Russell's wife opens up about his alleged abuse

https://lifewithmelis310373032.wordpress.com/

This is a touchy subject so I'll try to be gentle with this... short version here is I am inclined to believe her but 2 things bother me about this. 1) she throws all the blame on him. I've seen enough marriages break up to know that it's rarely just one person. The second thing about this is she's not really clear about what this alleged physical abuse entailed and after mentioning it the one time she starts talking about emotional abuse. I don't mean to make light of emotional abuse but to me that's an entirely different level than talking about physically abusing someone because emotional abuse goes hand and hand with relationships breaking up. The stuff she describes could be basically any relationship break up ever. That doesn't make Russell a criminal just makes him a bad husband/person.

What would make him a criminal is the physical abuse. But there's a wide range of things "physically mistreated" can mean. I mean that could mean anything from pushing her onto a bed or something to punching her a la ray rice or something even worse. Based on the way it's described I'm inclined to believe it's more on the softer side especially given the fact that she apparently didn't report it to the police and apparently felt it was enough of a non-issue to just continue going on with her day to day.

I guess what I'm feeling is if you're going to put that shit into the public light on someone she knows is in the public eye you better damn well be crystal clear what it is that happened because doing what she did people are going to assume it's the worst imaginable thing and that's a label he'll never live down. If he actually did something terrible then he certainly deserves it but if you're going to air shit in public be clear what he did.

beckdawg said:

https://lifewithmelis310373032.wordpress.com/

This is a touchy subject so I'll try to be gentle with this... short version here is I am inclined to believe her but 2 things bother me about this. 1) she throws all the blame on him. I've seen enough marriages break up to know that it's rarely just one person. The second thing about this is she's not really clear about what this alleged physical abuse entailed and after mentioning it the one time she starts talking about emotional abuse. I don't mean to make light of emotional abuse but to me that's an entirely different level than talking about physically abusing someone because emotional abuse goes hand and hand with relationships breaking up. The stuff she describes could be basically any relationship break up ever. That doesn't make Russell a criminal just makes him a bad husband/person.

What would make him a criminal is the physical abuse. But there's a wide range of things "physically mistreated" can mean. I mean that could mean anything from pushing her onto a bed or something to punching her a la ray rice or something even worse. Based on the way it's described I'm inclined to believe it's more on the softer side especially given the fact that she apparently didn't report it to the police and apparently felt it was enough of a non-issue to just continue going on with her day to day.

I guess what I'm feeling is if you're going to put that shit into the public light on someone she knows is in the public eye you better damn well be crystal clear what it is that happened because doing what she did people are going to assume it's the worst imaginable thing and that's a label he'll never live down. If he actually did something terrible then he certainly deserves it but if you're going to air shit in public be clear what he did.

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So you're not victim shaming... you're just victim shaming?

People in love often forgive. It's why folks stay in abusive relationships.

I was awake in the middle of the night, went to Twitter, and saw this. I wrote a post here to start a thread, but decided to not post it, though I knew we’d have a thread and I would join in.

I don’t condone abuse, and that won’t change simply due to the uniform worn. But I did have a similar thought: Reactions are nearly 100% “mlb should suspend him/cubs should dump him”, yet it did seem he was just an asshole.

Either way, it is messy and ugly and makes him look like a terrible person. I just hesitate to penalize if not physical, and I by no means say that to indicate I am OK with the emotional abuse.

I would not feel sorry for him if he were punished by MLB - or even jettisoned by the Cubs - if there are legit reasons to do so.

I do have concerns that so many people immediately convict the accused lately, but the opposite has been true forever. Hopefully we reach fair, reasoned middle ground where we can convict the guilty with due process.

I won’t allow a player’s uniform to change that stance.

brett05 said:

People in love often forgive. It's why folks stay in abusive relationships.

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Abused people are made to feel guilty themselves and worthless and that they somehow deserve what they are getting. That can be every bit as bad as the physical.

We all have to know how badly this has effected Addison. Look at the last two years after the allegations. I think we also all figured she did not cooperate with MLB last June because something was going to come out when it would hurt him more.

