Maria Shriver: 'I'm in transition'

Less than two months ago, Maria Shriver posted a video on YouTube pondering how to handle "transition" in your life.

The video seemed to be about her career since she ended her stint as first lady of California on Jan. 1, when husband Arnold Schwarzenegger exited his job as governor.

"Like a lot of you, I'm in transition," she said, looking into the camera. The video was made for her website, in which she encourages people to be "architects for change," a mantra of her annual Women's Conferences for the past several years.

She embraced that mantra Tuesday, announcing that she and Schwarzenegger had split after 25 years of marriage.

In the joint statement, issued by a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, the two said they were working on the future of their relationship while living apart and they would continue to parent their four children —Katherine, 21, Christina, 19, Patrick, 17, and Christopher, 13.

"After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion, and prayer, we came to this decision together," the statement said. According to the Los Angeles Times, Shriver moved out of the couple's Brentwood mansion several weeks ago.

Maybe the YouTube video was portentous. "People come up to me all the time and say, 'What are you going to do? What have you come up with? Oh, I hope you're getting time to relax and think and take a break.' " She continued: "It's SO stressful not to know what you're doing next."

She seemed to be second-guessing herself. "Every idea you have, you think maybe I shouldn't do that."

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger, 63, was happily leaving political life behind. He had immediately cut deals for three movies and his future seemed clear: The Terminator is heading back to Hollywood.

But Maria, 55?

"I don't know," she has said for the past two years when asked what she will do next. A former NBC journalist, she has continued to bring special projects to the news division but, spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said Tuesday, "We are not currently in talks for any full-time role."

With her career seemingly stalled, did Shriver suddenly seize the moment to be her own architect for change and decide to end her marriage? Or was it a move that had been in the works for some time?

After all, the marriage had been tested through the years. Shriver stood by Schwarzenegger through their 25-year marriage, including defending him against charges from six women in 2003 who said he had touched them in a sexual manner without their consent, right up to celebrating their anniversary together on April 26.

"It was absolutely a surprise," says Ceclia Delgadillo, 53, from Marshfield, Mass. She saw Shriver's video and posted a comment online wishing her well. Delgadillo adds that the split was maybe "not so much," a surprise. "The timing, yes, but I was not totally taken aback because she was so adamant about defending her husband, and where there's smoke, there's fire." Delgadillo adds, "I feel bad for her, because when I saw the YouTube video, she really looked destroyed. It's clearly more than just transitional."

She helped him reach his political goal

Could it be that the high-powered couple stayed together just to get through his time in office?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a veteran state political analyst and senior fellow at the University of Southern California, has seen that pattern before.

"I've seen it happen to politicians out of political power — it's awfully hard to adjust, and especially for (Shriver)," Jeffe says. "Early on, she opposed his campaign for governor, but she made her peace with it and she became the most powerful first lady of California ever. He gave her a lot of leeway to establish an independant power base, and maybe that was part of the trade-off."

For instance, Jeffe says, Shriver took on the annual Women's Conference and made it a place to see and be seen. She took control of the state history museum and pushed for inclusion of the contributions of California's women.

"She had the Kennedy panache and she was a very important adviser to her husband," Jeffe says. "There is an argument, and I don't think it's too far wrong, that because she stood so strongly and effectively alongside him after the Los Angeles Times story (about his alleged groping of women in Hollywood) that she may well have helped him enter office without that taint."

Even if they're no longer a political power couple, they're still a celebrity couple, Jeffe says, unlike, say, former vice president Al Gore and his wife Tipper, who split last year.

"That's why we're so fixated on (Shriver and Schwarzenegger), even though it's only a separation at this point," she says. "It's big, big news and that's what confounds me: Why, why, why? Had they only been a political couple, it might not be such big news, but they're celebrities, and this story is being approached (in California) as a celebrity story."

Still, political couples often stay together "because they had a single goal, and now that goal is not only accomplished but they're out of office now," she says. "Both spouses sometimes just step back and step apart, to find out how and where they can be happy out of political power. It doesn't mean the marriage is over. They're just beginning to think about the next phase of life."

What's behind the timing?

Politics may not have been the only thing playing into the timing of the announcement.

Paul Talbert, a partner in a New York matrimonial and family-law firm, says he's guessing the couple announced the separation now to get out in front of the story.

"Their personal reasons aside, they want to avoid the rumor-mongering in the press about them living apart," Talbert says. "They've been together 25 years, they have substantial earnings and assets, and it's not an easy thing to divide that up quickly. So a decision to separate is easier to arrive at than the decision of how to disentangle themselves financially."

He says this is a common strategy in high-profile splits.

"You see that often in the Hollywood arena —people announce they're separating before they resolve all their divorce issues," he says. "But I suspect it could take only a matter of months, given both of their desires to keep this quiet and out of the public eye, to reach agreement on how to arrange their finances."

Schwarzenegger, Talbert says, "knows it doesn't benefit his career or his children to have a messy divorce."

But why split now, after 25 years? "They're both relatively young people, they've got another 30 years of life expectancy," he says. "People have little tolerance nowadays for relationships that don't fullfill them in all aspects. From what I've read, this is not a snap judgment. They've been wrestling with this for some time. And their kids are older."

And if the couple stayed together this long at least in part to protect their children and his political career, then now that he's out of office (and going back to Hollywood), "it's a much safer time to separate and divorce and have it not matter."

Moving on

Even when a marriage is unhappy, moving on is a very complicated decision after 25 years.

Shriver "appears to have a very strong personality," says psychologist Elaine Ducharme, a spokesperson for the American Psychological Association who does not know Schwarzenegger or Shriver. "But it's still scary and hard to do —to separate —because it's the loss of a dream."

One life change can be enough of a challenge to face, but she's going through a time of upheaval: she's no longer the wife of a governor and both of Shriver's parents have died recently (Eunice Shriver died in 2009 and Sargent Shriver died in January).

"Whenever anyone dies or there's a major career change, it is time for a reassessment in life," says Ducharme. "That's a lot of change to deal with and then when you get to the point when you're 50 to 55, you start asking yourself 'Where am I going?' I see so many women in their 50s who are in this kind of crisis, saying they do not know what they want to do. It can be scary, but it's a wonderful age and time of opportunity for women. They wonder 'Can I think of my own needs now? Or do I need to put up with a bad situation anymore?'"

Combine that with Shriver no longer having to be the governor's wife, and she can behave differently. "Those public positions require people to act a certain way," Ducharme says. "They make people put other people's interests first. I think now she's been freed of that and is probably trying to figure out how she can walk away with dignity and make sure they take care of the children in a collaborative way."

Or as Shriver told USA TODAY last year at the Women's Conference as she was constantly asked about what she would do next, "Everybody I've talked to has said the best thing to do is take a breath. You don't realize what kind of bubble you're in with this job. These last seven years for me have been quite an upheaval. ... I'm different today."

And when asked about the thumb ring she was wearing and the purple nail polish, she laughed. "Am I a rock 'n' roll first lady? No, actually, just trying to be myself."

Contributing: Maria Puente, Janice Lloyd