Living Happily Ever After
test123

Blog Articles

Me Too!

Date: April 7, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.” (Adam Smith)

Before we get to the details of the big day, I have to pause and commend someone for something: #5. For his patience, restraint and consideration of my privacy and this blog.

I remember our date after I began blogging, when I was telling him all about it as we drove down the road. Deciding to tell my story was a momentous decision for me, and for my children, and I was letting him in on the details. One of his first questions was, “Tell me something, would it ruin your blog if you weren’t writing as a single mother?” That was in the days before I knew he was interested in me, and long before I was romantically interested in him, so I didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about or why he would even ask that!

As our relationship progressed he continued to stay very anonymous, for his sake, and mine, although he made jokes about getting a t-shirt made that said, “#5″ and a myriad of other #5-related slogans. He good-naturedly made lots of jokes about catchy slogans he could put on clothing for himself, thanks to my blog. And he was very patient about every private detail of our courtship being posted to a blog read by people he didn’t know. He was a VERY good sport about the bachelor section, too, despite the fact it was very educational for him–he’d never had any idea I was as involved in the singles scene as I had been. (Although that was when he quit reading this blog, never to return again!)

When we got engaged, and he wanted to tell everyone in his social network, he was restrained enough to share just the basic information: that he was getting married, to a woman named Andrea from Denver–and that’s it. When he organized his list of family on Facebook, he was good enough to leave me off.

But apparently, late that evening, the night before our appointed wedding day, he lost it. He abandoned all restraint. My sister got on Facebook and unexpectedly, found a post that entertained us. #5 had been on Facebook and logged a status update:

“I’m gettin’ married in the mornin’. Yeah!”

And it was as true for him as it had been in “My Fair Lady.” (You have to love his taste for the theatrical!)

Although I rarely get on Facebook, and I comment even less, that night I couldn’t resist. I was getting married in the morning too, so I guess I was feeling a bit reckless as well. I commented, “Me too!” And my sister “liked” it:)

Some last minute advice for #5 before it’s too late: “If you’re going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late.” (Henny Youngman)

Just Be

Date: December 4, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.” (Jackie Chan)

I was talking to a friend the other day who said she has watched me blossom the past year. (Of course, she gave #5 the credit. And in part, she is probably right.) But I also have to give my acceptance of my unexpected life its due as well.

When my unexpected life hit in 2009, I felt like I lost not only my world and my life, but myself. I was humiliated, I was devastated, and even the most basic aspects of “Andrea” (like laughter) were gone. I seriously doubted I’d ever be able to smile and mean it again. I wondered if my former husband’s Ponzi scheme hadn’t stolen “me” too. Thank goodness I was wrong.

I moved to Utah under the guise of trying to live an anonymous life. But the life we tried to live when we arrived, carrying the burden of our secret, just wasn’t us. I’ve never been one to hide anything, and I wasn’t able to do it despite the humiliation of publicity, a former family member’s sentencing and incarceration and everything else that came with my unexpected life. At some point, trying to live that way became equally as burdensome as my unexpected life itself.

I actually lasted six months attempting to live that way, and then I had to come clean. I couldn’t take not being Andrea Merriman any more.

So I shared my story, my dreadful secret, with a friend and co-worker. She didn’t run or ostracize me; she cried for me and with me…and then shared something horrific she had lived through. My burden began to lift. I opened up to other new friends about my “real” life, all of it, and not only did they accept it and me to some degree, I think it fascinated them! It’s certainly not the typical life experience of many people.  Eventually, my effort to become the real me again morphed into this blog and I put myself out there for the world.

And I blossomed. I became me again. Normal.  (Whatever that means.)

“Normal is in the eye of the beholder.” (Whoopi Goldberg)

One masterful secret of the unexpected life? Just be. You.

Bachelor #13: Mr. Hostile

Date: July 8, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I have attended singles functions the past several months because…I’m single. If I stopped to analyze it, I guess I’m going to meet people and make friends. However, in the wake of the trauma I lived through discovering my spouse had betrayed me and neighbors and friends and relatives and strangers, in the aftermath of our divorce and our move to Utah and my return to the workforce full-time, I never let myself think about my purpose or motivation in going, or anything else related to being single. I just went.

So I can’t imagine what some people think of me.

