I Married a Ponzi Schemer
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Who is Andrea and what does she do?
I'm Andrea Merriman. I am a true crime survivor, currently mother of seven, working full time as a career director at a university helping Engineering professionals and others transition from education. To full time employment and building successful careers and Happy lives, I think, are a part of that.
Yes. I love that. Mother of seven. That's amazing.
Yes.
Wow. I'm like, that's me, but with my my cats and my animal, you know? So yeah, I can kind of really Oh yeah, we have one dog. Right. I love it. I love it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here and thanks for having me. Of course. And wherever you want to begin, go ahead.
So probably I would begin at the beginning with How I came to be. I think our background plays a lot. into not just maybe the lives that we live, because I think we all end up with unexpected events in our lives, but what we end up deciding to do with them. I was fortunate. Two I was born in California, raised in Arizona, Missouri, and Colorado had phenomenal parents. And the older I get, the longer I've lived. I think I've discovered what true privilege is, and that is having good parents who can teach you. hopefully the right ways to live, the type of good person to be, and equip you with the tools and skills you need to handle. All of the unexpected things that come in your life. So I had good parents.
I grew up in a family oldest of five kids, a little bit more diverse than usual, and that all of us were adopted. And I grew up in the sixties, seventies, eighties when Things were just a little bit different. So I have a sister who is Latina and I have two brothers who are half Armenian. And I am blonde, blue-eyed. I do not look like my siblings. So growing up wherever we went, and it was five kids, which was a decent amount of kids for families in that day, people would look at us sometimes, comment quite a bit. A very common thing would be. You know, they would look at me or one of my other siblings and tell my parents, Whoa. I think you forgot to tell them they're adopted. And my parents would always say, Oh no, we're pretty sure we let them know that.
So we grew up in a diverse family. It was a Uh financially successful family with a lot of privilege that way. We had a nice home that we lived in. We had nice cars to drive. We had a private plane. We had a summer home in Hawaii. So that will come to play later on in my story. A lot of times people say How did you not know you were living this crazy possibly false life? Because I did live an affluent life as an adult. And in some ways I blame my childhood because I came from an affluent background. So having money to live a fun life wasn't a red flag to me. that anything else might be going on. Despite that though, my parents really emphasized traditional Christian values, honesty, integrity. being a good person, contributing
to society working hard, getting an education, serving others. So I think it was a very balanced in that way upbringing. I know for sure, although My parents probably had more money than a lot of people and a lot of my friends. I was never the one that had the most lunch money or anything like that. They kept it very just casual and made sure that we learned how to work and and weren't spoiled to the degree that they could. So That's how I was raised.
How did Andrea’s childhood and family shape her values?
And eventually I grew and matured. They also were very good at helping us grow personally and develop talents. And so they had all of us in music lessons. I was thinking about it the other day. I don't know how my mom did it with five kids. But I as the oldest was in music lessons and sports, church activities, school activities. All all of the kids in my family were. And so I remember I took piano, violin, and guitar lessons pretty much throughout my childhood. Plus, I played basketball and volleyball. Plus, I was involved in school and church things. Then another sibling, my younger sister, took. Piano, violin, flute, and cello lessons. I mien when I counted How many musical instruments we all were educated in.
There were a ton in the different sports we played.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who is Andrea and what does she do?
0:00–4:24
2
How did Andrea’s childhood and family shape her values?
4:24–10:03
3
What led Andrea to meet Sean and decide to marry him?
10:03–1:01:30
4
How did Andrea react to her husband's confession and decide what to keep?
1:01:30–1:14:58
5
What steps did Andrea take during the FBI asset‑seizure investigation and to protect her jewelry?
1:14:58–1:27:19
6
How did Andrea rebuild her life – finding a job, moving states, and starting a blog?
1:27:19–1:40:08
7
Why does Andrea believe forgiveness and sharing her story are key to healing and helping others?
1:40:08–1:59:13