Living Happily Ever After
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Something Unexpectedly Familiar

Date: September 5, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I decided it was time for Bachelor #5 to meet my sister.

It was a quick first meeting. We went to her faculty art show at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. Her husband, who had planned just to meet Bachelor #5 and let us go to the show without him while he stayed home to keep an eye on their children, actually liked him enough to join us at the show!

As we left the art show to return to our families, I asked Bachelor #5 what he thought of my sister. He said, “I liked her. But there is something so familiar about her. I know I’ve met her before, I’m just trying to figure out where.”

Something weird was going on. When my kids met Bachelor #5, the older ones emphasized how familiar he was, that they’d seen him before and just couldn’t remember where…and now he was telling me the same thing about my sister!

My sister liked him too. She said, “Well, he is certainly nice looking! You didn’t tell me how nice looking he is–you just told me he was old! And I REALLY like him. He seems very ‘real.’ A down-to-earth, nice, genuine man.”

Later she asked, “Don’t you think there is something familiar about him?”

“Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.” (Alfred North Whitehead)

Hmm…

How Do You Get Past…The Past?

Date: September 4, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

But I still couldn’t think about love and marriage. I couldn’t begin to process what I thought I might feel, so I just continued to observe.

It was the “laid back” approach I so excel at (the ability to ignore), although, “Too laid back is to be laid out” at times! Here’s what I saw:

Bachelor #5 offered to tend my younger sons so my daughter and I could do something special. When I returned late at night to pick the boys up, Bachelor #5 greeted me calmly at the door with a smile. He had laundry going, he had baked cookies, my middle son was running around playing and was as happy as he could be and my youngest had contentedly fallen asleep. When he woke up the next morning, my youngest son wanted only one thing: Bachelor #5.

Bachelor #5 had all 8 children (he has four, I have four) and their guests to his home for dinner so they could meet. He prepared the entire meal himself, for 14, while tending his granddaughter, my two youngest children and keeping an eye on his youngest son and his friends. I couldn’t believe it when I walked in the door for dinner; the kids were happily playing, he had everything under control, the meal was ready, and he was calm.

The question for me was, could Bachelor #5 REALLY be everything he seemed to be?

I consulted a trusted friend who always had a wise perspective and had given solid counsel many times in the past. She had some great thoughts and advice.

I consulted my sister. She said (more than once), “Andrea, you need to open your eyes and LOOK at this man. He is everything you need. He is everything you’ve ever wanted and you won’t let yourself see it. Marry him or not, but you HAVE to give him credit for being who HE is.” She told me to quit punishing him for the behavior of my former spouse.

She explained, “I think you are afraid, and I don’t blame you. I’ve been so worried about you, afraid you’d never dare love or trust anyone ever again after all you’ve been through. I’m so relieved that you seem to be open to attempting that. But you can’t hold what your first husband did against this man. I think you thought your first husband was so many things, and then he turned out to be none of them, so you won’t even let yourself see what THIS man actually IS.”

I struggled with that, yet I knew my sister was right. I tried to give Bachelor #5 credit for all he appeared to be, but it was not easy.

I didn’t really trust my opinion. Every person I introduced him to received the same plea from me, “Tell me honestly what you think. I HAVE to be missing something. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me what terrible thing–fault, flaw, lie, problem–am I not seeing?” (You see, I had missed lies and flaws of epic proportions in my first husband and was terrified to be so blind, and not see such important things that would lead to making that same mistake, again.)

But how do you get past something like that? How do you get past…the past?

“Fed” By A Daughter

Date: September 3, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I’ve said it before: I absolutely did not feel any pressure. Bachelor #5 told me not to, so I didn’t. I simply wasn’t ready to think much about anything, especially something of THAT magnitude. However, I couldn’t help but notice some things.

Bachelor #5 took the time to chat with my kids every time he came to pick me up. They really liked him. Even my teenagers would stop what they were doing to talk to him and hang out with him and they didn’t do that with anyone! In those moments, I felt like our family was complete again. And then a thought would jolt me and I’d realize, “No, this is just a man I’m dating who is talking to my kids.” However, it sure felt like something else. But I pushed those thoughts out of my mind.

He went to Hawaii with his sons for one week. And I, the independent single mother of four who had weathered some pretty difficult storms of an unexpected life, felt a void like I can’t describe while he was gone. I attempted to occupy myself with other things (and other men) in his absence, but nothing helped. It was one of the longest weeks of my life. THAT was unexpected. But I didn’t let myself think about that, either.

