Living Happily Ever After
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“Family” of Strangers

Date: September 27, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

In the moments following my former husband’s 2009 revelations,  as I wrote about long ago, he instantly became a stranger. I felt like I didn’t know him—and never had.

The June 20, 2012 “American Greed” episode revealed another stranger I guess I’d never really known: my former mother-in-law.   Sadly, it became apparent that she had never really known, or gotten me and what I’m about, either.

I discovered that when posted online with the “American Greed” episode teaser was a letter she had written to the judge at the time of her son’s sentencing, a letter I’d never seen or read—the letter that said something to the effect that she believed I’d been in cahoots with her son and helped him hide the money he stole so we could enjoy ourselves when he got out of prison!

Not! In fact, not even. By the time she’d written that letter to the judge urging him to make her son pay for his crimes and as part of it attempted to erroneously throw ME under the bus along with her Ponzi scheme-committing offspring, I’d already divorced her son and had moved to another state.

Sometimes the unexpected life isn’t just strange…it’s stranger than fiction. All you can do is shake your head and laugh—that’s what I’m doing.

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” (Mark Twain)

 

 

On the Heels of Healing…Vindication

Date: September 26, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.” (Abraham Lincoln)

When the infamous events of 2009 unfolded, there were many aspects of them that were indescribably difficult for me, personally. Some I have written about, some I have never addressed, but all of them I let go. Because I don’t see how you can triumph over adversity, or move beyond a challenge, or most importantly HEAL, if you’re still hanging on to the hurt. So, regardless of the difficulty, I made a conscious decision to let it all go.

Here’s one example.

One of the hardest consequences of my former husband’s crimes were the attacks on my personal integrity. Out of the entire nightmare that was one part of it that gave me great grief. (I know, to each his own! But having been taught to live a life of integrity and to value honesty above most everything else, it was a tough emotional blow to know a heavy shadow of suspicion lay over me in the eyes of many due to the actions of the man I was married to.) What I wanted more than anything (other than to wake up and discover my life wasn’t real, that it was only a nightmare) was vindication. I wanted someone in a position of authority to publicly defend me, to acknowledge my innocence, and to make an irrefutable statement to the world: “Andrea Merriman is innocent. She didn’t know about the crimes and she wasn’t involved in any crimes.” But that doesn’t happen in cases like the one I was thrust into against my will. I learned that firsthand in 2009.

So I let it go. T0 heal, required that I let all of that go.

I made the conscious decision to know I knew the truth: that I was, am and always have been an honest person. I decided to not care what other people might suspect or erroneously believe about me. I chose to carry on and to continue to live my life the only way I knew how—with integrity. I abandoned all hope of vindication, or of anyone defending me or my integrity, publicly. I healed.

Imagine my surprise, then, on June 20, 2012 when the episode of “American Greed” featuring the crimes of Shawn Merriman played on televisions across the nation and a federal agent said something like, “There is absolutely no evidence that Andrea Merriman knew what was going on or that she was involved in it.”

I NEVER expected that!

In fact, when my friend called to tell me about it (as I can’t afford television, satellite or cable I couldn’t watch it, real time, myself) I couldn’t believe it. She said, “It’s nothing we didn’t know, but did you ever imagine you’d hear it on national television?” Nope. I can’t say it enough—I honestly never expected that. But I also couldn’t be more grateful to the good man, and federal agent, who publicly stated the truth.

The unexpected life just keeps getting more unexpected!

And sometimes, as a part of the glorious highs and extremely devastating lows that are a part of each person’s journey, you eventually get exactly what you’ve wished for. It may not come to you when you want it, it may not come when you think you “have” to have it (after all, I had to move forward and heal without mine.) But now I see that it was better that way.

It was better for me to heal without it. I think I became stronger because of it.

“At the time, when you’re being dissected and judged it’s pretty brutal, but in hindsight it’s great and – it sounds cliched – you do come out the other side better and stronger.” (Kate Bosworth)

Learn the Lesson

Date: September 25, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There is a lesson there about greed and it is a lesson I am willing to learn as well. Has it made me a distrustful person? I don’t think so. But we probably look a bit more carefully at our financial situation now.” (Kevin Bacon)

Also taking place on June 20, 2012 (the day my oldest left home, and the United States, not to return until approximately June 2014) was the airing of the MSNBC show, “American Greed.” It’s a show about greed and the destruction greed leaves in its wake. That particular day’s episode hit very close to home when it featured the crimes of my former husband.

