‘Maybe My Traumas Got in the Way’

Valerie Bertinelli is opening up about how going through breakups has helped her become a better person along the way.

Speaking with her fellow The Drew Barrymore Show panelists Barrymore, 50, and Ross Matthews, 45, the Food Network star, 64, opened up about divorce and breakups — and reflected on how a recent essay from actress Jenna Dewan about her split from Channing Tatum gave her the opportunity to grow as a person.

“In a recent heartfelt essay for InStyle, Jenna Dewan reflected on the personal growth she experienced in her divorce from Channing Tatum in 2024,” the Valerie’s Home Cooking alum said during a recent Drew Barrymore Show segment, kicking off a discussion about breakups and divorce. “Now she emphasized that embracing change and discomfort led her to discover inner strength she hadn’t realized she possessed. And most importantly, she said ‘I learned to let go of over-accommodating in relationships.'”

“I think sitting in discomfort, it can be a really challenging and hard thing to do,” Bertinelli said with a laugh. “But it’s super powerful.”

After the former One Day at a Time star joked that she “wouldn’t know” what a bad breakup looks like, Matthews chimed in to say that the time period immediately following a hard split can give people a chance to reflect on themselves and how they behave in relationships.

“You really kinda learn a lot about yourself,” he says.

According to Bertinelli, breakups also give each person the chance to learn “how you can behave better” and more.

“Not [what you did] wrong,” she says, reflecting on what it means to place blame during a breakup, and instead saying that maybe each person didn’t have the “tools” to deal with the situations they’re dealt.

“Maybe my traumas got in the way,” Bertinelli adds. “I don’t want that to be an excuse, but you can reflect back and go, ‘Oof, I could have handled that better had I not let old traumas take over, or my ego.'”

The Food Network alum finalized her divorce from ex-husband Tom Vitale in November 2022, after more than 10 years of marriage. Bertinelli first filed for divorce from Vitale in May 2022, six months after filing for legal separation in November 2021.

Before Vitale, Bertinelli was married to the late Eddie Van Halen from 1981 to 2007.

Bertinelli has been candid online about the difficulties she’s had in each of her relationships, and has often spoke out about how much she struggled with her divorce from Vitale.

In November, she shared a post to Instagram marking two years since divorcing the businessman.

“Today marks two years of freedom,” the Indulge author captioned an Instagram post on Nov. 22, before listing off a long list of emotional accomplishments. “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. (Still working on that part🥴long tail that😅) Two years of working to find my true self.”

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She also gave a shout-out to Mike Goodnough — the writer whom Bertinelli dated from March 2024, until their relationship ended in November that year, according to a source who spoke to PEOPLE at the time.

“Two years of eventually dipping my toe in and feeling love again. (Thank you, Mike ♥️),” Bertinelli wrote.

Just last week, the Food Network star spoke similarly about what she’s learned from her past romantic partners, writing in another candid Instagram post that while what she’s learned comes from “two failed marriages” and that she “fumbled the last true good man I met,” she had still picked up some valuable lessons along the way — including how to seek an apology.

“When feeling attacked, a natural reaction is to shut down and get defensive and feel overwhelmed about changing behavior that may be a coping mechanism since childhood,” Bertinelli wrote. “They’ll feel judged and feel like they can’t get anything right and they won’t really hear you.”

She added, “If you stop focusing on what they did wrong and instead approach with empathy and understanding, everything can then start to shift.”

The Food Network alum also stressed that finding new ways to “show up for each other” is a love language, as is being patient as the other grows and learns.

“I think we all just want to do better and feel awful when we’ve hurt someone we love and shame prevents us from thinking clearly,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be nice to relieve the one you love from shame so they can truly give you the amends you’re looking for?”