Maria Shriver Asks – How Do You Handle Transitions in Your Life?

Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to his wife several months ago that he had fathered a child about 10 years ago with a member of their household staff. Maria moved out, but has not filed for divorce. In the you tube clip above she comments:

“Like a lot of you I’m in transition: people come up to me all the time, asking, what are you doing next?” she said, adding: “It’s so stressful to not know what you are doing next when people ask what you are doing and they can’t believe you don’t know what you are doing.”

“I’d like to hear from other people who are in transition,” she said. “How did you find your transition: Personal, professional, emotional, spiritual, financial? How did you get through it?”

Mrs. Shriver has asked for spiritual input and I personally think that unless she gets the spiritual help that she needs then she will end up in the divorce court. I am starting a series on how a marriage can survive an infidelity. My first suggestion would be to attend a “Weekend to Remember” put on by the organization “Family Life” out of Little Rock, Arkansas. I actually posted this as a response to Mrs. Shriver’s request on you tube.

I wanted to share in two parts the article, “She Hated Her Husband: Brian and Julie Moreau thought there was no hope for their family,” by Mary May Larmoyeux. Here is the first portion:
Little Madissen and her big brother, Branden, often huddled in the closet together, wondering when their parents’ yelling would stop.

Brian and Julie Moreau didn’t protect their kids from their constant fits of rage. Their children “were always right in the middle of it,” Julie says, “with us screaming at each other.”

Julie regrets the time she shouted over and over to Brian, “I hate you! I hate you!” with the kids sitting right there.

Brian just turned around and walked out of the room. But something broke deep within his soul.

Was there any hope for this family?

Limping along in marriage

Brian and Julie were very possessive of each other. That started even before they married in 1991. They describe themselves as jealous, immature … not knowing what real love meant. “We had no business being together,” Julie says, “and my parents did not like Brian.”

Brian couldn’t seem to keep a job and his goal in life was to have fun. He says that Julie was the responsible one who had money in the bank.

Julie continually pointed out to her husband what he was doing wrong. She says that he had a money problem.

Julie was grateful for her one good friend. They often got together and criticized their husbands. Julie would complain about Brian’s spending habits. She’d also talk about Brian and her fights, and why they were always his fault.

Brian knew the woman’s husband, and they spent time together complaining about their wives. Brian would tell his friend about how Julie was trying to control whatever he was doing.

In 2000, after being married for nine years, Brian accepted a position as an internet technology manager at a hospital  three hours away. When the Moreaus arrived in their new community, Julie began a home daycare center.  She poured her life into the children. Brian poured his life into his job.

Because of Brian’s new position, the money issues in the family eased off. “At that point,” he says, “I had become committed to getting a career and holding a job down and supporting my family.”

Someone he could talk to

Brian often worked late into the night, and he became good friends with a co-worker—a married woman. It was easy for him to talk to her. They shared about their problems at home.

Brian didn’t want to be around his wife. “We didn’t like each other very much.” That’s why he deliberately came home after everyone was asleep in bed. And instead of going into the bedroom with Julie, he would prop himself up on the couch and fall asleep watching TV.

One night in May 2004, Brian asked Julie for a divorce. Julie was shocked. She said they needed to go to a counselor. “I stayed up all night begging him and begging him that we couldn’t do it, that we had kids, that we couldn’t get a divorce.”

Brian finally gave in. “Fine, whatever,” he said. “… I’ll stay for the kids but I’m not staying for you.”

A couple of weeks later one of Julie’s friends told Julie that she had heard rumors of Brian having an affair. Julie confronted her husband.

Brian responded by saying Julie didn’t trust him and that he would never have an affair. The only reason he wanted a divorce, he said, was because he wasn’t happy. He also said the kids would be better off if they divorced.

After Julie confronted Brian two or three more times, he finally admitted to the affair. “I can have conversations with her that I can’t have with you,” he said. 

The Moreaus’ relationship continued to deteriorate until Julie saw no hope for her marriage. In July 2004, she reluctantly told her husband, “Fine, let’s get a divorce.” 

Out of control

For the next two months, the Moreaus’ marriage was like a runaway roller coaster. One day Julie said, “It’s over, I can’t do this,” and the next she said, “We have to try.” She saw an attorney. He looked for an apartment for himself. He asked for her forgiveness. Then they said to one another, “Let’s try to work this out.”

Up and down. Their marriage was out of control … and their three children were watching.

“This craziness continued until the end of August,” Julie says. That’s when Brian sat on the couch at home with his two oldest children; Madissen was six years old and Branden was eight. He told them that he was leaving.

“Does that mean that we’re going to have another house?” Madissen asked. “Will I get my own room?”

Branden said nothing. He just sat there.

About that same time Julie and Brian went to their pastor for counseling. He told them that some marriages just don’t work. But other new friends disagreed. They told Julie and Brian that they could make it. “We had these Christian people coming around us that were insisting that we couldn’t get divorced … that we had to work it out,” Brian recalls.

Julie’s family physician was one of those friends. He had met Brian at the hospital, and his wife led a Bible study that Julie participated in. He took Brian to lunch one day and brought his Bible with him. “I told him to close the Bible,” Brian says. “I said I didn’t need that and I wanted some real-world advice.”

A ray of hope

In the fall of 2004, a friend handed Julie a brochure about a marriage getaway called Weekend to Remember®. She suggested that Julie and Brian try it before they divorced. Julie almost threw the brochure away.

Brian came home for lunch that day, and Julie handed him the Weekend to Remember brochure. He returned to work, and about two hours later the phone rang. It was Brian. He told Julie that he had registered for the conference, had booked a hotel room, and that she needed to be sure her parents could watch the kids. For the first time in years, she felt a little optimistic…

Mary May Larmoyeux is a writer and editor for FamilyLife. She is the author of My Heart’s at Home: Encouragement for Working Moms, Help for Busy Moms: Purposeful Living to Simplify Life, co-author of There’s No Place Like Home: Steps to Becoming a Stay-at-Home Mom, and co-author of the Resurrection Eggs® Activity Book.

Weekend to Remember Story – Dennis Rainey