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Want It More Than You Fear It

Date: September 10, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.” (Bill Cosby)

I had a hard time concentrating on reaching a decision. I had some concerns, and until I resolved my concerns, I didn’t feel I could make a decision or trust the decision I made.

I couldn’t believe my concerns.

One of the biggest devastations of my divorce was my belief that I’d had my chance at love, marriage and a whole and complete family, that no one would ever want me again, and that I was destined to remain alone the rest of my life. Yet less than a year after the tragic demise of my marriage and family, I had the opportunity to remarry a very good man who loved me and my children and was willing to take all of us on AND my children loved him. Sounds pretty ideal, especially for a second marriage, doesn’t it?

Yet all of THAT was the problem…for me!

I kept thinking there had to be something false, or flawed, in the opportunity or the man; there had to be something I wasn’t seeing.

I had an issue with the timing. It had happened so “fast.” Less than a year after everything fell apart, it had all come together again. Who has that happen to them? How could I go from such horror and devastation to such a dream, and so quickly?

I expressed this concern to a friend who said, “Andrea, someone like YOU has that happen to them. You lost everything unexpectedly in one day, yet you have risen above hatred, speculation and gossip and have carried on, you’ve sought to remain faithful, you’re doing your best for your children, and you can expect to be blessed for all of that.” She added, “Besides, if you consider how long you’ve actually waited to have a real marriage to the type of man you always thought you were married to…I wouldn’t say it’s fast at all. How long have you been waiting for that?”

Since 1989. Over 20 years.

And suddenly I realized that despite what others might think (those who don’t really know me, those who might judge my opportunity as “too fast” or “too soon”) I knew how long I’d been waiting. My entire adult life. Issue resolved.

I also had a problem with the fact that after all I’d been through, I just “happened to land” in a great situation. My sister handled that one for me. She said, “I have a problem with the fact you think you just ‘landed’ in this great situation. Do you have any idea how many people have worried about you and prayed for you, day in and day out, for the past YEAR? Do you have ANY idea? I have a problem with the fact you seem to think it was your good fortune, chance, or ‘luck’ that brought this to you.”

I instantly humbled myself regarding that one. She was right. I may have had my detractors, but I had also been very blessed with more than my fair share of friends who loved me, cared about me, and did everything they could to help me–including praying for me. That issue was resolved then and there, too.

My final issue concerned the availability of Bachelor #5. If he was so wonderful, WHY was he still around and still single? My sister said, “Maybe he’s still single because he was prepared, and saved, for you. With your past and all you and your children have been through, you couldn’t end up with just anyone, you know.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

So in the end, I quit making excuses. I quit trying to find everything WRONG with Bachelor #5 and the situation. I quit looking for every possible reason not to remarry. I quit hiding behind my indecision.

I decided that I wanted it more than I was afraid of it.

I chose to turn the page of my life’s story and continue on into the new chapter of the fairy tale of my life that I hoped would lead to the happily ever after ending I’d never given up on, that I’d believed in and had sought since I was a little girl. After all of that analyzing, thinking, pondering, worrying and indecision I threw it all out the window and instead, made a choice with my heart.

In the end, it came down to the simplest of concepts and principles that I already knew and had always tried to live by: Faith; Hope; Love; Trust; Commitment.

It came down to this: “Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.” (Bill Cosby)

I made my decision. Although it had taken me awhile to get there, I loved Bachelor #5 like I didn’t remember ever loving anyone before. So…

Hey-hey-hey, Bachelor #5! It’s time.

I just needed to tell him that.

“My Precious”

Date: September 9, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.” (Napoleon Bonaparte)

What to do? What to decide? Discovering the answers to these questions was uppermost in my mind for the rest of that month. Add to that the previous month where I’d simply been “observing” things, and I realized I’d been pondering and thinking about Bachelor #5 for quite some time (even when I was trying not to.)

In the course of trying to come to a decision I thought about my past, I thought about the present, and I thought about my future. I wondered what my parents would advise me to do. I consulted my sister and trusted friends. I prayed. I read the scriptures. I tried to be very thorough in all details; I brainstormed every possible thing related to re-marriage, marrying Bachelor #5, and the impact of such a decision on my family, children, extended family, friends, employment, new life, faith, finances, hopes, dreams, the future…EVERYTHING.

