After seven years, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver still have not finalized their divorce, meaning the embattled couple is still technically married.
Shriver filed for divorce in July of 2011, meaning that it is officially seven years this month since the proceedings began. She sought to end the marriage after learning that Schwarzenegger had secretly had a son with their housekeeper years beforehand. According to a report by TMZ, that case is still ongoing, it’s not even close to its end.
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Right now it is not clear exactly what is holding the divorce up. Sources close to the couple told TMZ that they had no trouble agreeing on a 50/50 split of their assets — which total about $400 million. They also decided on joint custody of their children with relative ease. Shriver and Schwarzenegger have four kids together. Two were minors in 2011, though all are adults now.
The delay may be coming from Schwarzenegger himself, insiders said. The former governor of California has made no attempts to hurry the process along. Shriver herself has also reportedly been indecisive. At times, she has appeared motivated to get the divorce over with, and at others she seems to take her time, sources said.
However, friends of the couple are confident that they won’t be getting back together. They said that the minutia of the divorce may be exhausting for the couple, but a reunion is practically out of the question.
Schwarzenegger and Shriver began dating in 1982, the same year he starred in Conan the Barbarian. Shriver is an esteemed journalist in her own right, and the two became one of the most high-profile celebrity couples of the decade. They married in 1986, and sources told TMZ that they did not create a pre-nup at the time.
In 2011, it was revealed that Schwarzenegger had a 13-year-old son with the family’s housekeeper, Mildred Baena. The boy, Joseph Baena, had not learned of his parentage until that year either, and the story became a sensational scandal. It also coincided with the end of Schwarzenegger’s tenure as California’s governor, which he finished with low approval ratings and a handful of ethics scandals.
A year later, in 2012, Schwarzenegger opened up about his infidelity a bit, confirming that even he hadn’t known that Baena was his son for several years. In an interview on 60 Minutes, he said that when Joseph “started looking like me, that’s when I kind of got it. I put things together.”
