So former governor and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a child ten years ago with a household employee — who reportedly remained in his employ until January 2011! Wife Maria Shriver apparently only recently found out about all this and has left him. Duh.

I hope Shriver takes that philanderer to the cleaners. Not because she needs to, but because she can. Any husband who cheats like that doesn’t deserve a moment’s compassion, understanding , or forgiveness. And it’s not like he “made a mistake” and put it behind him. The women’s been an employee in their home all this time! Schwarzenegger was a known womanizer before his marriage and I’ve never believed a tiger could change its stripes. But keeping the woman in his employ, as a trusted member of the household all this time — wow, I can’t think of an appropriate adjective.

Personally, I can’t imagine playing “the good wife,” standing by my man after such betrayal, but many women have. All those politicians’ wives who stood silently beside their husbands while the bums confessed their sins to a bank of television cameras — what were they thinking? Weren’t they just adding public humiliation to their private heartbreak? Wasn’t their pride at least as important as their husband’s career?

Sexual infidelity, deception, lying. I don’t know how you get past that violation of trust. I don’t know how you forget it and go forward as though it never happened. If you did that to me, rest assured I wouldn’t be playing the good wife. I can’t handle being lied to.

As for all those cheating politicians … I used to say private lives should remain private and should have no bearing on one’s life as a public official. For the life of me, now, I don’t know why. Of course it relates! If you are a lowlife, if you lack moral and ethical integrity when nobody’s watching, if you would cheat on and lie to the person you love most in the world, why the hell should anyone expect you to treat your job and the public trust any differently.