Living Happily Ever After
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Very, Very Lucky?

Date: March 30, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Unless you have been very, very lucky, you have undoubtedly experienced events in your life that have made you cry.  So unless you have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.” (Lemony Snicket)

Isn’t that so…me?

I get what I’ve been waiting for, FINALLY; I don’t believe it. I don’t know what to do; so I hang up the phone and…cry?

I had no idea I’d respond that way. But I did. I sat at my desk and tears rolled down my cheeks. I guess it was a mix of emotions: Joy. Gratitude. That I’d received a miracle. And maybe it was a bit of a stress release. I’ve done that before.

When I was a girl I was TERRIFIED of shots. I was so afraid of shots I used every excuse in the book to avoid the doctor and once went 5 years without a doctor visit, between the ages of 6 to 11. (They were fabulous years for me, by the way.) And then I stepped on a rusty nail at my grandpa’s farm and had to get a tetanus shot. I went to the doctor in the tiny town of Ephraim, Utah, got a shot (which I did NOT even feel, it was over before I even knew it had begun), the nurse gathered her supplies and left the room…and THEN I cried! (Weird, I know.) Yet I did it again the day I got my letter.

The only thing I wasn’t crying about was that it was also the final end to everything related to Shawn Merriman, our love, our marriage, our life together and our family. (Not that I hadn’t shed tears over that, I had–many. But at some point, I chose to only look forward so I didn’t see the moment I received my letter as an end, but a beginning.)

My next thought was to share the news with a friend. My CEO was in town from San Diego that afternoon, in a big meeting, in the conference room. But some things are so important, they must even trump The Board. (Just kidding. I didn’t even stop to think I could be fired. I was so excited I wasn’t thinking clearly.) I walked to the outside of the door and sent him a text: “Boss, turn around. My papers came!”

From behind, I saw him pick up his phone, rotate his chair around, he saw me standing there beaming in the hall and gave me a giant smile and BIG thumbs up! I told a few other co-workers, returned to my desk, finished my work (it was hard to concentrate on it, I might add!) and began the drive home, calling friends as I drove.

It was an exciting time, yet didn’t seem quite real. When I saw #5, all we could do was keep looking at each other, saying, “Can you believe it? Can you believe we’re getting married?”

Several hours later, just as it was finally starting to seem real, #5 stood up to leave, hugged me, beamed down at me and asked, “Are you SO excited to become Mrs. Ramsey?”

And then everything came to a screeching halt for me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt up against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we’ll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.”

“Open, Sesame!”

Date: March 29, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I turn on my computer. I wait patiently as it connects. I go online. My breath catches in my chest until I hear 3 little words, ‘You’ve got mail.’ I hear nothing, not a sound on the streets of New York. Just the beat of my own heart. I have mail…from you.” (“You’ve Got Mail”)

I had mail? I didn’t quite believe it, so, true to form, I denied it. (The Queen of Denial was back!)

“I DO NOT have mail.”

“Yes, you do,” said #5. “I am holding a letter from The First Presidency of The Church, addressed to you, in my hand.”

“Did you open it? What does it say?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t open it, it’s addressed to you!” he replied.

“Open it,” I requested.

“No,” he responded. “Because I haven’t been to my house, yet, to see if I have letter too.”

“Open it,” I requested. (Again.)

“No,” he answered. “What if it’s a letter telling you NOT to marry me?”

“OPEN IT,” I commanded.

So he did. There was a brief pause while he opened the envelope, removed the letter and silently read it. ”It’s the letter we’ve been waiting for,” he reported.

I didn’t know what to say. I still couldn’t believe it, so I denied it again and then asked him if he was teasing me. He finally put my oldest on the phone. ”Mom, it’s the letter. It’s to you from The First Presidency,” he said, and he began to read it to me over the phone.

I was at work. My children and #5 were gathered together at my home, reading my letter. They all sounded happy and excited. It was noisy in the background.

As for me? I’d waited so long, by the time I finally got my letter of authorization to marry in a temple, I’m not sure what I thought or felt in that moment. Relief. Excitement. Yet a sense of “this can’t be real” mingled with the other thoughts and emotions. I hung up the phone, my mind racing with thoughts of people I needed to call about my letter finally coming.