He deserves to be punished. If this is all he said she said, it is going to make it even worse, especially if her new allegations are different than what Addison claimed happened when the cubs did their internal investigation last time. If this is all new information that does not match up to what they already know, it is going to get ugly.... again. It was a few months ago that Addison was posting with his new girlfriend, lets see how much she ends up saying.

TL1961 said:

Abused people are made to feel guilty themselves and worthless and that they somehow deserve what they are getting. That can be every bit as bad as the physical.

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though so we are clear, my abuse was not specific

Grimson said:

So you're not victim shaming... you're just victim shaming?

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I'm not sure how you get victim shaming out of that. I literally started by saying I'm inclined to believe her. My issue is why is she airing this on a blog? If he physically assaulted her she should go to the police and have it properly investigated/charged. It's really that simple. If you can talk about it on a blog then you can talk to the police. The fact she apparently hasn't done that leaves questions. Did she go to the police and there wasn't enough evidence to charge him? Did it happen but she's embellishing the severity of what happened? Did it happen at all(he previously said it didn't)?

The issue here is that justice isn't shaming him on a blog. Justice is going to the authorities. I don't really care about relationship breakups of people I don't know. However, I do care if someone committed a crime. Her airing this out on the internet doesn't answer anything.

beckdawg said:

I'm not sure how you get victim shaming out of that. I literally started by saying I'm inclined to believe her. My issue is why is she airing this on a blog? If he physically assaulted her she should go to the police and have it properly investigated/charged. It's really that simple. If you can talk about it on a blog then you can talk to the police. The fact she apparently hasn't done that leaves questions. Did she go to the police and there wasn't enough evidence to charge him? Did it happen but she's embellishing the severity of what happened? Did it happen at all(he previously said it didn't)?

The issue here is that justice isn't shaming him on a blog. Justice is going to the authorities. I don't really care about relationship breakups of people I don't know. However, I do care if someone committed a crime. Her airing this out on the internet doesn't answer anything.

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You need to look at it from the victims standpoint not the uniform the abuser wears. This woman is like a 4'9 95 pound gymnast who has two children with this man. Usually that is the type of victim the police always side with, but what does she do, put him in prison and lose all the custody money he needs to pay for his kids? I think she was advised that he was going to get away with it and for that reason she did not go to the police or cooperate with the MLB investigation. She is convinced he will get away with it, so doing this is her only vision of justice. He is still making league minimum so she must know that any loss of money from any of his future contracts effects his children he has with her. Yes, now his next one is pregnant, maybe she feels he has gotten away with this so its time to remind the public that he is a pig.

There are always two sides to these things. Something that has been really bothering me lately is that an accusation seems to be just as good as a conviction when it comes to women insisting that men have treated them badly. This fees a lot like more of the same. In nearly every walk of life, it seems that simple, often unproven, accusations are immediately being treated as absolute truth, and that we are disrespecting and shaming the purported victim if we don't immediately seek the most dire punishment of the accused.

Just by statistics, not all of these accusations can be completely truthful. And I know from experience that some people become convinced they have been mistreated in some way when the mistreatment is entirely in their own heads.

I am not passing judgment either way. It is not up to you, me or anyone except a judge and jury to decide who is telling the truth in this matter, and the extent to which Russell ought to be punished for what people who are trained to pass judgments on such matters decide he actually did. But until there is either some kind of legal determination, or some kind of overt confession on Russell's part, I'm of the opinion that it's none of our damned business, and that neither impacted party has a right to try and work outside of the justice system to try and pass along only one side of a story that seems designed to apply maximum negative impact to the other party.

Lately, it seems that a very few women are finding they can achieve an empowerment they have always sought by levying false, or exaggerated, accusations against famous people. While a majority of accusations are likely to be valid out there in the real world, when fame and large salaries come into play it seems that there is a temptation level to take advantage of that situation. I am *not* saying Russell's wife is making all this up for reasons of empowerment. I *am* saying that an accusation is not a proven fact, and that people make false accusations all the time. We've only heard her side of the story, and her story is, as of now, just that -- a story. No one seems to have settled out on the truthfulness of the details that seem to make Russell out as abusive.

It could all be true, and Russell may deserve to be kicked out of baseball, for all I know. But I don't know. And neither do you.