Then he had my children and I over to his home for a “family night,” stories, games and dessert, one evening. He had separate activities for my younger children and my older teens, and spent one-on-one time with each. He was fun, a great host, and I smiled inside as I intentionally sat there and watched him do it all: keep a busy four-year-old occupied and happy, make a 10-year-old smile and feel important, delight a teenage girl and relate to her (I think he even sang a song for her), and make a teenage boy laugh and stay entertained… while at the same time managing to cook dessert for all of us as he composed a poem about toenail clippings and sausages using 8 words from 8 different foreign languages in minutes. (It was part of a game we were playing. I about fell off my chair when I saw that not only did he instantly and easily know as many words as he needed for the poem, he wrote an amazing and hilarious poem that made us all laugh.)

As I observed him doing all of the above that night, I couldn’t stop my thoughts. I even remember where I was sitting when they came. “Andrea, this feels like you are ‘home.’ It is more than comfortable. It doesn’t feel like you are with a man you’re dating, it feels the way marriage felt; like you are with your family and your family is whole and complete again. You like this man most when you’re alone with him, or when you’re in his home or your home, with the children.”

But I still didn’t get it. (Or let myself get it.) I thought I had to be imagining those feelings. They couldn’t be real, could they? But as I looked around at my children, smiling and laughing, no trace of devastation, sorrow or sadness in their eyes, I wasn’t so sure.

As we left to go home, walking toward the car, my daughter and I were alone and she looked at me and said, “You love him.”

WHAT?

Of course I didn’t!

I immediately launched into what had become my standard explanation and description, “No, he is just a nice older man…blah, blah, blah,” and she shook her head at me in total disbelief. Probably wondering, “Is my mom REALLY that dense?” She gave me a list of evidences and I denied them all, but she moved ahead and walked away, absolutely not believing me, or probably, how blind her mother was!

“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” (Richard Wright)

Thank goodness for a beautiful, capable, amazing, selfless, mature, wise and perceptive daughter who was possibly more self-aware of her mother than her mother was!

And as I followed her to the car I was stunned to realize, in that moment, that she might be right.

Never Underestimate A Second Date

Date: September 2, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Who knows how long I’ve loved you, you know I love you still. Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to I will.” (The Beatles)

Believe it or not, despite a declaration like that, things continued as they had before. (One benefit of dating a queen of denial, I guess!) However, we went from seeing each other once a week, to seeing each other 2-3 times each week, depending on our schedules. Each time he took me home, Bachelor #5 said, “I would marry you tomorrow if you were willing. But no pressure, I can wait as long as it takes you to decide.”

I still wasn’t sure he got it, that he really realized what he was saying or that I understood what he was saying! I wasn’t even thinking along those lines, so I took him at his word and didn’t allow myself to feel any pressure. But one night, when I joked that he moved really fast to say something like that within a week of deciding he was interested in me and taking things to a new level, he disagreed. He said it hadn’t been “fast” at all. When I asked him how he could possibly think that, he told me he had known how he felt and what he wanted for a long time. “How long?” I asked. He replied, “Our second date.”

Our SECOND date?

And the entire time we’d dated, I’d believed he was simply trying to mentor and befriend a newly-divorced single mom! I’d never even thought he was interested in me! I couldn’t believe it. I asked him how he’d pulled that off. He said, “I’ve told you all along I have more self-control than you can imagine. Besides, what would you have done if I had told you how I felt and what I thought?”

I replied, “Run the other way!”

He nodded his head in agreement and said, “Exactly!”

It turned out to be true after all: men always have a plan. (Gee, who told me that? My brilliant Psychology degree male co-worker…and I had laughed at him, the perceptive and wise man who shared that vital bit of information with me!)

But this time, I was too shocked to laugh.

I’d also learned a very important life lesson, unexpected or otherwise: never underestimate men! You see, “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” (Will Rogers)

However they get it, they get it…and I’d been the last one to know.

Completely Unexpected

Date: September 1, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

That next weekend we went out and I can’t tell you what we did. I don’t remember much about that night. I only remember this: Before he took me home, Bachelor #5 asked, “Do I even have a chance with you?”

That sounded a little heavy to me. And because I wasn’t about to be serious, I had to lighten things up. I joked, “Sure! I try to keep an open mind. Everyone has a chance with me!”

But that didn’t deter him. He then said, “I would marry you tomorrow if you were willing.”

“I would marry you tomorrow if you were willing?” THAT was COMPLETELY unexpected!

