Living Happily Ever After
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Not Conducive to Romance

Date: September 30, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

A final thing I realized after seeing the June 20, 2012 segment of “American Greed” is that watching a television show about your former life and the crimes of your former husband is not conducive to…romance with your new one!

My husband and I watched the show together. I don’t know what he was thinking or feeling during the whole thing, but a part of me felt sicker and sicker inside with every commercial break. It was a strange experience to “relive” portions of the Ponzi scheme nightmare and it was surprising to learn new things about my former husband, truths about aspects of our previous life, things I’d always believed based on what he’d told me—only to find out from a television show that I’d been lied to about something else! (Even before the Ponzi scheme started.)

My husband was unusually quiet throughout the whole program and when it was over, without a word, turned out the light, rolled over on his side, and was silent. I was stunned! I felt pretty sick inside myself, but I was surprised at my husband’s unfriendliness toward ME. The show hadn’t been about me; I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Are you going to sleep right now?” I asked through the darkness.

“Yes,” my husband answered.

“Without even saying goodnight?” I questioned.

He replied, “Watching a TV show about your wife, her former husband, their life together—seeing the family pictures, vacations and everything else, isn’t exactly conducive to romance.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

I felt pretty sick myself.

So I willed myself to stop thinking—about the show I’d just seen, about the actions of the man I’d been married to, about the response of the man I am currently married to and about men in general (lets just say I wasn’t thrilled with any man, in general, that night! haha) But in the morning, I had a new and better perspective on the whole thing:

“A woman has got to love a bad man once…in her life, to be thankful for a good one.” (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)

Color me thankful.

And remind me to be more careful of the TV shows we watch together in the future.

“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)

The Real Truth

Date: March 12, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Never go to bed mad.  Stay up and fight.” (Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, 1966)

In my mid-20s, I decided to learn to play the harp. I’d already learned to play the violin, piano and guitar during my childhood so I thought the harp would be a piece of cake. I had some extra time on my hands (it was before I became a mother) so I rented a harp, found a teacher and began lessons. Sadly, I only lasted one or two months before I returned the harp and abandoned my desire. I found two things difficult about that quest: 1) that my teacher treated me like a child, marching me to a trash can to deposit my chewing gum prior to the lessons, and 2) it was REALLY hard to be so inept at something as “old” as I was and to discipline myself to start at the beginning of learning something new. (Call me lazy.)

Enter remarriage. Sometimes it reminds me of harp lessons. It can be an adjustment to learn so many new things this “old!” (Mid-40s for me; my husband is 50.) I’m struck by this thought occasionally, particularly when I learn something new about marriage or relationships. I confess I went into marriage thinking I’d been happily married for 20 years, that I knew how to “do” marriage and was pretty decent at it. I must not have anticipated learning new things with my second marriage, I was just looking forward to marrying the man I loved and building a life with him.

Instead, I’ve been shocked at how much I have learned in one short year. I admit not every lesson has been welcome or easy, particularly my biggest one: that participants in strong relationships and happy marriages don’t always see eye to eye or have the same opinion…and that’s ok; it’s ok to agree to disagree on an issue; a difference of opinion doesn’t always mean it’s a fight; conflict (and the resolution of conflict) is acceptable, and even normal, in marriage; and several other realizations along those same lines. I can’t believe I was married for 20 years and never got that.

I saw my friends, family members and other people in healthy relationships and good marriages experience and resolve conflict over and over again. But for some reason, it never gave me pause to wonder why I wasn’t dealing with the same things. The man I was married to would occasionally remark, “Isn’t it great that we don’t have those problems like other couples?” and act like our marriage was better, our relationship was stronger, or that we were more compatible than other couples because of that.

