Untangling the Agonizing End of Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marriage
Maria Shriver has shared correct how painful the implosion of her 25-year marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger truly changed into once.
Maria Shriver understandably mandatory a while to direction of what happened between her and ex-husband Arnold Schwarzenegger.
She even got herself to a nunnery at one level, admire “a scene out of The Sound of Music,” the mother of four shared.
“I had never given myself permission to really feel, to be weak, to be musty, to be introduced to my knees, and the area did it to me,” Shriver explained on the Making Home With Hoda Kotb podcast in 2023. “After which I changed into once admire, 'K, God, let's streak. I'm gonna dangle end this and be taught every thing I will about my role and what I have to be taught.'”
And but she didn't truly resolve the discipline of Maria except she began writing poetry. And that's when the actual fact about what she skilled truly came flooding out, many of her verses ripped from—as she wrote in her unique guide I Am Maria—“a feature of apprehension, shame, confusion, and darkness.”
No longer that every one of these intense emotions derived handiest from the implosion of her marriage to Schwarzenegger after 25 years, the closing seven of which they spent as governor and first lady of California.
But it grew to changed into out that the poise she showed in these first weeks, months and even years after their ravishing Might well per chance 2011 split announcement changed into once a manufacture. On the inner, she changed into once broken.
“It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what changed into once left of me,” Shriver wrote in I Am Maria. “Without my marriage, my fogeys, a job—the dam of my lifelong capital-D Denial correct blew aside.”
Shriver's mother Eunice Shriver—one of President John F. Kennedy's eight siblings—had died in 2009 and pa Sargent Shriver passed on Jan. 18, 2011, two weeks after Schwarzenegger left office. And Shriver, a passe journalist, hadn't been plying her commerce while her husband changed into once governor.
The scion of The usa's most famed Democratic political dynasty and Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-born Republican celeb who served in President George H.W. Bush's administration, could moreover simply were unlikely spouses on paper, nonetheless they were an even vitality couple.
And they’d been through plenty already, including groping allegations in opposition to Schwarzenegger that within the end didn't damage his candidacy for California governor in a 2003 recall election that saw him exchange Democratic Gov. Grey Davis. (He admitted at some level of a campaign rally that he had “behaved badly in most cases” and apologized.)
So when they did split up, it felt as if it came out of nowhere. Handiest, because the comfort of the area soon learned out, it most no doubt didn’t.
In the 2023 Netflix docuseries Arnold, Schwarzenegger recalled the moment he admitted to his wife that he had fathered a son—Joseph Baena—with their household's housekeeper Mildred Baena.
Because it sounds as if Shriver had her suspicions.
“Maria and I went to counseling once a week,” the Terminator star stated. “And in one of many durations the counselor stated, 'I mediate this present day Maria wants to be very explicit about one thing. She wants to know if you are the father of Joseph.' And I changed into once admire—I believed my heart stopped, after which I told the actual fact.”
He himself hadn't regularly identified that Joseph changed into once his son, Schwarzenegger infamous, nonetheless he had identified by then for a actually prolonged time.
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I Am Maria by Maria Shriver
This grand assortment of Maria Shriver’s non-public poems tackles matters comparable to identity, pains, longing and healing.
Shriver “changed into once beaten thanks to that,” he persevered within the sequence. “I had an affair in '96. Initially I truly didn't know. I correct began feeling the older he got the extra it grew to changed into determined to me after which it changed into once truly correct a topic of how enact you retain this tranquil? How enact you retain this a secret?”
Now no longer a secret, Shriver had to take in her husband's confession.
“As I sat on the hotel room ground at nighttime, shrinking and by myself with tears streaming down my face,” she wrote in I Am Maria, “I believed to myself: Maria, this doesn't have to be the tip of the you. It can't be the tip of you. Create it a unique initiating of you.”
Then again, that didn't receive her any less “consumed with pains and wracked with confusion, infuriate, apprehension, unhappiness, and dismay. I felt emotionally bereft and disconnected from life as I knew it.”
The tip of her marriage “broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what changed into once left of me,” she wrote. “I changed into once doubtful now of who I changed into once, where I belonged, or who I belonged to. Truthfully, it changed into once brutal, and I changed into once shrinking.”
But she changed into once moreover a mother of four—Katherine Schwarzenegger, Christina Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Christopher Schwarzenegger (who were 21, 19, 17 and 13 at the time)—and, as a member of the Kennedy household, a lifelong public resolve.
