Mike Goodnough Reflects on Painful Split From Valerie Bertinelli

Valerie Bertinelli’s ex Mike Goodnough is apologizing for a social media post about his former relationship.

In a post shared via Instagram on Saturday, April 19, Goodnough addressed a post he made the previous week regarding his previous relationship with Bertinelli, 64.

“I regret having posted it. I wish I hadn’t. The issue addressed was real. My post made it worse rather than better,” he wrote. “Valerie and I had a complicated relationship. Our time as a couple ended months ago but our close contact only really ended recently. So, it is more ‘fresh’ than it would seem.”

Goodnough went on to list the “external” things that he claims “got in the way” of their relationship, but stated that the “one thing that was never an issue was our love for each other.” He described the “dissolution of [their] relationship” as “by far the most painful experience of my life.”

Related: Valerie Bertinelli and Mike Goodnough’s Relationship Timeline

Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images; Courtesy of Mike Goodnough/Instagram Following her divorce from Tom Vitale, Valerie Bertinelli moved on with writer Mike Goodnough for less than one year. The One Day at a Time actress, who shares son Wolfgang with her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, revealed in March 2024 that she was dating someone “very special” […]

“It has been so acutely agonizing, it has entirely changed the scale of how much heartbreak can hurt,” he continued. “Over the last few months, I had hoped we’d find a way to a gentle parting rather than a closed door but couldn’t seem to get us to one. I reached out again this week in that hope. No answer is an answer though. I accept it.”

Goodnough concluded, “With that said, this chapter is now closed for me. I won’t have anything more to say about it – and nothing I have to say will be about it. I’ve cried about this enough. It’s time to move on.”

Earlier this month, Goodnough took to social media to deny fan speculation that he and Bertinelli had been feuding and communicating with each other via social media.

“I am not communicating with Valerie via my posts,” he wrote in his April 1 post. “I am not engaging with the things she posts. While I am disappointed in the array of hostile, dishonest, and uncalled for backhanded swipes she continues to take at me, there is no war between us. She just won’t stop shooting. Valerie is in a war with her ghosts. I’m just the guy who catches the bullets. And that isn’t new.”

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Robin Marchant/Getty Images Valerie Bertinelli is feeling all the love after sharing some personal updates. “When I go on my walks, I do a lot of reflecting. Sometimes sweet, sometimes challenging,” Bertinelli, 63, wrote via Instagram on Monday, April 22. “Reflecting on this week and the kindness all of you have shown me in our […]

Us Weekly reached out to Bertinelli’s rep for comment at the time.

The pair went public with their relationship in April 2024. While it was reported in November that year that Bertinelli and Goodnough had split, she addressed their breakup for the first time in March.

“I’m irreversibly changed by him for the better,” Bertinelli said via Instagram at the time. “I know I am becoming a much stronger and more benevolent human for having met him and spent time with him.”

She continued, “Before I had the pleasure of meeting Mike, I was initially and immediately attracted to his writing. It’s heartfelt, authentic, smart, funny, sensitive, caring, and from the soul. And the way he puts words together is just sooo ridiculously beautiful. 🤩 I’m a big fan, can you tell? And as luck would have it, the human being in person is exactly as heartfelt, authentic, sensitive and caring as his writing. And wickedly witty.”