But on this side of it, I see he was WRONG about that and many other things, including his choices to lie, steal, commit fraud and perpetrate a Ponzi scheme for 16 years. I see that his crimes and his lies affected not just his professional life and the lives of his investors, but like an octopus, its nasty and dangerous tentacles infiltrated and wrapped themselves around every aspect of his life, mine and our family, including my marriage as well. That was eye opening. And not very pleasant to discover.

And I never realized it until I remarried, an honest man this time.

During our first year of marriage, we worked through a few differences of opinion. If you asked my husband about them, that’s all that he’d say they were. But each time one arose, I panicked. A part of me felt it had to mean something bad to even experience a difference of opinion. I was so afraid to face conflict, I’d keep quiet and let it fester inside me until I couldn’t take it any more–or until my husband would ask me what was wrong–and then it would finally unleash. And always, not only did I fear conflict thinking it would be the beginning of the end of my new marriage and our relationship, it was always accompanied by that darn throwing up reaction I’ve experienced since beginning my unexpected life.

It shocked me to realize my first marriage didn’t have a lot of differences of opinion I’m sure, not because our marriage was better than any other marriage and not because we were more compatible than other couples, but because one of us wasn’t being honest. After all, how can you have any conflict when one partner is probably just saying what they think the other one wants to hear to keep peace in the marriage and the home? (He had to have done that, I don’t believe you can run a Ponzi scheme AND deal with conflict outside of that, a Ponzi scheme has to be way too much work on its own. Sadly, I now suspect many aspects of my then-marriage were perhaps not as “real” as normal marriages; were not as “perfect” as I thought.)

But I never saw that. I never knew it. I guess the Ponzi scheme wasn’t the only thing I missed during my first marriage.

It has been somewhat difficult to master second marriage moment #31. But I’d say it’s about time I learned it, wouldn’t you? My thanks to my honest, patient and loving husband who has helped me come to the realizations I have finally come to, about differences of opinion in marriage; and who helps me dare to trust a man and a husband time and again, in every way possible.

So here’s the real truth about marriage that everyone but me has probably always known and lived, my knowledge acquired courtesy of my remarriage: conflict IS ok. My husband tells me differences of opinion are healthy and I now believe him. It’s normal for two people, who have lived two different lives and come from two different worlds, to have a few different ideas about things. The issues aren’t that important, it’s the hanging in there and working through them together that is. After all, ”A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” (Ruth Bell Graham)

A P.S. To The News

Date: June 16, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

Lesson from the unexpected life:  ”Never floss with a stranger.” (Joan Rivers) Or even friend them!

The first time I did a media interview regarding my unexpected life and what I had learned, I was overwhelmed by the (mostly) positive response to what I shared. Many kind people, most of them strangers to me, even a few of my former husband’s Ponzi scheme victims that I’d never known, contacted me with kind comments.

The following day I received many Facebook friend requests–from men I didn’t know.

I admit, I was a little clueless. I looked at the pictures that accompanied their requests and wracked my brain for their connection to me. I couldn’t figure out how my mind was so blank regarding people I knew. (I had to know them, I mean, they knew a lot of personal stuff about me!) I kept thinking, “The shock of my unexpected life has caused a brain freeze! How do I not recognize people I know?” I was embarrassed to admit I couldn’t remember them, but finally told one man, “I’m so sorry. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I can’t remember how we know each other. Will you remind me?”

“Oh, we don’t know each other,” he explained. “I just saw your story on the news and I’m divorced…”

OH.

I never expected that.

I learned a lot from that first interview. So much, that I knew what to expect from the NBC affiliate KSL Channel 5 interview last week. The day following the story, true to form, I received several friend requests from men I didn’t recognize. This time, I was prepared. I knew I didn’t know them, so I didn’t respond. However, one of the men looked like the camera man who filmed our interview with Jennifer Stagg (at least, that’s who I thought he was!) so I accepted his request–and got a very nice follow-up message from him praising my appearance and…some other things. OOPS. It wasn’t the camera man after all! Just another unexpected experience in the unexpected life.

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

Isn’t that the truth?