I could write several blog posts on that particular episode and the things I learned from it (yes, three years later, I’m still learning new things!) but it also showed me how much I’ve healed and moved on from the whole thing. I realized I’d healed a lot when most of the show’s content felt like it hadn’t happened to me, but to another person living another life.

Little by little. Day by day. Month by month. Year by year. I’ve learned for myself that is how healing takes place.

But I also believe it’s a choice.

Like everything else in life, it’s a choice. You can choose to let it go, to heal from the trauma, drama and betrayals, to carry on despite the hard stuff and to seek to triumph over all of your challenges…or you can hang on to them, wallow in their misery, stagnate or let them ruin you and your potential to live a good and happy life. Ugh! I choose healing and progress any day over the alternative.

“What wound did ever heal but by degrees?” (William Shakespeare)

 

Ad-libbing to the Max: The Unexpected Life

Date: June 20, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“If life is just a stage, then we are all running around ad-libbing, with absolutely no clue what the plot is. Maybe that’s why we don’t know whether it’s a comedy or tragedy.” Bill Watterson

Three years ago, I lost the life I’d known and loved for most of my adult life and was thrust into a life I never expected.

The life I live today is different in every respect from the one I lost. Sometimes, this far into it all, it feels like the previous life, the fallout and the consequences my children and I have endured as a result of the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by my former husband happened to someone else—in someone else’s life. Sometimes, it hardly feels real anymore. And then, sometimes, things happen that remind me all of it was all too real!

As if the life I now live isn’t proof enough, occasionally I find myself on television. Tonight, it will be national television. “American Greed” on MSNBC, to be specific; an episode featuring my ex-husband dubbed by others as “The Mormon Madoff.” While some of the interview based on our experiences focused on the tragic aspects of the unexpected revelations of Shawn Merriman, I did my best to find a few comedic moments as well (to laugh is sometimes the only way to get through tragedy of unexpected proportions). And of course, living and enduring through all of it, has required I “ad-lib to the max.”

What do you do when your life ends in one moment and you find out everything is gone? What do you do when you discover your husband of 20 years, the man you have known and loved most of your adult life, has been living a double life and deceiving you, your children and the rest of the world? What do you do when you find yourself the sole parent and support of four children? What do you do when government agents enter your home and seize everything of value that you once thought was yours? What do you do when…?

You pick yourself up and carry on. You teach your children not just how to survive tragedy, but to triumph. (A life skill they’ll need throughout their lives.) You look for the good in what you’re left with and smile (although it takes some time before the smiles become real again.) And you rebuild, out of the ashes, something even better than you had before.

The Unexpected Life.

And while I have no idea of the content of tonight’s show, that’s what I hope shines through in my life and in the words of this blog. Because every life, no matter what happens, is worth living. That’s just one more thing my unexpected life has taught me.

Speech: Your Happily Ever After

Date: April 21, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

I had the opportunity to speak at a women’s meeting for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ephraim, Utah this week. I was asked to speak on “Your Happily Ever After.” Here are excepts from what I said.

“I was raised on fairy tales: Cinderella, The Goose Girl, Snow White and Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Seven Ravens, The Little Tin Soldier, The Emperor’s Nightingale and others.

Every fairy tale began with the words “Once upon a time.” Each one detailed the life of the heroine—which always included extreme adversity. And somehow, despite every hardship and challenge the heroines endured, they were obedient; they were kind to others; they performed their labors with a smile; and while every heroine in the illustrations was always beautiful on the outside they also each demonstrated their true beauty, their inner beauty, as they humbly accepted their unjust circumstances and the wicked treatment of other characters in the story and endured to the end, eventually, enjoying a “happily ever after.”

