Just a few weeks after Valerie Bertinelli’s reported split from Mike Goodnough, the One Day at a Time alum gave him a shout-out in an Instagram post.
Valerie, 64, posted a quote that said, “I didn’t know how I was going to get through it, but I knew that somehow, I would,” on Friday, November 22. In a lengthy caption accompanying the post, she explained that it marked two years since her divorce from Tom Vitale was finalized.
“And I did! Today marks two years of freedom,” Valerie wrote. “Two years of walking through self doubt and doing my best to get to the other side. Two years of knowing that I didn’t deserve to tolerate the intolerable. Two years of working through shame and self loathing.”
“Two years of working to find my true self,” she continued. “Two years of eventually dipping my toe in and feeling love again. (Thank you, Mike) Two years of confronting past demons and traumas and doing my best to work through them.”
Later on in the caption, Valerie directly mentioned Mike’s Instagram handle. “And therealhoarse, thank you for being such a big part of my growth this year,” she wrote of the East coast-based writer, whom she publicly revealed her relationship with in April. “I’m so grateful I met you.”
She also thanked her “online community” for giving her “feedback” and “compassion” over the past two years.
“Most importantly, I want you to know that if you’re struggling right now, I’ve been there and some days I can still be there but I want you to know it does get better. I promise you,” she wrote. “It gets better. Some days will still be hard and challenging, but on other days, the light will shine brighter and you will feel it. I love you.”
More than two weeks ago, on November 5, People reported Valerie and Mike had split after 10 months of dating. “They are no longer in a relationship,” a source told the outlet at the time.
“Valerie and I are the only two people with insight into our relationship,” Mike said in a statement to People. “Neither of us pays much attention to chatter among people outside of it.”
Prior to their reported split, Mike posted cryptic quotes on his Instagram page on November 2. “If you can go a whole day without talking to me, then go another,” one of the quotes in Mike’s Instagram Stories said, while another said, “If someone is fine without you, then let them be fine without you.”
Valerie and Mike did not respond to Closer’s request for comment at the time.
Mike took to his Instagram on November 3 to address the cryptic quotes.
“Y’all, for real, the things I post aren’t real-time coded subtweets of my own life. I post things for all kinds of reasons,” he wrote. “Sending some coded message about my life at that very second is close to never it. I post things that resonate with me as wise or thoughtful or lessons learned. I post things that I think will strike a chord with other people. Sometimes the things I post strike a chord with me because they have some recent relevance or relate to things that have been on mind.”
“Even when that is the case, my reason for posting them is because I see some value in them beyond my own experience – not because I’m trying to send super secret messages about what is going on with me or in my life that people need to use a decoder ring to figure out,” he added.
