Maria Shriver has shared just how painful the implosion of her 25-year marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger really was.

Maria Shriver understandably needed some time to process what happened between her and ex-husband Arnold Schwarzenegger.

She even got herself to a nunnery at one point, like “a scene out of The Sound of Music,” the mother of four shared. 

“I had never given myself permission to feel, to be vulnerable, to be weak, to be brought to my knees, and the world did it to me,” Shriver explained on the Making Space With Hoda Kotb podcast in 2023. “And then I was like, ‘Okay, God, let’s go. I’m gonna take this and learn everything I can about my role and what I need to learn.’”

And yet she didn’t truly solve the problem of Maria until she started writing poetry. And that’s when the truth about what she experienced really came flooding out, many of her verses ripped from—as she wrote in her new book I Am Maria—“a place of fear, shame, confusion, and darkness.”

Not that all of those intense emotions derived only from the implosion of her marriage to Schwarzenegger after 25 years, the last seven of which they spent as governor and first lady of California.

But it turned out that the poise she showed in those first weeks, months and even years after their shocking May 2011 split announcement was a construct. On the inside, she was broken.

“It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me,” Shriver wrote in I Am Maria. “Without my marriage, my parents, a job—the dam of my lifelong capital-D Denial just blew apart.”

Shriver’s mother Eunice Shriver—one of President John F. Kennedy‘s eight siblings—had died in 2009 and dad Sargent Shriver passed on Jan. 18, 2011, two weeks after Schwarzenegger left office. And Shriver, a veteran journalist, hadn’t been plying her trade while her husband was governor.

The scion of America’s most famous Democratic political dynasty and Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-born Republican movie star who served in President George H.W. Bush‘s administration, may have been unlikely spouses on paper, but they were a true power couple.  

And they had been through a lot already, including groping allegations against Schwarzenegger that ultimately didn’t hurt his candidacy for California governor in a 2003 recall election that saw him replace Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. (He admitted during a campaign rally that he had “behaved badly sometimes” and apologized.)

So when they did split up, it felt as if it came out of nowhere. Only, as the rest of the world soon found out, it most certainly did not.

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 family’s housekeeper Mildred Baena.

Because apparently Shriver had her suspicions.

“Maria and I went to counseling once a week,” the Terminator star said. “And in one of the sessions the counselor 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.”

He himself hadn’t always known that Joseph was his son, Schwarzenegger noted, but he had known by then for a long time.

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This powerful collection of Maria Shriver’s own poems tackles topics such as identity, grief, longing and healing.

Shriver “was crushed because of that,” he continued in the series. “I had an affair in ’96. In the beginning I really didn’t know. I just started feeling the older he got the more it became clear to me and then it was really just a matter of how do you keep this quiet? How do you keep this a secret?”

No longer a secret, Shriver had to absorb her husband’s confession.

“As I sat on the hotel room floor in the dark, terrified and alone with tears streaming down my face,” she wrote in I Am Maria, “I thought to myself: Maria, this doesn’t have to be the end of the you. It can’t be the end of you. Make it a new beginning of you.”

However, that didn’t make her any less “consumed with grief and wracked with confusion, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety. I felt emotionally bereft and disconnected from life as I knew it.”

The end of her marriage “broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me,” she wrote. “I was unsure now of who I was, where I belonged, or who I belonged to. Honestly, it was brutal, and I was terrified.”

But she was also 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 family, a lifelong public figure.

So she kept her cool.

And roughly five months later, she and Schwarzenegger announced their separation.

“This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us,” they said in a joint statement. “After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion and prayer, we came to this decision together. At this time, we are living apart while we work on the future of our relationship.”

Days later, Schwarzenegger revealed that he had a fifth child, noting that he told his wife after he left office.

Shriver said in a subsequent statement, “This is a painful and heartbreaking time. As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal.” 

She filed for divorce on July 1, 2011. Which, in and of itself, was a struggle. (Though not because it wasn’t finalized for 10 years.)

“I grew up thinking divorce was a sin,” Shriver wrote in her 2018 book I’ve Been Thinking…: Reflections, Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Life. “I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

And, she wrote, “I always thought people whose marriages didn’t work out were quitters. I was wrong. I do admire people who work at their marriages, but I also admire those who chart a new way forward. And I really admire those who manage to stay friends after their marriages are over — and aren’t afraid to try love again after being hurt.”

