Arnold met Barbara when she was a 21 year old coed at San Diego State, waiting tables near Gold`s Gym. They embarked on a six year relationship, living together as Arnold`s career was beginning to take off. Barbara wrote a memoir of those years, Arnold and Me, and has remained friendly with him.
Wikipedia also discusses their relationship:
"In 1969, Schwarzenegger met Barbara Outland Baker, an English teacher he lived with until 1974. Schwarzenegger talked about Barbara in his memoir in 1977: "Basically it came down to this: she was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man, and hated the very idea of ordinary life."
Baker has described Schwarzenegger as "a joyful personality, totally charismatic, adventurous, and athletic" but claims towards the end of the relationship he became "insufferable – classically conceited –the world revolved around him". Baker published her memoir in 2006, entitled Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak.
Although Baker, at times, painted an unflattering portrait of her former love, Schwarzenegger actually contributed to the tell-all book with a foreword, and also met with Baker for three hours. Baker claims, for example, that she only learned of his being unfaithful after they split, and talks of a turbulent and passionate love life. Schwarzenegger has made it clear that their respective recollection of events can differ.
The couple first met six to eight months after his arrival in the U.S. – their first date was watching the first Apollo Moon landing on television. They shared an apartment in Santa Monica for three and a half years, and having little money, would visit the beach all day, or have barbecues in the back yard.
Although Baker claims that when she first met him, he had "little understanding of polite society" and she found him a turn-off, she says, "He`s as much a self-made man as it`s possible to be – he never got encouragement from his parents, his family, his brother. He just had this huge determination to prove himself, and that was very attractive ... I`ll go to my grave knowing Arnold loved me."