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 last portion:
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.

Julie had an appointment with her family doctor on the Friday morning of the marriage conference. He shared Scriptures with her in his office and prayed for Brian and her.

On Friday night at the conference, the Moreaus heard about threats to marriage. They broke down in tears when they realized that they had been doing marriage wrong—they had been destroying themselves and their family.

On Saturday morning, when the speakers told about God’s plan for marriage, Brian and Julie knew there was hope.

Brian remembers seeing an illustration of the cross … and understanding the gospel much differently than he had before. When the speaker explained that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is needed to make a life and a marriage whole, Julie and Brian each asked Him to be Savior and Lord of their lives.

Julie learned the meaning of true forgiveness at the Weekend to Remember. She also realized for the first time that Brian was God’s gift to her.

When Brian and Julie left the getaway they were changed people. “The bottom line was,” Brian says, “we both accepted Jesus and we now had that Helper to help us.”

Two happy parents

Today, the word divorce never comes up in either Brian’s or Julie’s vocabulary. “It never will,” Brian says. “We have a different type of commitment.”

The Moreaus now counsel couples, lead marriage classes at their new church, and usually attend at least one Weekend to Remember getaway every year.

Brian says that their marriage has taken a 180-degree turn. He and Julie read the Bible together and understand how God has designed their roles in marriage. “She is a different wife, a completely different wife.”

“Even when I didn’t believe in my marriage,” Julie says, “it didn’t matter, because God did.”

Madissen is now 12 years old and Branden is 14. They both vividly recall how their parents used to yell incessantly at one another. Madissen says that she was terrified when she thought her parents were getting a divorce. “I remember sitting in the closet or under my bed with my brother, and we would cry.”

“All my parents ever did back then was fight,” Branden says, “… I was tired of having to stay up really late some nights just listening to them arguing.”

Today Madissen describes Brian and Julie as her “two happy parents.”  Branden says, “I know that God will keep my parents together, and they will never get a divorce. I thank God for that every day.”

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.

Benefits of Attending a Weekend to Remember