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger didn’t address his affair again for years, finally breaking his silence in 2015 on The Howard Stern Show.

“I had personal setbacks, but this was without any doubt the biggest setback and the biggest failure,” the actor said. “And not only failure, but you really feel like, ‘I am to blame for it. It was me that screwed up.’ And you can’t point the finger at anyone else.”

He always tried to ace being a dad, though, including to now-27-year-old Joseph, explaining, “I want to make sure I pay as much attention as possible. I want the kids to know how much I love them, how great they are. I love being a father. I love trying to go all out and to be as good as possible.”

Schwarzenegger added, “I just am very fortunate for my partnership with the kids and Maria and with everyone. We have moved on. We have a great relationship, all of us.”

It’s unclear whether Shriver would have characterized their relationship as great then, but she concurs now.

“It took a really long time to forgive myself, to forgive the whole situation,” she told Oprah Winfrey on the March 25 episode of The Oprah Podcast. “I think Arnold and I have a great relationship now, and I think there will always be a love there. As you said, I met him when I was 21 years old. He’s the father of my children. We’re grandparents together. I don’t want to have hate, I don’t want to have anger in my body towards another person. I don’t want that in my life at all.”

She never wanted their children to require separate birthday parties, Shriver explained, or for the kids to have to worry about their parents getting along at their weddings. (So far, Katherine shares three children with husband Chris Pratt and Patrick is engaged to Abby Champion.)

“I didn’t want what happened between their dad and me to ruin their lives,” Shriver continued. ‘It already causes a rupture in their life, right? But I wanted to model for them a new way forward. 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.”

Get to know the sprawling Schwarzenegger-Shriver family who have continued to celebrate all sorts of events together:

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hasta la vista, baby…bottles! That’s because the actor’s kids Katherine Schwarzenegger, Christina Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Chris Schwarzenegger (with ex-wife Maria Shriver) and Joseph Baena (with former housekeeper Mildred Baena) are all grown up.

So, these days, his favorite title is no longer dad—but grandpa to Katherine and husband Chris Pratt’s three kids together: Lyla, Eloise and Ford.

“It’s the easiest thing to be a grandfather,” Arnold told Jimmy Kimmel in 2022. “They come over to the house, you play with Lyla for around 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, but filed for divorce in 2011 after she learned he had fathered a child through his affair.

And her son-in-law Chris applauds the way the former first lady of California and her ex co-parented in the spotlight.

“She and Arnold raised four amazing kids, and that’s not always an easy thing to do,” the Guardians of the Galaxy actor told Today in May 2024. “You see people in Hollywood or people who’ve got a lot of privilege, and they end up kind of raising rotten kids. So I just want to kind of ask her everything. ‘What’d you do? How did you not spoil them? How did you not ruin them?’”

The apparent secret, Chris added, “I think she holds them accountable. When Maria walks in the room, you stand up. She’s big on manners, and she’s big on accountability, and she’s deeply rooted in her faith. These are all things that I definitely want to take and implement in the rearing of our children.” 

Patrick Schwarzenegger

Katherine Schwarzenegger

Meanwhile, Katherine is the eldest of the Schwarzenegger kids overall, with Arnold and Maria welcoming her in 1989.

And now, The Gift of Forgiveness author has a family of her own with Chris, who she married in 2019 after a year of dating.

In 2020, they welcomed daughter Lyla. Little sister Eloise entered the world two years later followed by younger brother Ford in 2024.

“When I became a mother, I felt like everything in my life had led me right to that baby being put on my chest, and it was perfect,” she wrote in a piece for her mother Maria’s website. “Mom is the title I have always wanted and the role that I have looked forward to for as long as I can remember.”

Plus, she has a bonus stepson Jack, whom Chris and ex-wife Anna Faris welcomed in 2012.

Chris Pratt

For Chris, family always comes first.

However, he was upset when he received backlash in 2021 after he praised Katherine on Instagram for giving him a “gorgeous healthy daughter,” with some social media users finding the post insensitive to Anna and Jack, who was born premature.

“A bunch of articles came out and said, ‘That’s so cringeworthy. I can’t believe Chris Pratt would thank her for a healthy daughter when his first child was born premature. That’s such a dig at his ex-wife,’” the Parks and Recreation alum told Men’s Health in 2022. “And I’m like, That is f–ked up. My son’s gonna read that one day. He’s 9. And it’s etched in digital stone. It really f–king bothered me, dude. I cried about it. I was like, I hate that these blessings in my life are—to the people close to me—a real burden.”

