Living Happily Ever After
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Happy Anniversary

Date: March 14, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity.  The order varies for any given year.” (Paul Sweeney)

And then, before we knew it, our first wedding anniversary was upon us.

We’d made it not just three Valentine’s Days but through everything the premarital counselor had warned us about regarding remarriage, plus the usual marriage challenges, plus the typical first year of marriage adjustments and learning experiences as well as everything else life had brought our way in one year. Looking back, the whirlwind of experiences of just that one year almost makes my head spin! I feel like Steve Jobs who said, “Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and learning experiences and human experienes that a year is a lifetime at Apple. So this has been ten lifetimes.”

The honest assessment of this remarriage “lifetime?” As with life, some of it is bordering on perfection; some of it hasn’t gone as planned;  much of it has been better than anticipated; and then there are a few things we’re not going to stress over right now, we’re simply going to give them time and trust they will improve in the coming years. I’ve learned for myself again and again in this unexpected life that time is a great healer; that things have a way of coming together, improving and resolving themselves, with time. And I’ve been told over and over again by those who have lived through remarriage, combining worlds and families and everything else, that things will be different (and even better) seven years down the road. Even more to celebrate.

More anniversaries to look forward to.

So here’s to love, marriage, the blessing of finding the one you love and getting to marry them, family, life and every part of the “happily ever after”—including the few and far between less happy moments that are a part of it all. Here’s to making marriage work, that it may never be said of us: “She’s been married so many times she has rice marks on her face.” (Henny Youngman)

Happy Valentine’s Day

Date: March 13, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“There is no feeling more comforting and consoling than knowing you are right next to the one you love.” (Anonymous)

If you’re counting (like apparently I am) last month was my third Valentine’s Day with my husband as well as the month of our first wedding anniversary. I had to laugh at how far we’ve come since our first Valentine’s Day together: February 14, 2010.

That was the year my co-workers (my best friends in Utah who helped see me through some very difficult adjustments; good, handsome, sharp married men with wisdom beyond their years as well as beautiful families) caught me on my way out the door as I was heading home for a date that night to ask, “Andrea, what’s the story with Mike? MANY others have come and gone while he has quietly hung in there, what’s up with that?” So I spent the next several minutes explaining nothing was going on, we were just friends—that he was just a very nice older man ( he’d had long hair and beard–a white beard–due to a theater role he was doing when I met him; I had never been a fan of facial hair, so I didn’t really look beyond that!) who felt bad for me, a divorced single mother of four children with no money who didn’t know anyone in her new home in Utah and that he was simply providing social experiences for me. My friends disagreed. They told me Mike was a man and men don’t do things like that; men always have a plan. I argued against that and their male logic…only to arrive home that night to a beautiful bouquet of roses that had been delivered to me with wishes for a Happy Valentine’s Day—from Mike. (That was also the night he warned me things were about to change in our relationship. Needless to say, they did!)

2011. That was the year we had been engaged for 9 months. We had a simple but fun evening together, however our big anticipation was our pending wedding (which ended up taking place, sort of unexpectedly, less than two weeks later.) Our Valentine’s celebration consisted of going to a late dinner by ourselves and then he surprised me with the first accessory item he ever purchased for me: a black, fringed, handbag. He got the black part right (I have always loved black), and because he’d seen me with a handbag that had fringed tassels probably assumed I was into fringe on purses. He was partly right, I do appreciate fringed tassels—on Gucci bags. It was just the long, hairy, fringy aspect of the entire purse he gave me that I wasn’t so sure about. He told me the story of the bag purchase, he told me I could return it for a different one, I thanked him for his thoughtfulness but at that stage of our relationship, I didn’t dare return it. So I  tried to make the bag work with my style and that effort lasted one week. Because everywhere I went, those who loved and cared about me offered to take care of that purse for me! I retired the handbag to my closet where it awaits just the perfect occasion…I’m thinking something along the lines of Halloween or a costume party. (Hint: When you’re handbag shopping for your fiancee, all of your children tell you a certain purse is “ugly” and only the totally unique, eclectically-styled and funky girl that can get away with anything and make it look cute disagrees, it may be best to make that a situation where the majority rules!)

2012. Our first Valentine’s Day married! My husband made reservations for us to eat at The Grill at Sundance resort (the restaurant we ate at the night we got engaged.) With 8 kids between us and limited funds, I assumed dinner would be our entire celebration. However unexpectedly, at work, I heard a voice behind me say, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Andrea!” and I turned around to find the receptionist at my company, beaming, as she excitedly handed me a beautiful bouquet of roses that had been delivered. Then a teddy bear arrived. Then chocolates arrived. Then my husband surprised me by coming home from work “early” (closer to 5 p.m. instead of his usual closer-to-6 p.m.) so we got to spend extra time together—my favorite part of the day—but the gifts kept coming, too. My husband totally outdid himself making me feel loved and special all day. It was my best Valentine’s Day ever!