I didn’t know what to say. All I could think in that moment was, “He doesn’t realize what he is saying or how that sounds when it’s verbalized. He can’t know what he just said.” So I didn’t respond much.

Instead, waves of memories washed over me. I thought back exactly eight months to the day, to July 13, 2009, the day my divorce became final.

The day I left my life in Colorado and headed into the unknown, so broken and devastated I couldn’t even look back at what I was leaving as I drove away or think about anything that had happened to my children and I or I wasn’t sure I’d have the courage and strength to go.

The day I was sure my life, hope, and any dreams for a bright future had ended.

The day I was positive no one would ever want an “old bag” like me again.

Back to the days when I had to try so hard every minute of every day not to cry, because I was afraid if I started I might not be able to stop. (Trust me, I failed a lot more than I succeeded in that attempt!)

In the pause as I thought all of the above, Bachelor #5 added, “But no pressure. I can wait as long as it takes you to decide what you want.”

Isn’t life like that?

COMPLETELY unexpected!

“A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens.” (Robert Baden-Powell)

Too bad I’d never been a Scout. (Or even a Brownie!) Because far too often in my unexpected life I don’t know exactly what to do, or what to say.

With Change Comes…Shrek

Date: August 31, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.” (Robert C. Gallagher)

Change is inevitable. The new level changed things, like disrupted Bachelor #5′s “schedule.” I saw him just three days later, instead of the usual week between dates. We went for a drive and then to a park to talk. In the middle of our conversation, he looked at me and asked, “By the way, when is your birthday?”

I replied, “August 25th.”

He didn’t respond the way I expected him to. Instead, his eyes got big and he said, “NO WAY! Did you google me or something?”

Did I google him? No! And I hadn’t even thought to. When I asked why he’d asked me such a thing, he replied, “August 25th is my birthday too!” I had known we had a lot in common. I just had no idea how much–even the same birthday! (Although mine was several years later, in case anyone hasn’t been paying attention. Lol.)

Our conversation continued. During the course of the evening, we covered a gamut of topics, including some shallow (I admit it) concerns I expressed. Bachelor #5 responded optimistically to every one of them.

I told him I thought he was too old for me. His response? “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be amazed at how 38 years old I can look with Botox and by covering the gray in my hair.”

I’d been told it is very characteristic for men to date “down” a decade when they’re single, especially after a divorce, and in my experience, that was true much of the time. Men in their 30s, dated women in their 20s. Men in their 40s, dated women in their 30s and so forth. I replied, “Well, if you look 38 years old, then you might want to date someone who is 38 years old–or even younger. You probably ought to consider that.” Bachelor #5 shook his head no and said, “I’ve found the age I want.”

So I brought up height. I told him I thought he was too short for me–that I had some really high heels I loved and wouldn’t be able to wear around him. He said, “How tall are you? I’m taller than you. Wear whatever shoes you want; I’ll be Tom Cruise, you can be Katie Holmes!” And he laughed.

I mentioned some other “issues” as well, but he had an upbeat answer for every one of them. He even told me he appreciated knowing exactly how I felt and exactly what I thought; he said he found it refreshing! (Not many men can say THAT.)

The final “issue” of the evening concerned his piano playing. We had different ideas about it. He thought it was a positive thing; I wasn’t so sure. Piano had always been my thing, I’d never shared it with any man. When I told him that, he looked at me in shock. In his experience, women enjoyed men who could play the piano (and sing), and there I was telling him it was a strike against him! He probably shook his head and thought, “I just can’t win with this woman.” But instead he said, “Never mind then! YOU can have the piano, I won’t play the piano any more. I’ll play the guitar!”

He played the guitar too?

I never knew that.

And in that moment it became clear to me. I was not just dating a grandpa, I was not spending time with simply a reformed Santa (thanks to his shave), and I was not just chatting with a very nice, patient, good man–I was dealing with Shrek! This man had layers. Every single time I was with him, I learned something new about him. And every time I did, it was something I liked. Quite a different experience from the dark and destructive revelations of 2009 that led to my divorce and unexpected life, when everything new thing I discovered was even worse than the revelation before it.

I was dating Shrek! I never expected that.

“Ogres are like onions…Onions have layers. Ogres have layers…You get it?” (“Shrek”)

I was beginning to.

Family Date

Date: August 30, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Not long after that, Bachelor #5 took my children and I snowmobiling for an entire day. I wondered at the wisdom of accepting his invitation. I mean, who takes four children, one of them an indescribably busy and fairly demanding four-year-old, to spend an entire day with a man friend? I did.

