Combination of Cell Merges Removes Column

Goal: 2-Row table, First Row is two 3-wide cells, Second Row is three 2-wide cells.
Steps to Reproduce in Free version:
Create New Blank Table with 2 rows & 6 Columns.
In first Row, merge left 3 Cells, merge right 3 Cells; First Row now has two 3-wide Cells.
In second Row, merge left 2 Cells.
Result: The first Row now has a 2-wide(!) & a 3-wide; the second row has five cells all 1-cell wide(!); the Leftmost Column of the original table is lost.
It is as if the Merge did a Column Delete.
Note-1: I tried many merge sequences to achieve the goal, all fail with loss of a cell.
Note-2: With 3-row 6-column table, problem may be deferred until the bottom row is removed.