Melissa Etheridge’s estranged partner, Tammy Lynn Michaels, maintains a blog and has posted a few entries making it clear that their breakup was not mutual. According to Michaels, it was Etheridge who chose to end things after emotionally withdrawing from the relationship. In our last story on one of Michael’s posts detailing her side of the split, I wrote that she should really try to keep her personal business offline. Etheridge has talked about the breakup while promoting her album but has been vague about the circumstances, simply saying that they drifted apart and that it didn’t happen overnight. Michaels made it clear that it was much more sudden in her experience and that Etheridge is glossing over her role in the split.

Now Etheridge has filed to legally end the partnership and is trying to ensure that Michaels is not awarded support. (They did not marry in the window of time before Prop 8 passed, but had a traditional-type wedding ceremony in 2003). She is seeking joint custody of their three year-old twins, boy Miller and daughter Johnnie. Michaels wants us to know that she was blindsided by the filing and that Etheridge promised her she wouldn’t file until the fall. She also writes that she gave up her career to raise their kids, and that she is currently so broke she has to borrow money from friends and family to pay for food and gas:

i am wondering if it’s an art

gentle waves
no noise for awhile
or maybe gentle voices

and

SMACK!!!!!!!!!!!!
FILE FOR DIVORCE!!!!!!
even though we both promised
agreed
handshook
pinkyswore

no filing until after tour
in the fall

her broken promises
told to me by
headlines….

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“you know what?” i said. “do you want me to take a year off? take care of the kids? i can be here when you’re gone, get them at school, bake for them, do the school stuff, and just catch them when you’re not here. want me to do that?”

her face lit up like i was giving her a present she wanted but could never name. “would you do that??? you would do that???”

“sure! i’ve always wanted to make a home anyway! i’ll make a home for you and me and the kids, and you go and do your thang with your guitar!”

we laughed and hugged, and she said it was perfect, and it was what she had always wanted anyways, but didn’t want to ask anybody to do it for her….. make her a home…. etc. and that night was perfect. sitting on the porch, under the stars, back when we lived on the house on Mandeville canyon, near the ocean.

i gave up my managers, agents, contacts, all that good stuff, because i stepped directly into potty training a small boy, and carrying around a small girl on my hip. both excellent souls. and i was a very huge part in raising them for many many years while She with the Guitar focused on her Guitar.

i was always the house wife after that. the only thing i hated about it was not bringing in money- i have made my own money since i started babysitting at 10, and having a newspaper route at 11. having no steady paycheck killed me for those years with her. and now it’s really killing me. the other week i had to borrow money from a friend. two weeks ago i had to scrape together $1.25 to pay for gas. i know she doesn’t want to give me money. trust. i’m borrowing cash left and right from people to get through this summer, and feed my kids, with a stomach full of ulcers, thank you. no stress here.

[From two different entries on HollywoodFarmGirl.Blogspot.com]

In May I wrote that didn’t think that Michaels should air her personal business online. It’s more the way that Michaels is expressing herself rather than the fact that she’s telling us. It’s deplorable that Etheridge is not taking care of her children’s mother. She’s a millionaire and could easy make sure Michaels can pay her bills. This is just too raw and personal to be put out there like this, though. Michaels could earn just as much if not more sympathy will some carefully leaked stories to the press. Look at how Shania Twain told People Magazine that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend. She did it by attributing the news to “sources” through one of the most respected celebrity outlets. (Although that’s questionable given how much attention they’ve been paying to cheesy reality stars lately.)

Michaels could be a little more media savvy about all this, but I can’t begrudge her saying her peace. This is just another example of why it should be legal for same sex couples to marry. They need just as many rights when they get divorced, too.