married for the second time on Tuesday, August 30, 1983 in Greenwich, Connecticut. In the late 1980s, they adopted two children, Olivia Merrick (born May 1988) and Carl Christian Merrick (born July 1987), although in 1994 Merrick petitioned the court to cancel the adoption. Merrick and Aronson divorced again in October 1999, after lengthy divorce proceedings.

Merrick met Natalie Lloyd (born Natalie Ting Lloyd, Shanghai, 1954; formerly married to Jose Teresa) in the late 1980s when she was working as a receptionist in the office of William