There I am, at a singles function, with 99% of the people probably in attendance to meet members of the opposite sex, and I freeze (like a deer caught in headlights) every time a man asks for my phone number!

I stammer. I am not quite sure what to say. I’m shocked. I’m surprised. And I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to be seen giving out my phone number. Yet…don’t I go there to meet people and have social experiences? Clearly, I haven’t thought the whole thing through very well.

That’s how I met the man who would become Bachelor #13.

He wasn’t bad looking; he was tall; he had hair; he was educated; he had six children. And he was really pressing me for my phone number! In fact, he got out his phone to enter my contact info as we stood on the dance floor. I could have died! I asked him to put his phone away.

He obliged, but asked me for my business card. (Just my luck, my company hadn’t ordered mine yet so I had nothing like that to give him.) He began reaching for his phone again so I had to think quickly before he pulled his phone out in front of everyone again.

Instead, I asked if he had a business card and told him if he gave me one, I’d contact him and give him my information. (I’m a loser at some of this stuff, I admit it!)

He gave me his card. A few days later, I followed through on my commitment to contact him. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know what to expect. All I know is I didn’t expect the full court press he gave me.

Bachelor #13 began calling all of the time, emailing every day, texting me constantly, and asking me out. I tried to keep an open mind about the whole thing, but something wasn’t quite right and I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was just an impression I had. As a result, my inclination was to take it slow. So that’s what I attempted to do. Much to Bachelor #13′s chagrin.

His constant presence in my life was too much too soon. After working all day, I needed to be free to spend time with my children and chat with them during the rest of their waking hours. I asked Bachelor #13 to please call me after 9:30 p.m. at night so I’d have time to spend time with my children, check their homework, and get them all taken care of and in bed before I became inaccessible because I was on the phone.

It seemed like he couldn’t wait that long. The phone calls came anyway.

So I told him my evenings were a bit more complicated than I’d anticipated; email was probably the best way to reach me.

Within a few days, I got a very hostile but anonymous text to my cell phone. The text message ranted and raved about how inaccessible I made myself, about how uninterested in men I must be to limit contact (outside of dates) to email and phone calls and only after a certain time of day. Then the text told me I was missing out, that he was the best thing that had ever happened to me, the best thing that would ever happen to me, and that I was an idiot. The message ended by saying, “And the best part about this? You don’t even know WHO this is!”

Yes, I had a pretty good idea who it was. I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid! It was Bachelor #13. He was the only man that I knew of, at the time, who had my contact info and was upset that I couldn’t or wouldn’t use it all hours of the day and night, and at the expense of my job and family!

That was the end of Bachelor #13.

I’ve seen him a few times since then but he won’t speak to me; he pretends not to know who I am when I say hello. So since he won’t speak to me, I’ll speak for him. This is what I imagine he’d say:

“I’m hostile to men, I’m hostile to women, I’m hostile to cats, to poor cockroaches, I’m afraid of horses.” (Norman Mailer)

With Bachelor #13, I’m not sure who dumped who. I’m just grateful it happened.

Life’s too short to lash out like that. And only cowards won’t sign their name.

—Andrea

So Much For Anonymity

Date: May 20, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

We moved to Utah for a variety of reasons, the biggest being employment and that Utah is where things worked out for us to live. However, we had a few other motives too. Like the fact that it would be a clean break, a fresh start, and a chance to live where no one knew who we were, who we had once been related to or what we had just been through. Having had our brush with “celebrity,” not one of us was sad to leave the paparazzi behind!

But we had a few things NOT in our favor if we wanted to be completely anonymous. (And believe me, we were all so shell-shocked, that probably would have been our preference had we had a choice!)

Our first Sunday at church, our pastor asked for some personal information so he could request our church records from our previous congregation. I hesitated to give it to him so soon, wanting to make sure the divorce was final on church records so that my former spouse’s information was not transferred with ours. Although I hadn’t planned on it, I told the pastor a little of our situation to explain why I wasn’t ready to have him transfer our records yet. Poor man. He made an innocent phone call to get my birth date, and ended up knowing a LOT more than he was probably prepared to learn!

But that impulse to tell him our story when my plan had been to keep it quiet turned out to be a blessing. Less than a week after my conversation with my new pastor, he called to tell me it was good I’d told him my story; that a member of the congregation had come to him and told him he should google the new woman from Colorado who had moved in–that she had quite a story. He said, “Thank goodness you had told me. I was able to tell them I imagined you had moved here to start over and didn’t want everyone to know your past. I asked them to not share that information with others.”

