Finding out your husband (or wife) is a Grade-A love rat is devastating no matter who you are. It must be a million times worse when it is done on the public stage.
I don't know Maria Shriver. I don't know Arnold Schwarzenegger. But he certainly appears to be a man who thinks monogamy is a type of wood. And twenty-five-years is a long time to be married to someone and then find out he's fathered a child by a long-standing member of your household staff.
Accordingly to a British newspaper, Maria confronted the 'member of staff' in question and asked if her child had been fathered by Arnie and then confronted Arnie. I would have liked to have been a fly on those walls!
I've read all the press. Seen the photographs. I've heard that Maria and the 'other woman' gave birth within days of each other. That Arnie poured money on his mistress, presumably to keep her happily schtum. The picture of the house (double garage, swimming pool) that he bought her, which is considered 'modest' Maybe by American standards it is but by our standards, here in Britain, it's pretty palatial! And I've seen photos of the 'other woman'and compared to elegant Ms Shriver she looks well...not pretty. Although maybe ten years ago she may have been a HPOA (I have to admit I had to look that acronym up!)
But then Arnie is no oil painting is he? His chiselled face has always reminded me of a Thunderbird puppet.
And Maria looked a quite scary when she did those tourist adverts for California. The ones that tried to entice us Brits to visit California.
Come to California.
'Er...no.'
So we don't know anything about these people, only what the media tell us. No doubt if he was in Britain we wouldn't know anything at all because he would have slammed a super-injunction on the press (bet he wishes he lived here!) What we do know is that a marriage that I have always thought amazing because it has lasted so long - is now over and there are clearly some very hurt people, including children.
Maria is largely credited for helping Arnie to election as the Governor of California in 2003. She said 'I wouldn't be standing here if this man wasn't an A-plus human being...' she mentioned words like 'extraordinary. Honest. Sensitive. Sincere.' I bet she is eating those words now or did she not mean them and was just helping him get elected? Who knows?
Arnie probably needed Maria a lot more than she needed him. She's a member of America's royal family - The Kennedy's, had a successful media career and authored of several books. A respected journalist who gave up her duties at NBC news in 2004 because her job conflicted with her status as First lady of California. She has amongst other remarkable achievements, had been a life long advocate for people with intellectual disabilities and has earned herself two Emmy's for works she had produced.
And now she has joined the club of women (and men) who have been humiliated by their spouses, only in Ms Shriver's case - publicly. I hear she has retained celebrity divorce lawyer, Laura Wasser and that Arnie has put his movie career on hold. Well, if I was you Arnie, I'd get my butt back to work because I hear this divorce might cost you between $200-400 million.
Will that money make Maria feel better? Maybe not. She, like millions of us who have been cheated on, will still feel sickened. Even if she no longer loves him or hasn't been happy with him for years, she will feel hurt and denigrated. Even if she knew full well his vociferous sexual appetite had been well-documented and has maybe turned a blind eye on the odd occasion. Even if she did all these things, she will still be absolutely gutted that he fathered a child and kept it secret for years.
And if she STILL loves him, her heart will feel as if he has cut it out of her chest with a rusty bread knife, thrown it on the floor and stamped on it.
Irrespective of whatever Ms Shriver might be like in real life she has been disrespected by her husband and treated as if she is of no consquence.
I have been there and I clearly remember how demeaning it was and how my self-confidence was shattered. I used to lay in bed at night planning my revenge on the man that had up sticks and moved in with a woman younger than his socks. I mentally pictured writing the word RAT in petrol on the lawn of the house and setting it alight so it was branded into the grass for all his neighbours to see. I wanted to fill a bag full of dog dirt and put it behind one of the radiators in his house. Cut up all his clothes and post dead fish through his letterbox (I clearly have a revengful side)
But I didn't do any of those thing.
What I did do was lose weight, buy myself the best suit I could afford and a pair of killer heels, get my hair and make up done and walk into the divorce court with my head held high. And then I got on with my life. Which as it happened meant that I eventually met a fantastic man who has been by soul-mate for the past twenty-one years and a brilliant step-dad to my kids. And I suspect Ms Shriver will do the same.
P.S.
What goes around. Comes around. My ex-husband is now on his third marriage.
Brilliant. You always succeed in standing up for what's right and you certainly inspire me to do the same.
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