Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

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.

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)