So much for anonymity in the day of internet and search engines! lol.

On the bright side, I don’t know who the person was who googled me and shared it with the pastor, I never asked, but I never heard a word about my former life from anyone. To my knowledge, they honored the pastor’s request.

And then a few weeks later, after my former spouse had been taken into custody and placed in Colorado’s Jefferson County Jail, I opened the mailbox to find three letters from him. Mailed from jail. On the outside of each envelope, stamped in large letters, were the words “Uncensored Inmate Mail!” I looked down at what I was holding in my hand and all I could do was laugh! So much for anonymity. So much for a “fresh start!”

“This has been a learning experience for me. I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution. I have learned from this when in fact the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution.” (Bill Maher)

Bookmark and Share

Miracle Mail

Date: April 20, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I am terrible at remembering to collect my mail each day.  I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because my former spouse always got our mail, so it has been over 20 years since I’ve had to collect my mail.

But one year ago that changed. Due to my spouse’s crimes, the revelation that He had been running a ponzi scheme for 15 years, His prison sentence looming, our pending divorce, and other traumas…I took over everything–including the mail collection.

Each day, it seemed, hate mail arrived. I was shocked that we received it, and even more surprised at where it came from: total strangers, all across the U.S. It became so frequent for awhile there that one day I realized it had been one week since we had received a piece of hate mail!

An occasion to remember.

However, not all of the mail was hateful.  For the first two-three months of the nightmare, other anonymous mail arrived, the complete opposite of hate mail. I would open an envelope to find a gift card to a grocery store, Target, Costco or WalMart.  Other weeks, I would open an envelope to find some cash.  Other times it would be words of encouragement or an uplifting thought I really needed at that moment and that helped me continue on when the day had been particularly disastrous.

I called it Miracle Mail. It was such a blessing to me and to my children. It helped us survive, not just emotionally, but physically.

Thank heaven for those who “never suppress a generous thought.”

We were getting by on very little money as all of our accounts had been frozen. The cash I had I withdrawn on March 18, I had put in my wallet and then kept my wallet with me at all times. I didn’t let my spouse know where the money was because I was afraid he’d steal it! Trust was non-existent. (I guess it shows you may choose to allow a stranger to remain in your home for your children’s sake and because you feel it is the kind thing to do, but that doesn’t mean you trust Him.  At all.)

Any time my children needed lunch money, etc…I pulled a small amount of cash out of my wallet and used it.  I didn’t dare look at it, because to see the minimal amount, and to see that minimal amount dwindling, would have added even more stress to a life that was already bursting at the seams with it!

I remember getting down to the last $20, and then finally to the last $1, and wondering what we were going to do…and then an anonymous piece of mail, miracle mail, containing a gift card or cash would arrive at the very moment I needed it. There are some amazing, generous, kind, and charitable people. They literally saved us.  And of course, most of it was anonymous so I had no idea who to thank.

We also lived off food we had stored for emergencies, so although we weren’t eating our favorite things, we were able to purchase less at the store and still had food to eat. And, as with everything else, we got by with a little help from our friends.

A friend stopped by one day and unloaded a car load of food items from Costco–”fun” food, as she called it, that my children hadn’t seen in awhile like fruit snacks, crackers, Mickey Mouse-shaped chicken nuggets, cookies, etc…THAT was a highlight of the nightmare experience for my children! It was like Christmas in our kitchen!  They were thrilled to enjoy, once again, some treats they remembered from their former life.

Other friends called when they were heading to the store and asked if I needed anything.  If I didn’t need anything, they usually dropped food off anyway. Other times, they picked up what I needed and more.

And many women from my church delivered meals to us as well.  I think we had one entire month of dinners brought to our home by good women who were concerned about us and wanted us to not only have food to eat, but to feel loved. They delivered dinner every night until I finally asked them to stop–I couldn’t move my food storage and felt like we needed to use it up and provide for ourselves as much as we were able to.

Another friend brought us huge, delicious Sunday dinners EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY until we moved out of state.

True, we may have been hated by some, but we were also SO LOVED by so many.  That compassion, and Miracle Mail, got us through.