Fairy tales are and always have been absolutely believable to me. My mom, grandmother, female ancestors and other noble women have all lived them: life stories filled with ups and downs, adversities and triumphs, and in the end, a happily ever after. Doesn’t every woman do that? I believe we do when we endure to the end of challenging plot developments in faith, although each of our stories are in various stages of completion and many chapters have yet to be written.

Now you know my background and what I believed in when I was handed my own, but unexpected, “once upon a time” opportunity: a story of adventure, overwhelming darkness, evil, obstacles, injustice, courage, hope, tender mercies, miracles, overcoming, romance, eventually everlasting love and, of course, a “happily ever after!”

My once upon a time began when I was born to goodly parents. Later I graduated from Brigham Young University, married and enjoyed a happy marriage for the next 20 years, had 4 children, served in our church and community and enjoyed many material blessings as well—a comfortable home, a swimming pool, a Sport Court, luxury cars, a second home in Yellowstone, a world-class art collection that was loaned to museums around the world, world travel and financial means. (Over the years, I’d watched our investments and savings grow to well over $10 million dollars. I thought I was on track for, and living, the happily ever after of my life.)

And then our life, marriage, family, world, everything, ended in one moment when my husband sat me down and confessed that his company was a sham. That in reality, all those years I’d thought he’d been going to work every day and running an investment company, he had actually been perpetuating a Ponzi scheme. He’d already hired an attorney, turned himself in to the government and to church leaders, and anticipated serving 5-7 years in prison. Our house, cars and assets were gone; I was left alone, the sole parent and support of our four children; and my parents were dead.

To this day I can imagine very few storylines worse than the one that was written in to mine! (I even had a friend whose young husband was dying of cancer tell me she’d take her life over mine any day! And sadly, I would have, too.) Oh, and on top of everything else, he told me I’d need an attorney even though I’d done nothing wrong and how sorry he was that he’d maxed out the last of our credit cards paying for his attorney!

I can’t adequately describe the despair, the darkness, the shock, the grief, the fear and the humiliation associated with my nightmare—I mean fairy tale. As an added bonus, my husband’s victims included neighbors, friends, family members as well as my closest lifelong friends, and the shock and rage at my husband and what he had done was extended to my children and me, but especially to me. The hatred was indescribable.

My world collapsed, my marriage ended and it all played out on national television and in newspapers nationwide. The stress was so great it led to what I like to call the felony diet—7 pounds GONE that first day! But the worst was facing my children and witnessing the destruction of their world, their childhood innocence and their fairy tale lives go up in flames (or out the door, courtesy of the U.S. Marshalls.) Shortly after my husband’s revelations, I saw my 9-year-old writing on a piece a paper: “There’s a hole where my heart used to be. My dad is going to prison.”

We lost anything, everything and more that had been paid for with tainted funds; we lost everything of worldly value. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to be thrown into a fairy tale like that. Everything I’d worked toward and built my entire adult life was gone. I didn’t know how I was going to live, to feed my children or survive. I didn’t know what was ahead.

I’ve been asked to get personal with you regarding my experience so I thought I’d share the first person account of what I lived through, a few of my journal entries, written in those dark days—mingled with the things I learned and the principles I tried to live by.

1. As you’re writing your life story never forget that the story may develop in ways you never expected, you may get to live some very unwanted chapters, but that doesn’t have to change the end of your story—or that you’re expected to get there anyway.

Right and wrong don’t change just because your life does. Don’t let yourself make excuses for doing or not doing certain things just because things have become “harder.” And contrary to what I was tempted to believe when I was thrust into my fairy tale opportunity, life doesn’t end just because your world does. You have to keep living. You have to keep striving for happiness and joy in it too, you just may have to get a little more creative or work a little harder to make your life is one of equal happiness and joy to the one you lost! Make sure you’re doing everything you can to triumph, keep on keeping on, let go of anger/resentment/fear, and in the end, you’ll become more than you ever thought possible.

2. No matter what you think you’ve lost, you are still left with something you just may have to look really hard to find it! Count your blessings despite your trials. Look for the good.

“I found out today there will be notices on our home that it’s seized by the government. Embarrassing? Maybe, but I’m counting my blessings that at least it’s a roof over our heads for a little while longer.”