So she saved her cold.
And roughly five months later, she and Schwarzenegger launched their separation.
“This has been a time of enormous interior most and professional transition for each and every of us,” they stated in a joint statement. “After a enormous deal of thought, reflection, discussion and prayer, we came to this resolution collectively. At the present, we live aside while we work on the prolonged slip of our relationship.”
Days later, Schwarzenegger published that he had a fifth child, noting that he told his wife after he left office.
“I occupy apologized to Maria, my formative years and my household,” he stated in an announcement. “I’m truly sorry.”
Shriver stated in a subsequent statement, “Right here’s a painful and heartbreaking time. As a mother, my discipline is for the formative years. I quiz for compassion, admire and privateness as my formative years and I strive to rebuild our lives and heal.”
She filed for divorce on July 1, 2011. Which, in and of itself, changed into once a fight. (Though no longer since it wasn't finalized for 10 years.)
“I grew up pondering divorce changed into once a sin,” Shriver wrote in her 2018 guide I've Been Pondering…: Reflections, Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Existence. “I couldn't were extra adverse.”
And, she wrote, “I regularly thought other folks whose marriages didn’t work out were quitters. I changed into once adverse. I enact love other folks who work at their marriages, nonetheless I moreover love these that chart a unique map ahead. And I truly love these that situation as a lot as live chums after their marriages are over — and aren’t shrinking to test out bask in again after being damage.”
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger didn't tackle his affair again for years, within the end breaking his silence in 2015 on The Howard Stern Gift.
“I had interior most setbacks, nonetheless this changed into once without any doubt the largest setback and the largest failure,” the actor stated. “And no longer handiest failure, nonetheless you truly truly feel admire, 'I’m to blame for it. It changed into once me that screwed up.' And which you might well't level the finger at someone else.”
He regularly tried to ace being a dad, although, including to now-27-year-outmoded Joseph, explaining, “I are looking out for to receive certain I pay as worthy consideration as that which you might perchance be think. I need the formative years to know the plot worthy I bask in them, how enormous they are. I bask in being a father. I bask in looking out for to switch all out and to be as felony as that which you might perchance be think.”
Schwarzenegger added, “I correct am very fortunate for my partnership with the formative years and Maria and with all people. We now occupy moved on. We now occupy a enormous relationship, all of us.”
It's unclear whether Shriver would occupy characterised their relationship as enormous then, nonetheless she is of the same opinion now.
“It took a actually very prolonged time to forgive myself, to forgive the total discipline,” she told Oprah Winfrey on the March 25 episode of The Oprah Podcast. “I mediate Arnold and I occupy a enormous relationship now, and I mediate there’ll regularly be a bask in there. As you stated, I met him after I changed into once 21 years outmoded. He’s the father of my formative years. We’re grandparents collectively. I don’t are looking out for to occupy abhor, I don’t are looking out for to occupy infuriate in my physique in the direction of one other particular person. I don’t desire that in my life in any admire.”
She never wished their formative years to require separate birthday parties, Shriver explained, or for the formative years to have to apprehension about their fogeys getting along at their weddings. (To this level, Katherine shares three formative years with husband Chris Pratt and Patrick is engaged to Abby Champion.)
“I didn’t desire what happened between their dad and me to end their lives,” Shriver persevered. 'It already causes a atomize in their life, felony? But I needed to model for them a unique map ahead. I hope they don’t receive divorced because I imagine in marriage, nonetheless I need them to know that which you might well enact it properly. It takes time.”
Glean to know the sprawling Schwarzenegger-Shriver household who occupy persevered to celebrate all kinds of events collectively:
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Hasta la vista, little one…bottles! That’s since the actor’s formative years Katherine Schwarzenegger, Christina Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Chris Schwarzenegger (with ex-wife Maria Shriver) and Joseph Baena (with extinct housekeeper Mildred Baena) are all grown up.
So, within the mean time, his popular title is just not any longer dad—nonetheless grandpa to Katherine and husband Chris Pratt’s three formative years collectively: Lyla, Eloise and Ford.
“It's the top seemingly thing to be a grandfather,” Arnold told Jimmy Kimmel in 2022. “They arrive over to the dwelling, you play with Lyla for spherical an hour or two, put her on the horse, put her with the dog. And after two hours, they leave.”
