Maria Shriver opens up about her divorce with Arnold Schwarzenegger of their 25 years married for the first time after 14 years: “It was ‘brutal’ and terrifying”

Shriver and Schwarzenegger were married for 25 years before she filed for divorce in 2011.

Maria Shriver is opening up about the end of her marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger in her new memoir, “I Am Maria.”

In an excerpt of her memoir, obtained by People, Shriver details a series of life-changing events which took place in January 2011, one of them being the end of her marriage to Schwarzenegger after 25 years.

“Then a year and a half later, all hell seemed to break loose,” she said in the excerpt, referring to the years following her mother’s death in 2009. “My First Lady job came to an end. My father died. And then came another devastating, life-altering blow: my twenty-five-year-long marriage blew up. It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me.”

The couple first met and began dating in 1977, and after eight years of dating they tied the knot in April 1986.

When describing the early days of their relationship, Shriver explained her “attraction to him was instantaneous” but that her “family was shocked” by the pairing, adding “no one understood my relationship with Arnold.”

“After all, Arnold was a Republican, a bodybuilder, and he wanted to be a movie star,” she wrote. “He lived in a two-bedroom apartment and wore a Speedo.”

She described having to leave behind her career as a journalist when Schwarzenegger decided to run for governor of California due to a potential “appearance of a conflict of interest,” but explained she made it her new goal to “become an amazing First Lady of California!”

Their marriage came to an end in 2011, when Schwarzenegger admitted he had fathered a child during an extramarital affair with the family’s housekeeper 14 years prior. In her book, she explained that “without my marriage, my parents, a job,” she was “terrified.”

“I was consumed with grief and wracked with confusion, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety. I was unsure now of who I was, where I belonged. Honestly, it was brutal, and I was terrified,” she said. “As I sat on my hotel room floor in the dark, alone with tears streaming down my face, I thought to myself: Maria, this doesn’t have to be the end of you.”

After spending some time in a convent, Shriver revealed she began writing poetry. Through her writing, she realized she was scared “of not being able to live up to her family’s legacy,” and had spent her life “measuring herself by some impossible standard.”

“I’ve also had to come face to face with other misguided beliefs — about aging, about being alone,” she said. “I used to believe that if you didn’t have a partner, you must be unworthy and unloveable. I’ve learned that nothing could be further from the truth.”

The former couple finalized their divorce in December 2021, but have remained friendly since their split. The two were photographed together occasionally, including in 2020, when Shriver joined the actor and their four kids to celebrate Schwarzenegger’s 73rd birthday.

In May 2023, Schwarzenegger spoke about the divorce from his perspective, telling The Hollywood Reporter it “was very very difficult in the beginning,” but that “eventually, you move on.” He went on to say that they are “really good friends” and more than anything, the two of them “are very proud of the way we raised our kids.”

“If there’s Oscars for how to handle divorce, Maria and I should get it for having the least amount of impact on the kids,” he told the outlet. “The sweetness and kindness you see in them, that’s from my wife. The discipline and work ethic is from me.”