I joked the other day that maybe it took fourteen years to tell Maria because you were waiting for the right moment.  But dude, think about it – your wife is a Kennedy.  She can handle bad news.    It’s practically coded in her DNA.   Being a Kennedy means Maria is not exactly a stranger to high profile infidelity, so the act of coitus between you and another woman may not trouble her as it might other wives. And let’s be honest – judging by the rumours, various women doing push-ups with Mr. Pooniverse may be pretty common.  Again, I’m not judging so much as acknowledging the First Immutable Law of Celebrity (as first postulated by renowned scientist Mick Jagger): A man is only as faithful as his options.  Another woman bonin’ the Barbarian was bound to happen – it’s like gravity.

Which is not to say Maria would be overjoyed to hear you bench-pressed the maid in the gazebo, but she’s probably one of the few women on the planet who would take the news anywhere close to “pretty well”.  Again, need I remind you she comes from a family that’s been trying to hide its dirty laundry for almost a century?  Anyone can be righteously indignant, but only Kennedy wives have made it a mantra to never let righteous indignation stand in the way of personal ambition.  Chances are Maria is a stone-cold pragmatist who has developed her family’s ease with moral ambiguity – just look at how well she handled Gropegate!  Making accommodations with the failings of human nature is just how Kennedys roll, and I’m pretty sure if you needed her help with a cover-up, you would’ve got it – if not for you, or her quality of life, then certainly for your kids.  Perhaps she’d have hated you to her dying day, but had she been onside we might’ve found out who really shot her uncle before we ever heard about this.  Fallible men the world over pray for the kind of wife you had.

Instead, you kept her out of the circle of trust, and now you’re divorcing, your kids know you’re a douchebag, and anyone who ever thought you were an asshole gets to say it out loud. After 25 years of marriage, you should’ve learned this basic principle: in long term relationships, betrayal is less about the sex than the lie. And betrayal expands in proportion to the lie.   Admittedly, this housekeeper wasn’t some Playmate wannabe the agency sent over “just this one time” –  this woman was in your life and the life of your family for twenty years.  You don’t keep someone around for that long if you dislike them, and they can’t stay around that long without some kind of emotional connection developing.  That’s probably the real crime you were hiding –  a deep bond (the kind that comes from producing a child with another) with someone other than Maria.  Still, I suspect even that probably could’ve been manageable had you trusted your wife enough to share. That, to me, is the scandalous part.  The sex and the love child are beside the point.

Admittedly, I’ve never been rich, famous, or heavily muscled, but I’d like to think the true measure of manliness is in how you handle a crisis. By that yard stick, your performance is pretty much a fail (except for the keeping-it-a-secret part, that’s just fucking audacious).  Mind you, I’m labouring under the assumption you wanted it kept a secret.  Unlike regular people, there’s no real downside for a famous person in being caught in a lie.  This is the Second Immutable Law of Celebrity (first theorized by veteran researcher Dennis Hopper and later re-created in a controlled environment by Dr. Robert Downey Jr.): the bigger the scandal, the bigger the comeback.  Your movie career could really use a comeback right now, and really, what’s left for you?  The wife’s gone, and the kids are changing their last name to Shriver. Assuming anyone would want to vote for you, there are term limits for the California governorship, and you’re legally prohibited from being President. A return to competition at 63 would only be sad and more than a little creepy.  Movies are pretty much it, man.

In fact, when I think about it, the timing of this news couldn’t be more perfect – so maybe this is all part of a master marketing plan.  Sure, you’ll be a regular punchline on late night talk shows, and “Arnold Schwarzenegger Love Child” will be the number one Google search for the next few weeks.  But a year from now, just before your first post-gubernatorial movie drops, you’ll release a tell-all book, cry on Barbara Walter’s shoulder a little, and do a couple of clever skits on SNL that exploit your role as certified ass clown. That flick will have a huge first weekend.  You will be back.

Of course, it’s going to be a while before the press junket, and you will have to walk the wilderness a spell. It’ll be lonely sometimes, and a lot of people will give you static. When that happens,  just remind them of the writer Anaïs Nin.  For years, Anaïs Nin was married to two men, one of whom never knew until after she died.  Her web of deceit became so vast she had to create something  she called a “lie box” in order to keep track of all things she told her husbands to keep them from knowing.   Ironically, when I tell that story, a lot of women say they find it very progressive and liberated on Nin’s part.  Comparing yourself to Anaïs Nin may not always provoke the same favorable response –  but I bet you’re ballsy enough to do it anyway.

Yours in Better Man-ness,

Chris

 

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