But instead, I hung up the phone and…unexpectedly…cried.

I wasn’t planning to do that.

“A woman can laugh and cry in three seconds and it’s not weird…” (Rob Schneider)

Wasn’t That A Movie?

Date: March 28, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Life is the movie you see through your own eyes. It makes little difference what’s happening out there. It’s how you take it that counts.” (Denis Waitley)

And then, just a few hours later (after government officials called) I got another phone call. It, too, was unexpected.

It had begun as a typical Friday, except that morning #5 stopped by before I went to work and announced the papers we’d been waiting for were coming that day.

I laughed and replied, “No, they’re not.”

He smiled and said, “You just keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. But they ARE coming today. I know it.”

He said it was just a feeling he had, but I had to give him credit: he’d said all along that our papers were arriving a specific week. It was that week. I also had to give him credit for being firm in his belief. He had checked with me every day, “Did you pick up your mail? Did you get any mail today?” (Mail collection is a challenge for me. By the time I work all day and commute home, I’m so excited to see my children most of the time I forget mail is even delivered during the day! I typically remember to pick up my mail only a few days each week.)

Like a watched pot that never seems to boil, my mailbox had been unusually empty every single day that week. I know, because very uncharacteristically for me, I had checked it every single day: Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday.

Later that day, that Friday, #5 called me at work. “What are you doing? Are you driving home?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t left yet. I’m still working,” I answered. I had a big project I was trying to finish before the weekend. I had stayed at the office later than usual. ”Why? What are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m just at the house,” he said. “I came by to check your mail.”

“And?” I asked.

“You’ve got mail!” he rejoiced.

Wasn’t that a movie?

“It sometimes feels like a strange movie, you know, it’s all so weird that sometimes I wonder if it is really happening.” (Eminem)

I know what he means.

“Unhappily Blessed” And Its Bright Side

Date: March 27, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Clap an extinguisher upon your irony if you are unhappily blessed with a vein of it.” (Charles Lamb)

Ironic that on the same day it arrived, something else arrived too.

An unexpected phone call.

From the government.

Related to you-know-what.

Can you believe it? Two years later and I’m still dealing with it.

At first I panicked. I couldn’t help it. I thought, “Oh no! I am, always have been and continue to be a law abiding citizen. What could they possibly want now? Has something else come to light that I never knew about?” and then I couldn’t help but wonder, ”Will I ever be free of Shawn Merriman and his Ponzi scheme? Is this how the rest of my life is going to be–something popping up when I least expect it? It has been 23 months since that fateful day of unwelcome revelations and I’m STILL dealing with the stuff that caused my divorce?”

Turns out, all they wanted was for me to sign some papers. It was inconvenient in that it disrupted my new life to a small degree–in addition to getting the papers notarized and returned (going to the bank and the post office are two things I’ve ALWAYS been terrible about procrastinating) and I had a LOT going on that particular week–but thankfully, that is all it was.

I chose to look on the bright side: at least it was just paperwork, and at least I don’t have to deal with it all day, every day, like I did in 2009.

Monty Python was right: “Always look on the bright side of life.”

So was Samuel Johnson: ”The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.”

When It Rains, It Pours

Date: March 26, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“However long the night the dawn will break.” (African Proverb)

Sometimes in life, especially the unexpected one, it seems like you just can’t get a break. I remember in the revelations my former husband made in March 2009, every new fact that came to light each day was worse than the one before–and it seemed to happen all day, every day, for awhile.

When it rains it pours.

And when it does that, umbrella or no umbrella (I NEVER have an umbrella!) you just have to hang on. “When it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” (Gilbert K. Chesterton) Eventually things calm down, even in the most unexpected of lives. Even in the one I’ve lived.

As I progressed in my unexpected life, met #5 and continued to heal, life REALLY calmed down. Friends and family called to check on me, and I felt like, eventually, I didn’t have a lot to report; I didn’t need much, if any, help. I didn’t have a crisis I needed counsel about. My children were thriving. My job was going well. In fact, even coming up with entries (things I’d learned, things I’d experienced) for blog posts became difficult. I took it as a sign I was getting back to “normal,” as was my life.