And in the end, “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” (Albert Einstein)

I just couldn’t come to a decision.

REALLY Fast

Date: September 8, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.” (Muhammad Ali)

I’m thinking Bachelor #5 could have given Muhammad Ali a run for his money. I didn’t have an answer to the marriage question, much less the idea of September, all I could say was, “THAT is REALLY fast!”

And as Bachelor #5 acknowledged it was fast, he didn’t let me off the hook by saying, “no pressure,” and I sure felt the difference! I finally felt some pressure to begin thinking about things in earnest. However, I wasn’t sure I could decide such an important thing at that stage of my life, much less on a “deadline.”

“Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.” (Jane Austen)

Bachelor #5 added, “And when you decide, if you decide the way I hope you do, you only have to say two words, ‘It’s time,’ and I’ll take care of the rest. That’s all I want to hear, ‘It’s time’.”

I didn’t know what I was going to decide. But I owed it to myself, my children and Bachelor #5 to make a decision. It was time to get serious with my thoughts.

Very serious.

“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.” (Jack Handey, SNL)

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.

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)

Good Men Aren’t Jell-o!

Date: August 21, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There are much easier things in life than finding a good man–nailing Jell-o to a tree, for instance.” (Author Unknown)

Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of good men out there, I’m just thinking that many of them (most of them?) are already married! Thus the “long” list of bachelors I’ve compiled in my quest for a happy ending.

I’ve met some good men along the way. I’ve learned something from each new friend I’ve made. And interestingly, I even think most of them have helped me on the path to healing in one way or another, some much more than others.

However, after just two months of dating, I was tired of it. I had absolutely loved being single the first time. In fact, when I married in 1989, a part of me was sad to leave my single life. But not the second time around. Although I had determined to make the most of the situation I had been thrust in, and tried to look for the positive and attempted to make myself like it, after a couple of months I realized it wasn’t working. Given the choice, I would have chosen to be married to the right man rather than be single. The newness of it all, the “excitement” (if that’s what you call being unexpectedly single and forced to meet new people in your new life) had worn off.

I was simply a divorced mother of four who had never planned or expected to be in that position.

Now, many months later, the dreaded “I’ve gotten used to it” has transpired. Just what I didn’t want to have happen! But I guess you can say that about many aspects of the unexpected life. It is who I am. I don’t cringe when people realize I’m single (and divorced) and wonder what they’re thinking about me any more. I don’t try to hide the fact that I’m divorced. It is what it is.

I’ve had to completely leave my comfort zone and face life, and everything else, alone. I’ve learned to socialize by myself again. I’m happy. And believe it or not, there are even things I’ll miss about my single life should my situation ever change. I NEVER expected to say that!

I’ve also learned that life goes on. I don’t advocate divorce by any means, and I am a strong defender, despite my experience, of marriage and family. But I’ve learned the world doesn’t end when a marriage does. I still have my own little family. And despite the scar of divorce, we’re doing so well and feeling so whole, that on the infrequent occasion when someone refers to my family as “broken,” it surprises me. I don’t think of us as that way. Different than we once were, but NOT “broken!”

Yet I keep pressing forward in dating despite being tired of it. I tell myself I’m lucky. After all, not every woman gets to meet new people (handsome men), date them, and everything else attendant with the unexpected and single life. (That’s the PR spin I put on my situation for myself to motivate me not to quit or give up too soon. I just have to keep telling myself I believe it, too!)

So, in the spirit of pressing forward, let me tell you about another man.

Bachelor #5.

And I’m pretty sure he is NOT a fan of Jell-o.

Bachelor #8: The Stalker

Date: June 28, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

Back in my old life, in Colorado as the stay-at-home mother of four children and the wife of a respected investment advisor, religious leader and upstanding member of the community, married for 20 years, etc…I got a kick out a song by Goldfinger. I think it was called “Stalker.”

My teenage son introduced it to me. He used to play it for me, we’d sing along with it in the car, laugh and dance to it in the kitchen, and were entertained by the lyrics every time we heard them.

“Uh-oh-oh she’s following me. Uh-oh-oh she’s out of her tree.Uh-oh-oh she’s off of her rocker. I wanna marry my stalker.”