Maria Shriver
Maria wed Arnold in 1986, nonetheless filed for divorce in 2011 after she learned he had fathered a child through his affair.
And her son-in-regulations Chris applauds the map the extinct first lady of California and her ex co-parented within the highlight.
“She and Arnold raised four amazing formative years, and that's no longer regularly a easy thing to enact,” the Guardians of the Galaxy actor told This day in Might well per chance 2024. “You see other folks in Hollywood or other folks who’ve got reasonably plenty of privilege, and they cease up extra or less elevating abominable formative years. So I correct are looking out for to extra or less quiz her every thing. ‘What’d you enact? How did you no longer fracture them? How did you no longer end them?'”
The obvious secret, Chris added, “I mediate she holds them accountable. When Maria walks within the room, you come up. She’s extensive on manners, and he or she’s extensive on accountability, and he or she's deeply rooted in her faith. These are all things that I positively are looking out for to raise end and implement within the rearing of our formative years.”
Patrick Schwarzenegger
Born in 1993, Patrick is the oldest son of Arnold and Maria. And while having fogeys within the commerce is enormous and all, he's moreover credited his brother-in-regulations Chris with helping him nab one plum piece.
“I undergo in mind when Chris stated, 'Hello you know there's this young role, Donny Mitchell, you'll be the youngest within the platoon,” Patrick told Jimmy Kimmel in 2022 of reserving a gig within the Amazon Top Video sequence The Terminal Checklist. “'But while you need to receive this role, I need you to switch and strive to receive into character and really receive this. I need you to create 20 pounds and launch tactical practising, and know the plot they switch, the physique language, all these things.'”
Having the chance to articulate with precise-life Navy SEALs, he added, changed into once “a dream come ravishing.” And extra pinch-me moments occupy adopted, with the actor occurring to play Saxon Ratliff on The White Lotus and Tim Tebow in FX's American Sports Anecdote.
But even with all his connections, Patrick makes it determined he puts within the laborious work.
“I do know there are other folks who’ll converse I handiest got this role thanks to who my dad is,” Patrick told The Sunday Times in February 2025 of his piece on The White Lotus. “They’re no longer seeing that I’ve had 10 years of performing classes, put on college plays per week, labored on my characters for hours on cease or the a complete lot of rejected auditions I’ve been on.”
Rapidly, he'll be taking on a unique role: husband. He proposed to model Abby Champion in December 2023.
Katherine Schwarzenegger
Meanwhile, Katherine is the eldest of the Schwarzenegger formative years total, with Arnold and Maria welcoming her in 1989.
And now, The Gift of Forgiveness author has a household of her non-public with Chris, who she married in 2019 after a year of relationship.
In 2020, they welcomed daughter Lyla. Slight sister Eloise entered the area two years later adopted by younger brother Ford in 2024.
“When I grew to changed into a mother, I felt admire every thing in my life had led me felony to that little one being put on my chest, and it changed into once supreme,” she wrote in a section for her mother Maria's web page. “Mom is the title I occupy regularly wished and the role that I occupy appeared ahead to for so prolonged as I will undergo in mind.”
Plus, she has a bonus stepson Jack, whom Chris and ex-wife Anna Faris welcomed in 2012.
Chris Pratt
For Chris, household regularly comes first.
Then again, he changed into once upset when he got backlash in 2021 after he praised Katherine on Instagram for giving him a “shiny healthy daughter,” with some social media users discovering the put up insensitive to Anna and Jack, who changed into once born premature.
“A bunch of articles came out and stated, ‘That’s so cringeworthy. I will’t imagine Chris Pratt would thank her for a healthy daughter when his first child changed into once born premature. That’s one of these dig at his ex-wife,’” the Parks and Game alum told Men’s Health in 2022. “And I’m admire, That’s f–ked up. My son’s gonna read that within the future. He’s 9. And it’s etched in digital stone. It truly f–king me, dude. I cried about it. I changed into once admire, I abhor that these blessings in my life are—to the folk end to me—an actual burden.”
Jack Pratt
Anna and Chris' son Jack changed into once born about two months early in August 2012 and hung out within the neonatal intensive care unit.
“The day came after I got to raise end Jack dwelling,” the actress recalled at a 2021 match for the World Alliance to Forestall Prematurity and Stillbirth, “and the predominant years were full of doctor's appointments, five surgeries, physical therapy, reasonably plenty of laughter—because Jack changed into once and is mainly the most cute cutest thing I could per chance ever occupy imagined.”