My four-year-old instantly liked him. He slipped his hand in Bachelor #5′s hand and hardly let go the entire day. Bachelor #5 was so kind to him and patiently rode with him on his snowmobile all day leaving me free to enjoy my other children. It was the first time since my divorce that had happened, that I’d been free to enjoy my older children without worrying about my very busy youngest son!

One by one, throughout the day, my children each came to me on their own to share their opinion of Bachelor #5, despite the fact I hadn’t asked for it. My oldest said, “I really like this guy, mom. He is cool and he is nice. He just seems so familiar. I’m trying to figure out where I’ve met him before.”

My daughter offered, “Mom. He is a nice man. He’s funny. But I’m sure I’ve seen him before, I just can’t remember where.”

My middle son asked, “Mom? Are you going to marry this man?” I replied, “Heavens no! He’s just a nice man who is taking us snowmobiling.” He then observed, “He is really nice, you should marry him.”

The ride home was especially entertaining. While Bachelor #5 and his son rode in one vehicle, Bachelor #5′s friend, who had been our guide through the mountains all day, drove my children and I in another vehicle–and he put the sales pitch on for Bachelor #5 the entire ride home! I thought, “Bachelor #5 would just die if he knew what his friend was doing!” He wasn’t exactly subtle. He told me Bachelor #5 was one of the finest men he had ever known, that a woman would have to be a fool to let him go, he had no idea why Bachelor #5 was still single, and didn’t I love Bachelor #5′s music?

I replied, “He is a good singer.”

The man asked, “No, his CDs. What do you think of those?” I didn’t know anything about any CDs. So the man played them for us all the way home!

And can you believe it? After spending 8 hours with my children and I all day, later that night Bachelor #5 and I went to dinner and a movie, just us, no children. I shared how entertaining it was that his friend was putting in a good word for him all the way home! Bachelor #5 laughed and said, “That is what he did to me all day. He kept asking, ‘Where in the world did you find such a great woman with such a nice family?’”

And I thought all we’d done that day was snowmobile! Who knew Cupid wasn’t a chubby toddler in a diaper but a very nice older man, a grandfather, in snowmobile gear?

When Bachelor #5 took me home that night, he talked about the fun day we’d had and things he wanted to take my children and I to do…five months from then. I laughed and said, “Hold on! That is a LONG way away! You’re going to be totally sick of me AND the Merriman family by then!”

He shook his head no, looked me in the eye and said, “That’s not going to happen. I will never be sick of you.”

And then he took things to a whole new level.

You can’t say I hadn’t been warned–but for some reason, it was still very unexpected.

“There’s nothing you could say that would shock me.” (Laura Prepon) Just certain things you could do, I guess. Consider me shocked!

The Conversation

Date: August 30, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Right about that time a co-worker, my age and also a single mother, asked me about the men in my life. She checked in with me periodically about how things were going in my unexpected and single life, and although I gave her the 411, she wanted to know more about Bachelor #5. She said, “Of everyone I’ve heard you mention, Bachelor #5 is by far the most appealing to ME. I don’t understand–what’s your issue with him?” (I think I heard echoes of other co-workers saying the same thing in the background as they kept an ear on our conversation!)

I launched into my usual explanation that he was very nice but “older,” he had gray hair, he was a grandpa (ie. too old), but she stopped me. Those were shallow excuses. She wanted to know the real reason. I thought for a minute and said, “I think my problem with him is that we are too much alike and have too much in common.”

She looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. A complete idiot. And asked, “How can you have too much in common with someone? And why WOULDN’T you want to have so much in common with someone? Why is that a problem?”
Then she opened my eyes to the benefits of having a lot in common with a man as she shared her experience of being in a relationship with a man she had everything in common with, her soul mate.

I’d been very different from my first husband; we had very little in common except our faith. But I’d been happy, had loved him, and had probably come to believe over the course of our 20-year marriage that it was our differences that made him so appealing to me and kept me interested in him for so long. (It certainly kept our conversations lively and very educational!)

Talking to my co-worker, I began to open my mind to something I’d never considered before. I started to take note about what it was like to have a lot in common with a man I dated. I decided to observe, take notice, see what it was really like, and what I really thought about spending time with someone I had a lot in common with. (And can you believe it only took me four months of knowing him to get to that point? Sometimes I can be incredibly clueless.)