I just never expected my spouse would one day reveal to me that he had been running a Ponzi scheme for most of our marriage, that he was heading to prison and that I would be left alone to raise our four children. I never expected my unexpected life. And I certainly NEVER expected to one day have my own stalker.

Bachelor #8.

He was probably the only true bachelor I’ve dated. He was 46 years old and had never been married. He also earned the well-deserved title of Stalker, according to my friends, family and children.

“A stalker will look for any kind of attention, positive or negative. A vast majority of them don’t see themselves as stalkers.”~ Jill McArthur

I met him online.

I should have known his type–I saw him looking at me, or my profile online, 30-50 times over the course of several weeks yet he never contacted me. Not one word. I couldn’t figure out why some random stranger would look at my picture or information so frequently. I finally figured it out, though. I think that’s what they call online stalking! Lol.

Eventually, he contacted me. Called me. Asked me to dinner. We met at a restaurant and I confess, when I finally met him in person, I asked him about his propensity to view photos and profiles so often for so long yet never contact the people he was viewing. He told me he was “just bored.”

I guess it’s true: “A vast majority of them don’t see themselves as stalkers.”

After we were seated on our first date, we started comparing notes and realized we’d lived at the same apartment complex while attending the same university. I’d even worked in the office of the apartment complex and had taken his rent! We remembered a lot of the same people. It was 20 years later, so his face wasn’t familiar to me, but I knew who his roommates had been. We had 20 years of catching up to do.

Instead, he looked right at me and said, “I know EXACTLY who you are!”

Chilling. Even, or especially from, a stalker.

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. I had distanced myself from every part of my old life. I had even moved to a new state where I didn’t know anyone. I lived quietly, under the radar, intentionally. I was trying to make a fresh start for my children and myself, far removed from the taint of a former family member accused of bilking clients out of millions of dollars through his Ponzi scheme. And in that moment I felt it was all for naught.

In my new city, in my new state, living my new life, I met a random “stranger” and my cover was blown.

Bachelor #8 had known my ex-husband and had been on business in Denver, CO, when news of Shawn Merriman’s Ponzi scheme and his criminal behavior broke and our assets were seized. Bachelor #8 had watched it all on the news. He put the details together while sitting in the restaurant with me.

He had a lot of questions. He grilled me about the Ponzi scheme, about how I could not have known what was going on, about my 20-year marriage, and appeared very skeptical of every answer I gave. It felt like Bachelor #8 was “good cop” AND “bad cop,” when all I was looking for was a social experience!

His side of the conversation consisted of comments about how while I had been married for 20 years, he had been doing the very same thing we were doing that night over and over again for the same amount of time. He told me he was sick of dating, tired of first dates, sick of getting to know new people, uninterested in the lives and stories of others, that everyone was the same and had the same story (I begged to differ on that one–I do not believe every single woman has an experience and a story like mine, but that’s just my opinion!) and he abhorred all of the “game playing” that was dating.

I couldn’t figure out why he had asked me out! And why he sat there, telling his date, me, that he hated what we were doing, didn’t want to get to know me, that he had heard everything I was going to say already before, and that he didn’t care about the details of my life.

It was the craziest first date I’ve ever been on, and all quite unexpected as a 42-year-old returning to dating after two decades of marriage.

The evening ended, I went home, walked up to my room and said to myself, “That was one of those ‘catch-up’ dates–what have you done the past 20 years? But I know I’ll never hear from him again!”

He called me the next morning at 9 a.m. and asked me out again for that night.

I couldn’t go. But my stalker didn’t give up. He called or texted me several times a week for the next few months. He asked me out when he came to town. If I couldn’t go out with him, he’d ask, “Why can’t you go? You got a date, don’t you?” And when I admitted the reason for my unavailability, he wanted to know all about the man I would be with and what we were doing–and then he’d text me throughout my date with the other man!

“Where are you?”

“What are you doing?”

“What restaurant are you at?”

“Do you like Mr. A.F.?” (He always named every one of my dates–Mr. A.F., Springville Guy, Tall Guy, Mr. P.G., etc…)

“What are you doing now?”

“You kiss him yet?”

Etc…

When he asked me a question, and if I answered it, he’d always argue with me about my answer.