Lyla Marie Schwarzenegger Pratt
Barely extra than a year after Katherine and Chris tied the knot, they welcomed daughter Lyla Maria Schwarzenegger Pratt in August 2020, her heart name a nod to Katherine’s mother.
And while Chris keeps worthy of his household life non-public, he did part that Jack changed into once already acing his responsibilities because the older sibling.
“He's truly enormous with her,” the Jurassic World star told Leisure Tonight in 2021. “She regularly wants to tug his glasses off his face, and he’s very affected person with her. He’s a enormous extensive brother.”
Eloise Christina Schwarzenegger Pratt
Quick-ahead to March 2022, when Chris and Katherine grew their household with the addition of daughter Eloise Christina Schwarzenegger Pratt.
“I’m lady dad 2.0,” the Zero Murky Thirty actor told E! in June 2022. “My oldest daughter is adjusting very properly to being a extensive sister. In the initiating, she changed into once kinda admire, ‘So, what’s the take care of that thing? What up with that? Scrutinize at me.’ And now, she’s very worthy embraced the belief that. She regularly wants to back her sister, and he or she’s correct very, very sweet. That’s the stuff that’s vital. It’s the stuff that life is made of, and I truly feel extremely blessed and full of joy.”
Ford Fitzgerald Schwarzenegger Pratt
On Nov. 8, 2024, Katherine and Chris welcomed their son Ford Fitzgerald Schwarzenegger Pratt.
“Mama and little one are doing properly and Ford’s siblings are thrilled by his arrival,” the couple wrote on Instagram about a days later. “We truly feel so blessed and grateful.”
Christopher Schwarzenegger & Christina Schwarzenegger
Christopher Schwarzenegger is Arnold and Maria's youngest son collectively, and Christina Schwarzenegger is their youngest daughter.
Born in 1997, Christopher has stayed largely out of the public eye. He’s Vice Chair of the Special Olympics Founder's Council. In accordance along with his bio, Christopher is moreover the Director of Pattern at production firm Indus Valley Media. He previously labored at inventive snarl company Malka as well to for sports psychologist Trevor Moawad and is a University of Michigan grad with a psychology stage.
As for Christina, born in 1991, she's an executive producer—with her past credits including the 2018 documentary Draw end Your Pills and 2022 doc Draw end Your Pills: Xanax.
Joseph Baena
Joseph is Arnold's son from his affair with then-housekeeper Mildred Patricia Baena.
Whereas Joseph changed into once born in 1997, Arnold didn't gain out he changed into once the father except worthy later.
“I had an affair in '96,” The sixth Day alum stated in his 2023 docuseries Arnold. “Initially, I truly didn't know. I correct began extra or less feeling. The older he got, the extra it grew to changed into determined to me, and it changed into once then correct truly a topic of how enact you retain this tranquil? How enact you retain this a secret?”
Whereas Arnold known as the affair a “predominant failure” in his life, he infamous that Joseph makes him proud.
“It changed into once adverse what I did,” he stated within the doc. “But I don't are looking out for to receive Joseph truly feel that he's no longer welcome on this world because he's very worthy welcome on this world. And I bask in him, and he's grew to changed into out to be an out of the ordinary young man.”
Love his dad Arnold, Joseph is an actor and has a ardour for health. He moreover works in precise property and competed on season 31 of Dancing With the Stars.
Anna Faris
Chris and Anna tied the knot in 2009, nonetheless after eight years of marriage, they launched their breakup.
Anna (who changed into once previously married to Ben Indra) hinted her life with Chris wasn’t as describe supreme because it will moreover simply occupy gave the impact.
“I'm certain things were extra clear with my relationship with Ben,” she stated on a 2021 episode of her podcast Unqualified, “nonetheless with Chris, I mediate that we each and every trusty that imagery even within our end circles.”
And Anna—who’s now married to cinematographer Michael Barrett—really helpful being within the the same commerce as her exes didn’t back.
“My two other marriages were with actors, and I don’t mediate we did a enormous job of taking away competitiveness—or no longer no longer as a lot as I didn’t,” she shared on one other episode of her podcast later that year. “Being a proud particular person and no longer looking out for to uncover vulnerability, any hints of competitiveness and comparison, I didn’t tackle that very properly, I don’t mediate, and I hope I’ve grown from that.”
Source credit : eonline.com
