyone got really drunk and they argued.

It seems Beaver and Toxic Troll set their sights on their men and chase them and then want to control them, even after divorce. Troll still acts like they are still married and asks him to do things for her...not related to kiddos.

DH's friend set him up with his trailer park neighbor (BM). 3 months into dating she gets pregnant (the birth control failure line - the pill is as reliable as the mouth it goes in). About 6 months into dating he weds her and in the same month buys a house for them to live in.  MIL gets upset anytime DH says he married her out of obligation instead of love.  

Speaking of gullible men. DH believes pregnancy tests work the day after conception and refuses to tell me who told him that.