 “I realized today that while my husband has received hate mail from all across the country, I haven’t received one piece! Nasty comments in the public forum, public speculation, vilification by many but no hate mail! Each week I receive a few letters of love and support and good wishes from people, but I haven’t gotten a single piece of hate mail. THAT is a tender mercy. THAT is a blessing. Count your many blessings!”

Some days the only “blessing” I could see was that for some reason, I was still breathing. That’s ok if that’s all you can find to be grateful for.

3. As you’re enduring your fairy tale, keep walking. Keep pressing forward. Don’t quit.

 Years ago, I read a story about a pioneer man who lost his wife crossing the plains, buried her and by that night had lost his infant son as well. He walked back to his wife’s grave, dug her up, buried the baby with her, then returned to the wagon train. He quit writing in his journal for awhile, but when he picked up again, he wrote only, “Still walking.”

“Like that pioneer man who quit writing in his journal for awhile during his adversities, I guess that is me. I haven’t had the time or energy or opportunity to write about my life lately. I haven’t been able to face what is now my life. And I’m not sure why it is my life. I know I shouldn’t ask why, but I am so alone and discouraged I literally can’t hold myself back. I am filled with grief for the many, many things I have lost. And I am so lonely. What did I ever do to deserve any of this besides love and trust my husband—which, I’m told that’s what you’re supposed to do in marriage. I feel so much grief I can’t express it. I hope I can get over it. I hope I can keep going. I hope. I hope. I hope. I guess I do hope, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep trying every day.”

Keep walking.

4. Realize how you react to adversity is a critical factor in whether or not you arrive at your own “happily ever after.” It’s up to us to make of our life and experiences what we will.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught: “You need to know that you will experience your own adversity. None is exempt. You will learn for yourself what every heroine has learned: through overcoming challenges come growth and strength. It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.”

 “Winston Churchill said ‘to every man [and woman] there comes…that special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing unique to them…what a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.’ It hit me as I read that that I have an opportunity to let this time be my finest hour. It is a critical time. As daunting as it seems, I MUST make this time my finest hour. I don’t know what the future holds, but I have faith. I know there will be one.”

 “It’s taking all of my faith and trust to hope the kids and I don’t end up homeless, on the street, living in a cardboard box. My heart ached all day yesterday and I didn’t know if it’s because my heart is broken or because I was having a heart attack! I’m being dealt so many injustices and there will never be any restitution to me for any of it. I guess I am the one who will just have to let go of it, forgive and go on. I have only one goal: to not hate. Ok, I have two goals: to be cheerful, happy and optimistic again somehow.”

Be of good courage. One day I came across the theme for my new life: “If you can’t jump over life’s hurdles, LIMBO under them!”

It’s all in what you choose to do with it. You can let your trials “ruin” your lives and become an excuse for every future challenge or failure you’ll have; or you can hang in there, get through them, and figure out how to use them for your good, to make you better, and you can learn to smile in spite of them.

5. Remember that your situation never ends up as bed, in the end, as you imagine it’s going to. Things are never quite as bad as they seem. Have patience until things settle. (That was true even for me!)

Jeffrey Holland, president of Brigham Young University when I attended college encouraged: “Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. On those days when we have special need… remember there is help. There IS happiness. There really IS light at the end of the tunnel. Hold on. Keep trying. Things will improve…Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can.“

“It is another day of not being able to comprehend how I’ll make it through another day, but I have no choice. I have to try. Each time I think I am healing, or that maybe we can make it, or that everything will be ok, each time I start to feel even a tiny shade of peace or confidence, something HUGE happens to suck me right back in to the black hole I have been trying to crawl out of since March 18. I don’t believe God caused this calamity to come upon us, my husband did; but it doesn’t mean I don’t get to experience it, it means only that the Lord knew I was strong enough to handle this. It means God knows we can survive it if we choose to. It also means that we have to wade through the most incredible garbage I have ever seen! And I also have to hope it means things will, someday, get better.”

