Well, Maria Shriver decided to file for divorce against her philandering husband. After twenty-five years, four kids, and at least one proven affair on the part of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shriver evidently figured it had been enough.
From CNN:
Maria Shriver cited “irreconcilable differences” in a petition filed Friday to dissolve her 25-year marriage to former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The move comes more than a month after Schwarzenegger acknowledged that he fathered a child outside of his marriage.
The couple announced their separation on May 9, calling it a mutual decision made “after a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion, and prayer.”
Honestly, I’m kind of surprised by this. It’s a blanket assumption to state that all men cheat (just as, like some men claim, the same is true of women), but I’m pretty comfortable stating that, once someone has cheated, the odds are pretty good that they’ll cheat again.
When Schwarzenegger’s out-of-wedlock use of his Terminator became public knowledge, I was a bit taken aback that Shriver didn’t file for divorce immediately. I know time is the healer of all wounds and so forth, but it seems to me that the timeline on this whole thing is a little strange.
I’d figured that she’d decided to let him squirm but that, ultimately, they’d stay together.
Of course, I was pretty shocked when I heard that Al (the crazed sex-poodle) and Tipper …
… Gore were divorcing, too, so maybe I’ve got a bad gut feeling on these sorts of things.
And as is often the case in celebrity divorces, the timing of Shriver’s filing might just have more to do with the complexities of their possessions than anything else.
The filing did not detail the assets to be divided between Shriver and Schwarzenegger
“There are community and quasi-community assets and obligations of the parties, the exact nature and extent of which are unknown to petitioner at this time,” Shriver’s petition said.
The thing is, as my mother reminded me, Maria Shriver is a Kennedy. Love the Kennedys or hate them, the political clan took infidelity in stride. It was part of their culture for wedding vows to be broken. The role of a spouse, in the world Maria Shriver grew up in, was to smile pretty for the pictures, to be a support.
I mean, by many accounts, sex with Marilyn Monroe was considered just part and parcel of the Kennedy mystique … and we’re talking Jack and Bobby here, little Maria’s heroic uncles.
I should note here that I actually have a lot of respect for the Kennedy family, so I’m not trying to bash them. I just find it particularly interesting that a woman raised in such a culture would put up with being married to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Anyway, there’s no question that the timing directly correlates to Shriver’s notification that her husband has a son with somebody else.
It became clear a week later that the split was triggered by Schwarzenegger’s revelation to his wife that he had fathered a child with his housekeeper.
“After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement May 17. “I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family.”
You know who I feel the most sorry here for? The poor kid. He didn’t ask to be born, for God’s sake, and I’m sure he’s feeling pretty lousy right about now.
To have his existence being referred to as “this event” when you’re, what, an early teenager is going to leave scars.
And the fact of the matter is, illegitimate or not, this kid is just as much Schwarzenegger’s child as the four he has with Maria Shriver.
Arnold Schwarzenegger never impressed me much as an actor. I always thought he was kind of a boorish guy based on interviews and such. He wasn’t exactly a stellar governor.
But this is just terrible.
He hurt his wife, who must feel especially pained at the knowledge that Arnold was shacking up with the housekeeper at right around the same time that Shriver and Schwarzenegger’s youngest child was conceived.
He hurt the housekeeper, I’m sure, who must have had some sort of feelings for the guy. Relegating her to a side screw had to be hurtful to her on some level, no matter how star-struck she might have been. And money doesn’t change humiliation.
He hurt his children, both the four he has with Schwarzenegger and the one that led to his life imploding over a decade after his birth. My parents divorced over a similar situation, and the pain is always there, on all sides.
He hurt his fans and his constituents, who presumably had a level of respect for and trust in him that is now dissipated, if not entirely gone.
This is a sad story on a number of levels.