“Did you have an epiphany? Is that why you waited so long?” (Mark Geragos)

A Serenade

Date: August 29, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.” (Robert Benchley)

Or serenades the girl. A little background:

My parents met and fell in love when they were 15 years old, although they fell in and out of love with several other people between that time and the day they married, as 25 year olds, on December 21, 1962. My mom raised my sisters and I on stories of her childhood like going to a dance with my dad and for their first date, my dad and another boy fist-fighting afterward over who got to take my mom home, and my mom getting so disgusted by the whole thing that she left and walked herself home while the boys fought!

My mom starring in theatrical productions like “Brigadoon,” “Oklahoma,” and others and having all kinds of adventures while performing–kissing cute boys who were the male leads, falling off the stage in the middle of a performance with her skirt and slips falling over her head showing her panties to the entire audience–and having to get back up on stage and finish the performance. (Maybe that’s why I just can’t quit and give up despite crime, divorce, betrayal, public humiliation, dating, the singles scene the second time around, and everything else that accompanies an unexpected life.)

And about the night my dad’s friend drove up and down the street in front of her house in his convertible while my dad serenaded her with his saxophone. THAT thrilled me! (Of course, it probably would have been more thrilling for my mom if she hadn’t had another date sitting in her living room during the serenade!) But I always loved that story. However, that took place in the 1950s, I grew up in the 80s, and things like that didn’t happen in “Pretty In Pink,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

Eventually I married a man who was not musically inclined and I forgot about serenades. I didn’t remember how much I’d admired my dad’s musical performance to the girl he loved and I forgot that I had ever dreamed teenage girl dreams of experiencing that myself, especially after enduring the events of 2009 and ending up unexpectedly single. (I had a lot of other things on my mind!)

So the next week when Bachelor #5 picked me up (only this time, HE was sick and on antibiotics!) I cringed when he announced he was taking me to his house to play the piano and sing for me. I panicked. I’ve always considered myself fairly optimistic, but I wasn’t thinking positive thoughts about this unexpected performance! I just knew it was going to be mediocre at best, that the whole thing was going to be corny, and that I was going to have to come up with something complimentary to say afterward.

But I didn’t let on to any of that. I sat where he directed me to and braced myself for his performance. I couldn’t look at him. I could only look at the floor and prepare to endure. And then he started to play. He began to sing.

It’s a good thing I’d braced myself for his performance because I probably would have fallen off the couch if I hadn’t! He was unexpectedly good; a performer and entertainer. And although I hadn’t heard the song before and wasn’t sure if it was a song he sang to all women he dated, I even liked his song choice. When it ended, I didn’t know what to say. I was stunned. Speechless.

He stood up to take me home and I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t know what to say. I told him how good he was, how much I had enjoyed it and I thanked him for sharing his talent with me. Compared to how I’d imagined the whole experience would be, I felt like a gushing idiot. So then I tried to lighten things up by joking that I didn’t believe I’d ever been sung to by a man before.

He didn’t bat an eye as he replied, “I’m glad you liked it. But just so you know, that’s not all I would have done if I weren’t on antibiotics!”

And he took me home.

“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.” (Thornton Wilder)

Keep It Real

Date: August 28, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Look at us, said the violets blooming at her feet, all last winter we slept in the seeming death but at the right time God awakened us, and here we are to comfort you.” (Edward Payson Rod)

When Bachelor #5 picked me up for our date that night I thanked him for the beautiful flowers. I loved them. My daughter loved them too, she loved them so much that she removed her favorites from the big arrangement and created her own smaller version that she put in her room!

As I was still on antibiotics and cough medicine, it was quite a romantic night. Every time I stepped into the cold air of a February winter night in Utah, my cough would hit. Bachelor #5 was very kind about it, although he carefully kept his distance! But at the end of the night, when he took me home, he gave me a warning.

He told me he was just waiting for my antibiotics to kick in, and when they did, he was taking things to a new level.

I did not expect that.

I was used to the way things were, I was comfortable with the way things were and I was also a little bit worried. I didn’t know how I felt about changing anything. I was healing. My children were doing very well. And part of me felt like it was too soon for any more changes (my divorce had been final just seven months!) I can’t remember how I responded, or if I did my usual ignoring of what I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. Then I went into my house and made it as far as the kitchen sink before I…threw up.

Literally. That conversation really affected me and I wasn’t sure why.

“…keep me completely grounded, sane and throw up on my shoes…just so I know to keep it real.” (Reese Witherspoon)