 6. Recognize your challenges are opportunities for growth.

“I couldn’t help but laugh at the encouragement from my church leaders regarding tribulation at our recent conference. They always mention economic challenge OR job challenge OR family challenge OR marital challenge OR disappointment OR broken heart, etc…but they haven’t mentioned all of them together at the same time, and THAT is me! (If you add hatred and persecution from neighbors, friends, and many church members; orphaned and without parents; prison, crimes, divorce and everything else with it too!) HOW did I get so blessed? I have been given so many unimaginable opportunities for growth and all at the same time. Lucky me. I hope I can do it.”

You can do it. I did. I’m living proof.

7. Have a sense of humor during the hard chapters of your fairy tale. I firmly believe a sense of humor helps you get through challenges.

 “In church today the teacher asked us to think of our 5 most valuable material possessions. Hmmm. I don’t have any anymore! I had nothing to think of. That struck me so funny I laughed. I always thought ‘you can’t take it with you’ applied to death, but it applies to 41-year-old, alive me!

Another funny thing:  Today my daughter told me I need to get married to a good man so I’m not alone. I told her I won’t marry again because I am an ‘old bag.’ She helpfully said, “Mom! Botox!” (No disagreement on her end that her mother is a disgusting and old ugly ‘bag’, just a helpful suggestion to me on how to overcome it! P.S. to My Daughter: No shelter, no food, no job, no everything also means Botox IS NOT an option!)”

8. Realize that no matter what develops in your life your dreams can still come true—you just might get to them differently than you expected.

 “My high school son dreamed his entire life of playing hockey at the college level. But then our life happened, we moved to Utah, we are literally in the depths of poverty—short of the needed money for our expenses each month—and initially thought every dream had been taken from us. And then today my son was asked, as a high school student, if he had any interest in practicing with the BYU team. Does he? It’s amazing, this experience called life; how things work out for us, and how the Lord moves in mysterious ways and truly can make all things work together for our good. When our world ended, I thought every dream we’d ever had was gone too. Yet, because of my ex-husband’s crimes and the way things worked out for us, we ended up in Utah, right where we are, and my son is probably in a better position now to make his college hockey dream come true than he ever would have been living what we thought was our fairy tale life in Colorado. It proves once again that you can lose your entire life, be gifted a cesspool, and you can still grow flowers out of the manure someone else created for you. That is why you never quit, you never give up, you keep pressing forward, you keep doing what is right and living as excellently as you can, and eventually, you create out of your new life all of the good things you were aiming for in your old one. You arrive at the same happily ever after, you just end up taking a different path to get there.”

Long story short, we survived our losses, my divorce, our move to Utah and everything else which eventually led to a total lapse of sanity on my part resulting in me, on a whim late one Friday night, signing up online for a single’s site; which led me to me re-entering the singles scene!

I wish I could report associations with many handsome princes—and there were a few of those—but the reality consisted of a LOT more frogs! (No disrespect to any men intended.) But I eventually (in fact, a lot quicker than I expected) I found a prince! We married in 2011 and recently celebrated our first wedding anniversary.

 9. Lastly, remember every single life lesson will be worth it.

My 2011 marriage was one of the greatest moments of my life. All I could think was, “This is absolutely perfect. It was worth everything I went through to get here.” I was actually grateful for everything that had happened to me. Not only because of what I learned, but because my experience, MY LOSS, looking back on it, actually freed me.

My unexpected life freed me to find and receive what I’d always wanted, what I’d always thought I had but really hadn’t had—a true happily ever after with a wonderful man.  And not that every story has to end with a handsome prince; but mine did! And I’m so grateful.

“Life is a precious gift as precious a gift as ‘once upon a time.’ It’s our own true story of adventure, trial, opportunity for greatness, nobility, courage and love. But happily ever after doesn’t come without a price. Sandwiched between ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after is great adversity. In stories as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps develop a depth of character that comes no other way. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your once upon a time is now.” (Dieter Uchtdorf)

If you remember nothing else from my remarks tonight, please remember this:

 Happily ever after is not something found only in fairy tales. You can have it. It is available to you. I am living proof—of that and that by seeking to not just endure but triumph in adversity, our challenges can make us better than we would otherwise have been. So keep living, reading and writing your own story with faith and courage regardless of the plot developments, creating your own happily ever after, until the day that you really do experience this phrase again: ‘And they lived happily ever after.’”

