Arnold is taking full responsibility for his cheating now, but just wait until he realizes you're serious about the divorce -- I bet he'll become furious and nasty with you!
Why do I say this? Because I've seen it and lived through it. Arnold is one of those men who felt "entitled" to have his affairs AND to have a wife and family.
"He didn't think he had a problem. He's the kind of guy who only thinks he has a problem when he gets caught," explains Dr. Gilda Carle, author of How to Win When Your Mate Cheats.
Arnold truly believed that he could have and was entitled to have both his beautiful and politically connected wife AND a bevy of mistresses -- Mildred Baene, Gigi Goyette Jeffers and allegedly Tammy Tousignant -- to satisfy his needs for "dangerous sex."
He thought he was above everyday people because he was so famous and he didn't think he had the same consequences as everyone else," says relationship expert Rhonda Findling, author of The Commitment Cure: What to do When You Fall For an Ambivalent Man.
But it's because he felt so entitled and so free of guilt about the situation, that he will soon become very angry when it sinks in that you are deadly serious about a divorce now.
He didn't want you to split. In his own way, as much as he can for a narcissist -- which he has to be -- he does love you, Maria. And he does love his family.
He loves that you are a lady. He loves that you are politically connected. He still sees you as a trophy wife, even though he had his sex on the side.
The cheating had "nothing to do with his family. His wife and children were assets to him," says psychiatrist Susan Abbott.
When he truly realizes that you're taking those assets away, that you won't be his trophy wife and run his home and household the way he likes, he will get angry like you wouldn't believe!
Maria -- he will blame YOU for breaking up the marriage and the family. He didn't want a divorce. In his mind, he will be the one who is committed to the marriage. He didn't initiate the split and move out. You did!
Once he feels justified in his own brain that you are to blame and the sting of public embarrassment wears off, he will start to make your life a living hell.
You better hire the best and toughest divorce attorney money can buy because Arnold will try to stiff you out of a big settlement. He may bar you from getting your personal belongings and marital assets out of the house. He may sue for sole custody of your two minor children.
Prepare for war!
I know because that's exactly what my own father did. He cheated multiple times on my mom, and had a serious mistress, but when my mother finally found out everything and kicked him out, he pulled the blame game on her. He was furious that "she" ended the marriage.
Like Arnold, he didn't think there was anything wrong with having a wife AND mistress and he hated my mom for calling him on it and refusing to go along with it.
He tried to make her and us pay the price for his anger and we did. We went from middle class comfort to practically penniless in an ugly divorce war.
So Maria, heed my warning. Just because Arnold is pulling all the right PR moves now, prepare for the worst. Take it from me, one who's been through it.