Arnold Schwarzenegger's ex-wife opens up about divorce
Maria Shriver gets honest about her healing journey and co-parenting with her cheating ex-husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
An affair is one of the worst betrayals a marriage can face, but somehow, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver came out on the other side of it as friends.
Shriver opens up about her healing journey in her new book of poetry, 'I Am Maria'.
Schwarzenegger and Shriver, the former Governor and First Lady of California, seemingly had the perfect marriage.
They lived an idyllic life in an upscale Los Angeles neighbourhood with their four children, Katherine, Christina, Patrick, and Christopher.
However, the fairytale comes to a shocking end after news broke that Schwarzenegger had an affair with their housekeeper, Mildred Baena.
The affair led to the birth of the 'Terminator' actor's youngest son, Joseph. After 25 years of marriage, the power couple went their separate ways in 2011.
"Maria and I went to counselling once a week, and in one of the sessions, the counsellor said, 'I think today Maria wants to be very specific about something. She wants to know if you are the father of Joseph.'
"And I was like – I thought my heart stopped, and then I told the truth," Schwarzenegger said in his 2023 Netflix docuseries, 'Arnold'.
In the latest episode of 'The Oprah Podcast', Shriver talks candidly about the trauma of her divorce and the type of relationship she now has with the actor.
She admits she tried every method of healing to try to get over the divorce.
It took "a really long time", but she finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
"I wanted to show my daughters and my boys that I could hold myself up, that I could put my shoulders back, that I could heal," she said.
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Shriver opens up about the pain and shame she felt when the public learnt about the affair in a poem she wrote for her book.
"The public square / Shame filled my body / Humiliation filled my soul / Every inch of my being crumbled / I stood humbled disgraced mortified in the public square / I heard the whispers / How could she not have known," she wrote.
Speaking to Oprah, Shriver says she wanted to move forward and have a good relationship with her ex-husband despite the betrayal.
"I had been with Arnold since I was 21. He's the father of my children. I wanted to be able to go to our kids' weddings; when they have kids, I wanted to be the person who could be in the room, and everyone could be okay."
Another poem in the book highlights the importance of forgiveness.
"If I forgive me / I can forgive him / I can forgive her / And so it is / All is forgiven / We are all free to go."
Shriver says she now has a "great relationship" with Schwarzenegger. "I think there will always be a love there," she told Oprah.
Shriver adds that she doesn't want to have hate or anger in her body towards another person.
The 69-year-old still believes in marriage and hopes her children learn from her journey.
"I didn't want my kids to have separate birthday parties; I didn't want them to stress about when they were gonna get married, stress about when they would have a child. I didn't want what happened between their dad and me to ruin their lives.
"I wanted to model for them a new way forward, and I hope they don't get divorced because I believe in marriage. But I want them to know that you can do it well; it takes time."
'I Am Maria' will be released on April 1.
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Main image credit: 'The Oprah Podcast', YouTube