 

Boys—And The Occasional Lapse In Common Sense

Date: February 13, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” (Gertrude Stein)

And if raising sons has taught me anything at all that the rowdy twin brothers I was raised with failed to do, it’s this: boys not only think very differently than girls (in my experience), they occasionally have a lapse in common sense!

My oldest child was an energetic child. His antics led me to many unexpected experiences—like the time I took him to a McDonald’s play land and while he was in a tunnel, I watched children stream from every colorful plastic opening, running and screaming in terror in the race back to the safety of their mothers’s arms. I watched mothers attempt to comfort their crying children as they complained of a “beast” in the tunnel, and before I knew what was happening, out came my son: growling, hissing, clawing the air with his hands, roaring for all he was worth and looking as fierce as a 3 or four-year-old possibly can. Followed shortly afterward by all mothers’ eyes upon me in condemnation for raising such a child who would behave in such a way. I was mortified! It was a long time before I dared let him venture back to a play land. (Probably a healthier choice for him anyway.)

But I realized a few months ago, when confronting the behavior of my second son, that for all my oldest son’s energy, creativity and questionable boyhood antics that led to a few broken bones and several surgeries over the course of his life, he still made it through high school graduation without a single visit to the principal’s office.

Wish I could say the same about his younger brothers!

Shortly around the time my youngest ditched kindergarten a few months ago (which resulted into a trip to the principal’s office) I got a call from my middle son. He called from school, crying so hard he could hardly speak, and all I could understand was, “I’ve made a terrible mistake, I’m so sorry!” over and over again.

You know, it’s interesting. Having lived through some of the lovely adventures that have been mine in the course of my life, particularly since my first husband dropped the Ponzi scheme bomb that destroyed my world and others in 2009 and revealed the double life he had been leading and the crimes he had committed, I have some crazy “automatic” responses. When I got the call I was mentally thrust into a different time, and instead of reacting like a normal mother (I assume normal mothers worry about…what? Missing the bus, or a missing homework assignment?) my mind immediately races to thoughts of big lies, cheating, stealing, serious betrayal and behavior worthy of prison time. I think, “Oh no! It has finally happened! I knew this was coming, that THIS is how the trauma my children lived through is going to manifest itself.” It’s a crazy split second or two until I calm my psyche and ask, “What happened?” never letting on that my mind has already imagined the worst.

Turns out, my middle son had gotten in a fight at school on the playground! I guess the bright side of it was that he had chosen to confront a boy well-known for bullying students and who had been in several fights at school already (if school yard gossip can be relied upon at all), and after my son had turned to adults at the school for help and the situation didn’t change, my son took matters into his own hands and decided to take a stand. I was shocked at how intentional the decision was: the boys had scheduled their “fight” via Facebook! And both showed up at the appointed place and time, the next day, to follow through.

Needless to say, my middle son sent his last Facebook message that day. When I got home from work, I told him to write his last internet communication—a Facebook message apology to the boy—to send it and then suspend his account, and to prepare to go to the boys’ home and also apologize in person. I ended the conversation with something about how disappointed I was by his choices and how poorly his actions reflected not just upon himself, but upon our family and the type of mother people will assume he has because of his behavior! (My husband let me handle it, but had his own questions: like, did my son get any good punches in before school officials broke up the fight? Men! Boys!)

Both boys apologized, shook hands and agreed to go to school the next day and let everyone know they had worked things out. Make that TWO visits to the principal’s office for this son (he called 9-1-1 from an old cell phone of his dad’s that “didn’t work” while out on the school playground with his friends in Colorado, trip #1, followed by a visit from the sheriff who responded to the call; and enjoyed excursion #2 six years later because he got into a boxing match with a bully in Utah) but all’s well that ends well, right? As long as a good lesson was learned!

“To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.” (Jack Handy)

Snakes, snails, puppy dog tails, Facebook fights, boxing matches, visits to the principal’s office and occasional lapses in common sense aside, I love my boys and the opportunity that is mine to be their mother. My greatest effort and work will be, I hope, in raising my boys to become amazing men—upstanding citizens, good husbands and wonderful fathers.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the unexpected life…and their occasional lapses in common sense!