CubsFaninMN said:

It could all be true, and Russell may deserve to be kicked out of baseball, for all I know. But I don't know. And neither do you.

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Nobody really knows, I just feel like Baseball might be looking for a poster boy with all the NFL suspensions happening that needs to make sure the women fans know they do not take this lightly. Maybe now Melisa is ready to cooperate, but like I said, anything they do to him takes from his childrens mouths so the public shaming should still keep them getting support.

No way he's on this team after this season. So much for "Future MVP", am I right Lenny?

Id be surprise if we see Russell in a cubs uniform ever again

https://twitter.com/thekapman/status/1043178543029673984?s=19

Thank god we won't have to see that dirtbag on the field for the Classic.

CubsFaninMN said:

There are always two sides to these things. Something that has been really bothering me lately is that an accusation seems to be just as good as a conviction when it comes to women insisting that men have treated them badly.

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You should see all my twitter notifications for replying to a tweet from brett of BN fame. Essentially said the same thing, 2 sides to a story, investigate the abuse then draw conclusions. You'd think that was some kind of controversial statement. One person replied "BELIEVE.WOMEN"..... and I'm sitting here like.... isn't that the reason you have the investigation? Ya know because you believe her claims are credible?

I think people don't want actual justice anymore. They want lynch mobs. I suppose I sort of understand that there's a lot of stuff that isn't justice that happens in courts. I entirely believe that he may have verbally abused her. Like I said people saying terrible things in failing relationships is fairly common and often why they are failing to begin with. My issue is what is she getting out of accusing him of physical assault on the internet? It's not justice. Justice would be him being charged/convicted of a crime. What happens when you make that sort of claim is your reputation is ruined and you may get fired. That's revenge.

Maybe I'm unsympathetic here but have the courage to go to the cops when someone committed a crime against you. What bothers me about this isn't the claim she's making. The thing that bothers me is if we believe her then he's a criminal who wont be prosecuted. And conversely, if she's lying then an innocent person is defamed. If she doesn't have these claims investigated then the story is going to just die in the ether sooner or later with no resolution other than he/she said.

chibears55 said:

Id be surprise if we see Russell in a cubs uniform ever again

https://twitter.com/thekapman/status/1043178543029673984?s=19

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Humoring that the allegations are true, maybe I'm just cynical but I don't think I agree. Chapman is still playing baseball. Jose Reyes is still playing baseball.... well I think. I know he did after his DA stint. So, I honestly can't believe this keeps him out of baseball. At that point it then becomes whether or not it's with the cubs. Keep in mind they knowingly brought in Chapman with his issues. If the cubs release him for this, I honestly think it would be a union issue. It's one thing if you're arrested or convicted of a crime. But she nether went to the cops nor cooperated with MLB. Do we really want the league/teams suspending players based on unsubstantiated claims?

My view on this is punishment should be criminal. If they prosecute him criminally, then you suspend/release him. But I have a real problem with people losing their jobs because of rumors.

beckdawg said:

Humoring that the allegations are true, maybe I'm just cynical but I don't think I agree. Chapman is still playing baseball. Jose Reyes is still playing baseball.... well I think. I know he did after his DA stint. So, I honestly can't believe this keeps him out of baseball. At that point it then becomes whether or not it's with the cubs. Keep in mind they knowingly brought in Chapman with his issues. If the cubs release him for this, I honestly think it would be a union issue. It's one thing if you're arrested or convicted of a crime. But she nether went to the cops nor cooperated with MLB. Do we really want the league/teams suspending players based on unsubstantiated claims?

My view on this is punishment should be criminal. If they prosecute him criminally, then you suspend/release him. But I have a real problem with people losing their jobs because of rumors.

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I just think they were probably thinking of trading him to begin with this offseason and this stuff most likely makes it an easier decision to move on from him..

Yep, he toast. Good riddance

He gone....
Just saw this

chibears55 said:

I just think they were probably thinking of trading him to begin with this offseason and this stuff most likely makes it an easier decision to move on from him..

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Trade him for what? A bag of peanuts. They will have to keep him and hope his value improves with on the field play. The alternative is being forced to go after Machado.