One night we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. On the way home, he suddenly decided he wasn’t taking me home. Instead, he was taking me to the grocery store. The grocery store? I told him I didn’t want to go. He argued with me about that. I told him I didn’t need to go. He argued with me about that. I told him I wasn’t going to go. He just kept driving. He told me I was a single mom and single moms always needed food and always needed to go to the grocery store and buy food. He told me I could shop in peace, and he would follow along and push the cart for me. I had no course but to settle in for the drive to the grocery store. My stalker was as stubborn as they come.

At the grocery store he insisted I shop for what I needed. I didn’t really need anything–except groceries for the dinner I was making for Bachelor #7 the next night, so I finally thought, “What the heck? He won’t take no for an answer, he made me come here, he won’t let me leave until I shop, so I guess I’ll buy food for tomorrow night’s date!” And that’s exactly what I did.

Bachelor #8 followed me through the store, pushed the cart, gave me recipes he insisted I cook (and texted and emailed me several times to see if I’d cooked what he told me to cook–I never had), and even threw a few ingredients I absolutely DID NOT WANT (and later threw away because Bachelor #8 would not let me leave the store without the items he insisted I try) into the cart. After checking out, he loaded the sacks into his truck and drove me home. On the way to my home he instructed me to call my teenage son and tell him to meet us outside to haul the groceries into the house for me.

THAT bothered me. I didn’t introduce my children to the men I dated. I didn’t even let them see each other, usually. I argued against it, but my stalker insisted, so I made the call. I knew better than to try to argue with him.

My son and a nephew came out, met Bachelor #8, hauled in the groceries and were very quiet about him to me, but they did not become his fans! In fact, goodwill toward Bachelor #8 spread throughout the household. I don’t know what was said between brother and sister, but my teenage daughter started patrolling my phone, checking my texts, grabbing my phone if it rang, and if she saw it was my stalker, she would demand I not answer the phone! Bachelor #8 could have used some serious help from Dale Carnegie on “How To Win Friends And Influence People” at the Merriman house. At least with its teenagers!

Off and on, Bachelor #8 would continue to visit my profile. His views crept into the triple digits. I could NOT figure out what he was doing online at my profile so often! If I got online to check messages, he’d start IM chats with me and grill me about men I was dating, or argue with me about something. But he always called when he came to town and offered to take me out. (I should say he was progressively more cheerful and positive as the weeks went on. He was nicer and friendlier with each successive date. He was even funny sometimes. It was just that crazy stalking tendancy that was the issue. That, and the fact that besides me not being interested romantically or long term in Bachelor #8, he and my children would NEVER have meshed. At all.)

Eventually, one night he proposed marriage. In a roundabout way he admitted he didn’t love me, but firmly believed two good people, with the same beliefs and values, could marry, make it work and have a happy life together. I didn’t just say no to the proposal. I told him NO WAY. And of course, true to form, he argued with me about my answer!

He argued for my acceptance of the proposal. I absolutely argued against it. In the end, I told him I believed his theory could work but that I didn’t want to test it myself. I wanted more for me. I felt I was too young to settle for anything less than my ideal. I was holding out for love.

I still believe in love. I still believe in fairy tales. And I’m still waiting for my happily ever after ending. (Boy. I say that so often it’s almost as if it’s my mantra! Lol.)

But maybe, just maybe, if I say it often enough or long enough, it will eventually come true for me.

Finally, the stalking of my stalker, Bachelor #8, ran it’s course. I got busy with other people, and Bachelor #8 went on a date with someone else. (And called to tell me about it afterward.) I didn’t hear much from my stalker after that…until I started this blog.

Bachelor #8 found it, contacted me, and argued with me about my blog. He argued against my blog with everything he had. When all of that failed, he brought up the safety of my children (he knows how to cut right to the heart of a mother, huh?) and every other thing he could think of to dissuade me in relation to blogging.

But in the end, as in many other times in my life, past and particularly present, I had to stand alone and do what I thought was best for me. (And my children.) And do you know what? I’m still blogging. It has been five whole months of writing and my children and I are not only safe, we’re better and happier than ever!

Who said stalkers know best?

I only know this: “But I do know people that have stalkers and it’s not nice.” (Daniel Craig)

On to Bachelor #9.