Arnie kept 'living in denial' by keeping secrets from ex-wife

Arnold Schwarzenegger says his lifelong penchant for secrecy and ability to put his emotions “on deep freeze” led him to keep many secrets from his wife, eventually causing the break-up of their marriage when he was forced to admit he fathered a child with the family’s housekeeper.

Throughout their strained 25-year marriage, Schwarzenegger says he did not want to tell Maria Shriver about crucial life decisions such as major heart surgery and running for California governor because he feared she would overreact and tell her well-connected family and friends.

In his new autobiography, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, and in an interview on the TV news magazine 60 Minutes, the former California governor acknowledges that his inability to be honest with people had hurt those closest to him.

“That’s the way I handle things. And it always has worked. But, I mean it does not – it’s not the best thing for people around me because I sometimes – some information I just keep to myself,” Schwarzenegger told reporter Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes.

The former Mr Universe traces his detachment to his bodybuilding days, where he says emotions make athletes lose.

“So I became an expert in living in denial,” says the Hollywood action star and former governor.

Schwarzenegger praises Ms Shriver throughout the book as a partner and friend who was essential to his success, but also admits to keeping her in the dark about many career decisions. Ms Shriver filed for divorce in July.

Although he had been toying with the idea of running for California governor for more than a year, Schwarzenegger waited until just days before the filing deadline for the 2003 recall election to discuss it with Ms Shriver, writing in the book that he “didn’t want endless conversation about it at home”.

Ms Shriver opposed the idea, but was persuaded to soften her stance by her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who told her to support her husband’s ambitions, or he might resent her for the rest of his life.

Despite that struggle, he also did not inform her when he decided to seek a second term, writing that she had to read about it in the newspaper.

Total Recall will be published today. The Associated Press purchased an early copy.

But Schwarzenegger’s biggest secret, the child he had with the family’s housekeeper, became tabloid news last year after he left office. Ms Shriver confronted her husband during a January 2011 counselling session and he finally acknowledged the boy, Joseph, was his.

Schwarzenegger says he kept the secret from his wife for years because he was worried “it would get out”.

He tells Ms Stahl he never even had a conversation with the housekeeper, Mildred Baena, about the son. Instead, after he began noticing the boy’s strong resemblance to him, around the age eight, he just began giving Ms Baena extra money.

“I kind of put it away and just said to myself, ’OK, I’m going to put this away. I’m going to fulfil my responsibilities’,” he told Ms Stahl.

He declined to say whether he has a relationship with the child, who is now about 15, and he said he did not want to go into any more details about his relationship with Ms Baena because he had already caused Ms Shriver and their four children enough pain.

“I don’t want to reawaken and kind of talk about it because it’s not going to help them. And I just want to protect them as much as I can,” he says.

There were other deceptions, too, including a “hot affair” with Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen while filming the 1985 action film Red Sonja, when he and Ms Shriver were living together. He admitted other affairs, but told Stahl they were “something that’s obviously between Maria and me”.

Schwarzenegger says in the interview that his marriage and his family were the most important things in his life, but he caused them tremendous pain.

“So the thing that really meant the most to me kind of fell apart because of my doing,” he said in the 60 Minutes interview.

“That is something that I will always look back and say, ’How could you have done that?’.”