And then not too long ago, it began to rain again. This time in earnest. But THIS time…for the good! (By this, I mean that everything that “rained” on me and my family recently was welcome and “easy” to accept and experience. I still believe the rain, even the “acid rain” of an unexpected life, can turn out to be for the good; it provides certain “nutrients” that help us grow and become so much more than we would otherwise have been. From mine, I’ve learned things I never would have learned any other way. I’ve grown in ways I didn’t necessarily want to, but I believe my growth has made me better. It’s just not always easy when you’re being showered upon with growth experiences!)

Here’s what poured out upon us recently, in less than a 2-week period:

My son got his acceptance to BYU.

The home #5 had listed for sale at the beginning of our engagement (which due to the housing slump in Utah had hardly been looked at by prospective buyers) got an offer.

The production company casting a role #5 had auditioned for and was growing his hair for contacted him and told him NOT to cut his hair, he was being considered for a speaking role (out of the almost 3,000 people that had auditioned in Utah, Europe, Africa, South America and Israel.) Even if he doesn’t end up with a part, it was exciting to be considered for a role out of so many actors who auditioned.

My middle son was selected to participate in his school district’s Science Fair, one of a few students chosen to represent his elementary school.

And so much more.

There really was only one thing missing.

And then, finally, it came too.

“So, do I think I’m missing something? I really don’t, and I think that comes with age.” (Jami Gertz)

Our Plan

Date: March 25, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll be happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” (Socrates)

Lets hope the engagement and marriage don’t turn #5 into a philosopher, huh? THAT would be unexpected!

When #5 and I got engaged, we never imagined we’d be engaged over 9 months. At about month 8, we came to a decision. We were discussing getting married when we received our authorization and I asked, “So when we get our papers, will we then wait another 2-3 months while we find a date that works for everyone–all of your relatives, mine, our friends and everyone else–and then plan a wedding?”

He replied, “NO. When we get our papers back, we’ll get married in days.”

Days?

“What if our papers come back on a Tuesday?” I asked.

“We’ll get married that Saturday,” he answered.

“What if our papers come back on a Wednesday?” I asked.

“We’ll get married that Saturday,” he answered.

“What about Thursday? What if our papers come back on a Thursday?” I asked.

“Hmm…Thursday…we could try for Saturday, but we may have to wait until Monday or Tuesday,” he said.

We didn’t have a wedding date. We didn’t know when it would be. And the above was the extent of our plan. But at least, after 8 months, we had a plan!

“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” (Dennis Wholey)


 

An Exception

Date: March 24, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There is no useful rule without an exception.” (Thomas Fuller)

A few days later I got a call from my pastor.

He reported, “Andrea! I have good news! The First Presidency is going to accept the letter your former husband wrote and mailed to you as the letter you can attach to your paperwork. They said, ‘For her, we will make an exception.’”

But I laughed as I realized out of the millions of members of the L.D.S. church worldwide, it didn’t sound like I was unknown by certain people.  They knew exactly who I was.

Yes, I’m pretty sure they did–media coverage of my former husband’s crimes always referenced that he had served as a “Mormon bishop;” members of the media had nicknamed him the “Mormon Madoff.” The Church itself had to issue statements to the media regarding the situation and eventually, they’d had to refund all of the tithing Shawn Merriman had paid during the years he ran his Ponzi scheme. I was not completely anonymous.

In fact, that was one part of the whole Ponzi scheme/crime thing I felt so bad about–that my church had been referenced, at all, in the whole mess when they, like me and the rest of the victims, had never known what was really going on with Shawn Merriman or his company, “Market Street Advisors.”

However, I was very grateful for The First Presidency’s kindness and willingness to work with me to accommodate a difficult situation. My paperwork was completed and submitted.