Jack Pratt

Anna and Chris’ son Jack was born about two months early in August 2012 and spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit.

“The day came when I got to take Jack home,” the actress recalled at a 2021 event for the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth, “and the first years were filled with doctor’s appointments, five surgeries, physical therapy, a lot of laughter—because Jack was and is the most adorable cutest thing I could ever have imagined.”

Lyla Marie Schwarzenegger Pratt

A little more than a year after Katherine and Chris tied the knot, they welcomed daughter Lyla Maria Schwarzenegger Pratt in August 2020, her middle name a nod to Katherine’s mother.

And while Chris keeps much of his family life private, he did share that Jack was already acing his duties as the older sibling.

“He’s really great with her,” the Jurassic World star told Entertainment Tonight in 2021. “She always wants to pull his glasses off his face, and he’s very patient with her. He’s a great big brother.”

Eloise Christina Schwarzenegger Pratt

Fast-forward to March 2022, when Chris and Katherine grew their family with the addition of daughter Eloise Christina Schwarzenegger Pratt.

“I’m girl dad 2.0,” the Zero Dark Thirty actor told E! in June 2022. “My oldest daughter is adjusting very well to being a big sister. At first, she was kinda like, ‘So, what’s the deal with that thing? What up with that? Look at me.’ And now, she’s very much embraced the idea. She constantly wants to hold her sister, and she’s just very, very sweet. That’s the stuff that’s important. It’s the stuff that life is made of, and I feel incredibly blessed and filled with joy.”

Ford Fitzgerald Schwarzenegger Pratt

On Nov. 8, 2024, Katherine and Chris welcomed their son Ford Fitzgerald Schwarzenegger Pratt.

“Mama and baby are doing well and Ford’s siblings are thrilled by his arrival,” the couple wrote on Instagram a few days later. “We feel so blessed and grateful.”

Christopher Schwarzenegger & Christina Schwarzenegger

Christopher Schwarzenegger is Arnold and Maria’s youngest son together, and Christina Schwarzenegger is their youngest daughter.

Born in 1997, Christopher has stayed largely out of the public eye. He is Vice Chair of the Special Olympics Founder’s Council. According to his bio, Christopher is also the Director of Development at production company Indus Valley Media. He previously worked at creative content agency Malka as well as for sports psychologist Trevor Moawad and is a University of Michigan grad with a psychology degree.

As for Christina, born in 1991, she’s an executive producer—with her past credits including the 2018 documentary Take Your Pills and 2022 doc Take Your Pills: Xanax.

Joseph Baena

Joseph is Arnold’s son from his affair with then-housekeeper Mildred Patricia Baena.

While Joseph was born in 1997, Arnold didn’t find out he was the father until much later.

“I had an affair in ’96,” The 6th Day alum said in his 2023 docuseries Arnold. “In the beginning, I really didn’t know. I just started kind of feeling. The older he got, the more it became clear to me, and it was then just really a matter of how do you keep this quiet? How do you keep this a secret?”

While Arnold called the affair a “major failure” in his life, he noted that Joseph makes him proud.

“It was wrong what I did,” he said in the doc. “But I don’t want to make Joseph feel that he’s not welcome in this world because he’s very much welcome in this world. And I love him, and he’s turned out to be an extraordinary young man.”

Like his dad Arnold, Joseph is an actor and has a passion for fitness. He also works in real estate and competed on season 31 of Dancing With the Stars.

Anna Faris

Chris and Anna tied the knot in 2009, but after eight years of marriage, they announced their breakup.

Anna (who was previously married to Ben Indra) hinted her life with Chris wasn’t as picture perfect as it may have seemed. 

“I’m sure things were more transparent with my relationship with Ben,” she said on a 2021 episode of her podcast Unqualified, “but with Chris, I think that we both protected that imagery even within our close circles.”

And Anna—who is now married to cinematographer Michael Barrett—suggested being in the same industry as her exes didn’t help. 

“My two other marriages were with actors, and I don’t think we did a great job of eliminating competitiveness—or at least I didn’t,” she shared on another episode of her podcast later that year. “Being a proud person and not wanting to reveal vulnerability, any hints of competitiveness and comparison, I didn’t handle that very well, I don’t think, and I hope I’ve grown from that.”

Source: www.eonline.com