I went to sleep that night later than usual, exhausted from working all day and staying out late that night on a date with my husband, but feeling so happy, content and loved in my unexpected life. The last thought I remember having as I drifted off to sleep that night was gratitude for a husband who put so much thought and effort into making me feel special and loved, not just every day but also on Valentine’s Day. Before I fell asleep I managed to whisper, “Thanks for everything you did for me today,” and the last thing I remember hearing, as I drifted off, was my husband’s quiet reply, “You’re welcome. Thank you for being my valentine.”

Sigh. Love.

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.” (William Shakespeare)

Totally.

I just never saw it coming when I was thrust into my unexpected life. How grateful I am that I hung on through the clouds, the storm and the utter devastation of my world until the sun came out again.

Hang in there!

Love

Date: February 27, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I married the first man I ever kissed.  When I tell this to my children they just about throw up.” (Barbara Bush)

I didn’t quite do what Barbara Bush did, but that doesn’t mean my kids aren’t feeling like hers did! Yes, with a newlywed mother, I’ve seen for myself how lovesick teenagers can be—make that how disgusted by aspects of love teens are bound to feel. And they don’t hold it in. They share it with me occasionally, even during this month of love (also the month of my first wedding anniversary.)

Case in point: The other day I was telling my son a story in an attempt to entertain him. Part of the story involved my imitation of some noises, unattractive sounds meant to make him laugh. I went out on a limb for the sake of entertainment and offered my finest attempt at said noises and was crushed when he failed to respond. As he was sitting in another room and I couldn’t see him, I called out, “Hey! Didn’t you hear that? You didn’t even react!”

“Oh, I heard you,” he replied. “I just thought you were kissing Mike again.”

Another child chimed in, “Watch out! Romance in the kitchen!”

My daughter just rolled her eyes and coincidentally, got up and left the room.

It was at that moment that I came to this realization: My poor children! If they haven’t been scarred by the trauma they endured when their dad confessed to running a Ponzi scheme and went to prison, I guess the behavior of their newlywed mother may be their undoing.

I’ll have to hope they learn this lesson: ”I found I could be happy and throw up at the same time.” (Pamela Anderson)

Love.

Happy Birthday

Date: August 31, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.” (Walter Lord)

Last week, I turned 44 years old and my husband turned 50 years old. On the same day. I remember the night I found out we shared the same birth date…and how I wasn’t sure I was thrilled about that. Second marriage moment #23? I changed my mind!

It happened like this.

My husband came home from work one day, said he found a great hotel deal in Las Vegas and that he thought we should take advantage of it to celebrate our birthdays. It immediately hit me like a ton of bricks: sharing a birthday with my husband just might not be too bad! I agreed to go.

But sadly, as the birthday approached, I began to have second thoughts: we shouldn’t spend the money, I’d never not been with my children on my birthday before, work was busy, who would supervise the children while we were gone? Then shortly before the trip, an extended family member scheduled a wedding we needed to attend and my husband announced, “I don’t think we can do both. Maybe we shouldn’t go to Las Vegas.”

As he voiced what I had been thinking and feeling all along, I suddenly realized how much I wanted to go. How important it was, to me, to go. (I’m not sure why. But I will say in a remarriage, in my experience, there are so many things already decided for you. It is never just you and your husband, alone, and deciding what you want or what is best for you and then doing that. You begin your marriage and attempt to build a new family, with two other already existing families, and children, in place. You never, or rarely, have the luxury of considering only your needs—not to mention you start out your marriage with so many things you can’t control, or do, due to the choices of others.) Maybe it was just a moment of stubbornness where I couldn’t have one more person make one more choice and decide something for me, or have one more person’s choice affect my plans and my life, but for some reason I felt it was important to get away to Las Vegas with my new husband.

So I said, “It’s my birthday. It’s your birthday. It’s our six month wedding anniversary. You got a great deal on a hotel. There isn’t a present or gift I want. And although every remarried couple we know told us the most important thing we should do as a remarried couple is to get away alone, without children, as often as we can—even every month—we haven’t done it once. I think I’m going to Vegas, and I hope you’ll join me!”

We went to Vegas.

We went cheap. We ate inexpensively. We didn’t see any shows. But we enjoyed all our hotel had to offer, and especially enjoyed our time alone together and the chance to talk and laugh together, for 57 hours, uninterrupted! Turns out, sharing your birthday with your spouse has its perks, too. When the hotel spa found out it was our birthday, they gave us a complimentary visit. And unexpectedly, my husband’s boss called and told me take my husband out to dinner for his birthday—on him. So I had crab legs (my favorite thing in the world, next to lobster) for the first time in two years—since beginning my unexpected life.

Who cares if you or your birthday cake is sagging with age or years…as long as you’re sagging on a birthday getaway with your husband? Not me.

“I should be committed to an institution immediately for even thinking I could get away with that…” (Johnny Depp)