“How glorious it is – and also how painful – to be an exception.” (Alfred de Musset)

Written In Pencil

Date: March 23, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Friends will write me letters. They run out of room on the front of the letter. They write ‘over’ on the bottom of the letter–like I’m that much of a moron; like I need that there. Because if it wasn’t there, I’d get to the bottom of the page: ‘And so Kathy and I went shopping and we–’ That’s the craziest thing! I don’t know why she would just end it that way.” (Ellen Degeneres)

I asked my former husband for THE letter.

He asked me why I wanted it. I told him the truth: I wanted the peace of mind it would give me. Since neither of us knew what the future held, or where he was going, I told him I didn’t want to someday need it and not be able to find him or reach him.

He said, “Tell me, would you use that letter today if you could?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Absolutely.”

In reality, though, I couldn’t. You can’t apply for a cancellation until you have the opportunity to marry someone else. But I needed him to know I felt there was no chance for reconciliation.

So he wrote one.

It was in pencil (prison inmates aren’t allowed to have pens). Written in October 2009. Mailed from a Colorado jail.

When it arrived, I opened it, read it and put it away never thinking I’d need it. It was a very nice letter, though, and I appreciated his willingness to write it. Later, he called me, collect, to discuss it.

I saw how hard it must have been for him to write that letter because he told me some untrue ramifications of me using that letter. I knew they were the last efforts of a sinking ship to attempt to rescue itself, I guess, but I had had it. I had been lied to for too long by the man, too many times; we were divorced; he wasn’t my husband; I didn’t feel an obligation to “obey” him any longer and I wasn’t going to stand for one single additional lie. So I called him on it:”That’s not true, ” I said. “That is a lie. You’ve lied to me for the LAST time!”

He said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

And that was that.

I kept the letter in a drawer for the next 6 months. And then one day, unexpectedly, I needed it. I sat in my pastor’s office, handed the letter to him, and he told me he’d have to check to see if it could be used in conjunction with my application because it hadn’t been requested via certified mail, it had been sent directly to me and it had been written a few months earlier.

“I get mail; therefore I am.” (Scott Adams) 

 

Letters

Date: March 22, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There must be millions of people all over the world who never get any love letters… I could be their leader.” (Charlie Brown)

Going from happily married for 20 years to what I discovered was traumatic. The idea of divorce, alone, was very traumatic to me, not to mention everything else. So to ease things for both of us in that moment on that day when everything was so shocking, new and unexpected (remember, my marriage never disintegrated over time, my reality simply shattered in a moment; I had yet to “fall out of love” with my husband) I said, “I see no other consequence to what you have done than divorce. The consequence of your choices IS divorce. It’s not something I’ve come to decide lightly. But that doesn’t mean when you get out of prison and I’m single that we couldn’t try to rebuild something–IF we decided we could love or trust each other again. But who knows? You may not even be interested in me at that point.”

I was married to a stranger who terrified me in the way finding out someone you have trusted and loved for two decades has been living not just a secret/double life, but a criminal life, and you NEVER HAD A CLUE. And when he didn’t think divorce was necessary…sometimes it just didn’t seem to me that he understood what he had done was as terrible and reprehensible as it was.

We divorced.

I moved to Utah.

He was taken into custody.

And our relationship transitioned from husband and wife, companionship, friendship and everything else we’d had to friendly former family members with the occasional strained relationship of what I assume is typical of divorced couples.

He wrote letters from jail. His letters expressed his sorrow for what he had done (that was appreciated) but they also contained expressions of love. To me.

I think he did that because he felt that way toward me, but also probably to build me up and to help me at such a hard time and when I was so shattered, so humiliated, felt so worthless and thought everyone could tell just by looking at me what a loser I was. But after our divorce, my move to Utah and my progression through the process of grieving and healing those expressions of love became a problem for me.

With each passing day and with each new realization I came to as I worked through the mess he had created and left for me, I felt increasingly uncomfortable with his expressions of love.

Some days they bothered me, as in irritated me.

Some days they hurt me, as in made me cry.

Some days I just didn’t want to hear them.

Some days they made me mad.

And around that same time, the fall of 2009, I realized I would never remarry him.