Spooky

Date: January 24, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.” (Princess Diana)

I finished my Madonna representation and was anxious to change out of the costume and hide. But I had one more hurdle to clear. The cast had to go to the ship’s main lobby, greet family, friends, “fans,” and pose for a group photo.

I wanted to do all of the above almost as much as I’d wanted to sing a solo of “Like A Virgin” in front of hundreds of people and wear the costume I’d been provided with—but I did it anyway, comforting myself that at least I wouldn’t know anyone and hopefully, that what happened on a Carnival cruise ship stayed on a Carnival cruise ship!

After the group photo, a man approached. Turns out, he’d been an old friend of my husband’s parents and their family in Winslow, Arizona, and hadn’t seen my husband in approximately 30 years! Their reunion was joyful. As I watched and listened to the conversation, I realized the man had also been a leader in the L.D.S. church when my husband was called on his mission to Japan—and there I stood dressed like Madonna! I took that as my cue to leave, and quick!

I turned to make my escape just as my husband said, “And let me introduce you to my wife!” I wanted to die, but instead, got to make a new acquaintance while wearing a black bustier. Not exactly what I’d expected. I sort of felt like a deer caught in headlights. But it got much, much worse when my new acquaintance revealed he now lives in the Denver-metro area. My husband replied, “Oh! My wife is from Denver!” The man turned to me and asked, “Really? What was your name?”

Have you ever seen television shows where everything comes to a screeching halt and all of the characters “freeze?” That’s how I feel, still, when people ask the question, “What’s your name?” I know, instantly, they’re going to recognize my name and it’s 2009, to some degree, all over again. (To those who think I can’t fully escape my past, try as I might…sometimes it feels like you’re right!) I felt like I stood there, mouth open, as my mind raced to solve the problem of how to answer that question but before I could give a response that did not include the name “Merriman,” my husband introduced me: Andrea Merriman. (He is such a nonjudgmental, kind man, but as much as he thinks he understands what I lived through as the wife of a Ponzi schemer clueless about her husband’s crimes until their 2009 revelation, I just don’t think he gets it; and it’s moments like that that reinforce that suspicion in me.)

It was the man’s turn to look like a deer caught in headlights. I’d known he would. I’d just been hoping to avoid it. A part of me wanted to die, inside. The good news, is that those moments are becoming fewer and further between. The bad news is that they still happen. The conversation resumed and I tried to remove myself from it as unobtrusively as possible.

I’d outdone myself that evening: inappropriate clothing, inappropriate lyrics, a forgettable solo in front of hundreds of strangers…courtesy of Andrea Merriman!

“When a relationship dies, do we ever really give up the ghost or are we forever haunted by the spirits of relationships past?” (Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, “Sex In The City”)

 

Name Change

Date: April 1, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There was my name up in lights. I said, ‘Somebody’s made a mistake.’ But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, ‘Remember, you’re not a star.’ Yet there it was up in lights.” (Marilyn Monroe)

When I married the first time, it was the 1980s and I liked my name; I didn’t plan to change it. That turned out to be possibly the only “fight” I had with Shawn Merriman before I married him. I ended up changing my name. I became Andrea Merriman.

Twenty years of marriage and four children later, when I divorced, I kept the name Andrea Merriman. I laughed to think that as much as I hadn’t wanted to become “Merriman” when I married, it was the one thing I kept when I divorced! My decision to keep my name surprised Shawn Merriman, but I did it for my children: their dad was going to prison; their paternal grandparents hadn’t contacted them or their father through the whole Ponzi scheme nightmare (other than to send my two oldest birthday cards in which they didn’t mention our troubles or even offer a word of encouragement beyond what had been generically, pre-printed on the birthday card and then to send the judge sentencing their son a letter encouraging her to “give him the maximum, make him pay for what he did.”) I felt like my kids needed family; family that shared their name, at that difficult time. I didn’t want my children to feel they were alone; the only four Merrimans in the world. At least with me, their mother, there were five of us! The Five Musketeers, in our own way.

