Maria Shriver Visited Convent After Arnold Schwarzenegger Split, Felt ‘Invisible’ During Marriage

Whereas showing on Monday’s episode of the “Making Area with Hoda Kotb” podcast, the journalist opened up about occurring a journey of therapeutic after the top of her 25-year marriage in 2011, recalling her eye-opening expertise of visiting a convent.

“I first felt like, ‘Oh I would higher go and determine like, what’s the reality?'” Shriver, 67, started. “I went to a convent — I did so many issues — however one of many issues I did is I went to a convent, a cloistered convent, to be in silence and search for recommendation.”

“The Reverend Mom there stated to me on the very finish, she stated — and I even have written about this, however I have never shared — she stated, ‘I feel you got here right here in search of permission,'” Shriver continued, including that it she “felt like I used to be in a scene out of ‘The Sound of Music.'”

“She goes, ‘You possibly can’t come reside right here … however you do have permission to exit and turn into Maria,'” the writer stated. “I used to be, like, sobbing. I used to be like, ‘Who’s that?'”

Shriver went on to share that for the primary time, she lastly gave herself “permission to begin studying.”

“I had by no means given myself permission to really feel, to be weak, to be weak, to be delivered to my knees. And the world did it to me,” she advised Kotb. “After which I used to be like, ‘OK, God, let’s go. And I will take this and be taught every little thing I can about my function and what I must be taught … When the universe knocks you want that, I feel you must not concentrate on the opposite individual [but] … what do it’s worthwhile to be taught from this expertise? So I gave myself permission to begin studying.”

In the meantime, at one other level in her dialog with Kotb, Shriver recalled feeling “invisible” throughout her marriage to Schwarzenegger, sharing that she first skilled that feeling whereas rising up as a member of the Kennedy household.,

“I grew up feeling invisible in an extremely public, well-known household,” Shriver stated. “There have been a number of actually huge characters in that household … In case you, as a toddler, are standing subsequent to the president of the US, two U.S. senators, the primary woman, no person’s you. You’re background noise. And you’re taking that with you actually via life, and you find yourself placing your self in conditions the place that continues till you be taught your lesson. That it is not about different individuals seeing you. It is about you seeing your self. And that took me a extremely very long time, a extremely very long time to be taught.”

The mom of 4 continued, “I’d discover myself getting indignant at individuals who got here up and did not acknowledge that I existed once I was standing subsequent to Arnold, or once I was standing subsequent to my uncle or anyone.”

“After which I [realized] they have been educating me a lesson that it is not about whether or not they see me,” Shriver stated. “Do I see me? Am I seen to me?”

Shriver and Schwarzenegger tied the knot in 1986, and had 4 youngsters: Katherine, 33, Christina, 31, Patrick, 29, and Christopher, 25.

Shriver filed for divorce in July 2011 after Schwarzenegger revealed that he had an affair and secretly fathered a toddler with the household’s housekeeper. Their divorce was finalized in December 2021.