I’ve said it before: I believe in repentance and forgiveness. I just didn’t think I would ever be able to trust him completely, 100%, again–regardless of the changes he had made. And trust, to me, is a huge part of marriage. I didn’t want to wonder at any future date if my husband was telling me the truth; to wonder when he headed out the door to go to work, if that is really what he was doing and where he was going; or to live in fear of, heaven forbid, another Ponzi scheme or other such crime.

I was also afraid that regardless of the changes he made and the man he became, a part of me (if I stayed with him) would never quite feel he deserved me. And that isn’t right. If he changes and somehow through all he is enduring as a result of his choices finally becomes the man I always thought he was and that he always represented himself to be, he deserves to have a wife who completely loves, trusts, and feels he deserves her.

That will never be me. (I’m not a big enough person, I guess.) One day, while talking to a Colorado friend, I realized I would rather be alone the rest of my life than remarry Shawn Merriman. As soon as that came out of my mouth she stopped me and said, “Do you realize what you just said? That says a lot to me about how you feel to know that you would rather be alone the rest of your life than remarry Shawn.”

I guess it did.

It was an epiphany. I realized, truly, how I felt and what the future held for me: nothing.

I was going to be alone the rest of my life. Because I preferred that option to remarrying, someday, the man I had loved for 20 years. (Amazing what a Ponzi scheme, betrayals, and decades of lies can do, huh?)

I realized then and there that I had to put a stop to his confessions of love. I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want him to have any false hope, I felt that would be dishonest of me. So I told him how I felt, but he didn’t stop telling me what a wonderful wife I had always been, that he still loved me and always would, and that someday he was going to win me back.

I felt I had to put a stop to that, too. It made me feel uncomfortable. And I couldn’t let him believe one thing when I felt another. So to show him how completely serious I was, and how real my feelings were, I asked him to write a letter authorizing me to apply for a cancellation of our marriage/sealing that would allow me to remarry and be sealed to someone else in a L.D.S. temple.

I don’t think he expected that.

It Didn’t Go Over So Well

Date: March 21, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” (Thomas Alva Edison)

Although I’d love to look brilliant, organized and like I’m a woman who has it all together–including a special letter she needed–it wasn’t intentional. I didn’t know I was going to get engaged to remarry just one year after my world collapsed or that I’d need a letter from my former spouse to apply for permission to marry in a L.D.S. temple! It came about more as a result of my former husband.

When he revealed his crimes in March 2009, everything changed. Especially for me. I didn’t just lose my entire world, life, marriage, family and everything as I knew it. In one moment I went from loving, trusting and respecting my husband of 20 years to looking at him through completely different eyes. I didn’t know who he was or what he was. He became a stranger in a moment. I wondered if he was sociopathic. He even looked different, physically, to me. It was as if I didn’t know him, and never had known him, at all. But ironically, at that time, possibly for the first time, I actually knew everything about him. Finally.

Yet he didn’t get that.

I remember shortly after he had revealed everything he had done. When we were alone, he told me it was ironic to him that all he wanted to do was be with me, be alone with me, be close to me, hold me–yet that was the one thing I didn’t want! Soon after that, he told me he didn’t think a divorce was necessary. I was dumbfounded.

I asked, “No divorce?”

“No divorce,” he replied.

“So you think it’s completely realistic to expect that you did what you did for as long as you did it, you say you’re sorry, I forgive you, and we can remain married?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You think it’s realistic to expect that while you go to prison for who knows how long, that we remain married, I’m alone, I raise our children alone, I keep our children alive in your absence, you serve your time, you get out and then everything goes back to normal and goes on as before? And we’re married the whole time?” I clarifed.

“Yes,” he answered.

All I can say is that we sure didn’t see things the same way! I saw no other outcome or consequence to his crimes, lies and other betrayals, than divorce. Not to mention the fact that every attorney involved advised me to cut my ties to the criminal as fast as I possibly could, for my protection and for my children. Regardless of how I felt or what I may or may not have wanted to do, I didn’t have a choice. My former husband had made my choice for me and left me with no choice.

Divorce.

“When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn’t a sign that they ‘don’t understand’ one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.” (Helen Rowland)

And although I didn’t know it at the time, some day, I’d need a letter.