However, my children, initially, didn’t appreciate my decision. (Believe me when I say that back in 2009, I couldn’t seem to please anyone! It wasn’t just angry neighbors or victims that weren’t happy with my choices to put my children first! Even my own children didn’t always appreciate my reasoning or the decisions I made.) Several times they asked why I didn’t change my name to Christensen and why I didn’t change their names to that, too! It’s hard to describe or understand, but lets just say it was a difficult and humiliating time; we cringed every time the name Merriman was spoken, wondering who would realize we were related to Shawn Merriman if they heard it, what others might think of us, and how we would be judged, or treated, once the connection was made. In fact, my older children were pushing so hard for a name change I wrote it into my divorce: that I was free to change my children’s names, any time I wanted, without permission or consent from their father.

However, I refused to let my children make the decision to change their entire identity in the heat of a hard moment. They had lost their entire world as they knew it, and if they lost their name, their identity, in addition to everything else, they truly would have lost absolutely everything and I didn’t know what the ramifications of that might be in the future. So we held on to Merriman for the time being.

And then we healed. And then I got engaged. And we all continued to heal.

Shortly after our engagement, the first time #5 mentioned–assumed–I would change my name when we married I was surprised. I was almost 43 years old and had been who I am for a LONG time. Even through the trauma of my unexpected life. I had become ok with being Andrea Merriman again. I wasn’t ashamed or humiliated by the actions of another any more. I remarked, “Oh, I didn’t think I would change my name, I wasn’t planning on it.” From the look of surprise on #5′s face, I realized he had an expectation contrary to mine so I added, “Unless it’s important to you. Is it important to you? If it is, we can talk about it.”

He graciously said no, whatever I wanted to do was fine with him. I thought that settled it, except every few months of our engagement #5 would occasionally question, “So what about your name? Have you thought about what you’re going to do when we get married, if you’re changing your name or not?” My answer was always the same: no, I hadn’t thought about it. I actually thought our initial discussion had settled it, but after 2-3 such conversations I realized despite what he said, it was important to #5 that I change my name or he wouldn’t keep bringing it up. However, I appreciated the fact that he was very willing to accommodate my unwillingness to change my name. He didn’t pressure me, didn’t tell me he wanted me to change my name outright, he just “subtly” mentioned it occasionally!

Then one night we went to Costco. That evening sealed it for me.

We both had memberships that were expiring. Since we were marrying, we wanted only one account. I was digging through my purse looking for something while #5 took care of the membership. By the time he finished with the clerk, I’d found what I’d been looking for, he handed me my card without a word, and I put it away as we walked out. It was just an ordinary Costco card. But something about it caught my eye as I slipped it into my wallet. Could it have been the name “Andrea Ramsey” printed on it? I didn’t comment, but shook my head and laughed. The name change issue was resolved without another word. It CLEARLY was important to him. So I decided I needed to do it.

I just had to prepare my children.

At first I don’t think they were thrilled. I’d given them a very good P.R. pitch about Merriman and why I was keeping that name when I divorced. They even suggested I hyphenate: Merriman-Ramsey. But that is a mouthful, not to mention a lot to write, and it didn’t give me the same name as anyone–#5 or my children. When I explained I was doing it because I would be married to #5 and I sensed it was important to him, they didn’t say another word. (They have been incredibly supportive of every change that has come as a result of joining our lives together.) They only had one concern after that: did they have to change their names too?

Nope.

From the relief in their eyes and on their faces I saw just how much they had healed in the two years since our unexpected life began. Their humiliation is gone! They are Merriman and want to remain that. I bet they don’t even remember the days they begged me to change their names. Their passion for their name showed me just how thoroughly and completely they are healing, and I am grateful.

So while I never ever expected my children would ever have a different name than mine, we’re learning it’s just one more unexpected aspect of…the unexpected life. So we’re rolling with it.

But just in case you’re considering a name change for YOUR children, for whatever reason, here’s a handy tip from Bill Cosby I thought I’d pass along: “Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell, the name will carry.”

Lol.

“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.”

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)