Philandering Arnie still hopes to save his marriage

LOS ANGELES: Arnold Schwarzenegger still hopes to salvage his marriage despite admitting to multiple affairs, including one in which he fathered a child with his housekeeper.

And, in a tell-all memoir published this week, he insists that he is “still in love” with Maria Shriver, his wife of 25 years who filed for divorce after he admitted he was the child’s father.

The Hollywood star and former California governor said the fling with the housekeeper – which produced a baby boy at almost the same time as his fourth child with Shriver – was the “stupidest” thing he had done.

“The divorce is going forward, but I still have the hope that Maria and I can come back together as husband and wife and as a family with our children,” he said in his newly published memoirs, Total Recall.

“You can call this denial, but it’s the way my mind works… I’m still in love with Maria.”

In a TV interview timed with the publication of his memoirs, the former bodybuilder told how Shriver had confronted him about the child the day after he left office as California governor in January last year.

He also admitted he had a habit of keeping secrets, including not telling Shriver that he was going to run for governor until just days before he announced it, and trying to conceal having heart surgery from her. Shriver filed for divorce in July last year citing “irreconcilable differences”. – Sapa-AFP