Just Married, Now What? How to Set Healthy Expectations for Your First Year of Marriage | S7 E30

Steve Alessi:
It's like, what are we doing? There is a gripping fear that happens because you know that decision that you've made is final.

Steve Alessi:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Family Business with the Alessis. I'm Steve Alessi, and I'm in the podcast booth today with Mary Alessi. And we are talking family because family is everybody's business. Now listen, if you want to know more and more, get some updates about our, podcast, what's coming up, what we're doing, go ahead and text family to (302) 524-0800. Again, (302) 524-0800. And we're so thankful for each and every one of you who are becoming subscribers. We've got over 8,000 Nope. Excuse me.

Steve Alessi:
4,000.

Mary Alessi:
Wishful thinking. We will have over 8,000

Steve Alessi:
subscribers. We will have got our subscribers on YouTube. So please subscribe and pass the podcast on to people that you think will enjoy the content that we share. Yeah. Today, Mary, we're gonna have a good old time.

Mary Alessi:
This is a juicy one.

Steve Alessi:
This is a strong one. Listen, this is so funny. I just got a text from a buddy. Alright? I got a counseling group on Monday nights, and we get together.

Mary Alessi:
And it's not a counseling group.

Steve Alessi:
It's not counseling.

Mary Alessi:
It's That's code for, the guys just get together and have a beer.

Steve Alessi:
Hang out. We we yes.

Mary Alessi:
You count you counsel one another.

Steve Alessi:
You counsel one another and and with cigars and a little bean on it.

Mary Alessi:
So Now they know.

Steve Alessi:
I know.

Mary Alessi:
Everybody's been a

Steve Alessi:
part of it. But anyhow, here's what this is such a guy thing. He says counseling was deep last night. A lot of good, meaningful conversations about fatherhood, honor, and limits. Wow. We also discussed farts. No. But that was later.

Steve Alessi:
Gosh. Oh my gosh. This is why I love my life. You know, guys are so simple. We are. It doesn't take much. We don't have to go deep, which

Mary Alessi:
is important. I just want young women to know that, young wives to know. Yeah. They're just so simple.

Steve Alessi:
Well, we're talking business. Excuse me.

Mary Alessi:
Family business.

Steve Alessi:
And it's, our business because we work with our family on a regular basis. Yeah. But this is like us sitting on our patio while the weather's nice, and us just talking. Yeah. And that's what our podcast booth has become. So today we wanna talk about how couples really navigate those that first and couple of years of marriage where it's just so tough. Yeah. And a lot of them, they can't make it.

Steve Alessi:
They Yeah. They don't make it. You see them so happy. Not really.

Mary Alessi:
We're seeing it. Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
We see them so happy running up to the marriage. And of course, wedding day, their Instagram is filled with all the beautiful pictures of behind the scenes and all of those things. I mean, it started at when she said yes

Mary Alessi:
To the dress.

Steve Alessi:
And then she said yes to the dress. Yeah. And then they got married, and then you see them. It's tough.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. And, you know, one of the main things of marriage, if if people were to ask you or me, what is the one thing that you need to know going in, the one thing of marriage, I my answer would be, I think yours would be too, is set your expectations. Make sure you have the right expectations. Because one of the things that ruins relationships so quickly is the expectations aren't met, but maybe the expectations were fantastical.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
And this generation today, I know recently, our daughters have told us about two people that they've recently met, both in different environments, 27 year olds, already divorced after their first year.

Steve Alessi:
Right.

Mary Alessi:
One year, and they're already divorced. They didn't even make it into their second year. Mhmm. Yeah. One of our other girls, well, she was our daughters was telling me recently that there was a joke on a podcast. They were talking about a young man that was gonna get married, and he's 24 turning 25. And they all joked, well, that's just too young. He's crazy to get married already.

Mary Alessi:
Well, that's okay. He'll learn and be ready for his second wife. And I think that there is this, this mission statement out there for so many young people that if this doesn't work, it's okay. And the truth is it's not okay. No. It really brings a lot of pain and can set you up to feel like you're a failure

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
For a long, long time. So talking about the not just marriage of that first year, but backing up and the engagement period Mhmm. And how important and vital that is Yeah. To have the right mindset.

Steve Alessi:
You say manage expectations. When when you're getting married, I always described it as, like, whenever we would drive up through the mountains, we would see a stream of water coming down. Yeah. And it was so beautiful because there was some snow at the higher altitudes of the mountains that you knew was melting and it was providing this beautiful stream. But if you followed where that stream was coming from, you could also see that that stream was probably brought together by another stream of water. So this is how I described what marriage is in general, but especially those first years. You got one stream coming one way down the side of a mountain all on its own with its own power, Then you have another stream coming down the mountain and somehow or other their paths connect. And when they do, at that connection point, it's not that beautiful stream that you see later on down the side of the mountain.

Steve Alessi:
It's violent. And there's water coming together and it's splashing and it's not staying together, but it's expanding. It's surging.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Surging. And it's just True. There's energy in it. And it's so violent. And that's what two lives are like. So now you have these expectations. That's true. She has an expectation of marriage being one way.

Steve Alessi:
He has an expectation of it. And you can go down the list of what it's gonna be like with their home, what it's gonna be like them, with family. But what it's gonna be like if they don't have family. Who's gonna want a pet? Who's gonna get a dog? Who's gonna who's gonna buy the groceries? Who's gonna put away the groceries?

Mary Alessi:
Who's gonna be the the one that pays the bills?

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Who's gonna make sure the front yard is kept and the the cars are clean? There's so many expectations that then you come to marriage and it's like, wow, we didn't think about all these things. We saw our parents do them, but it just looked like they got along and they figured it out.

Mary Alessi:
Well, a lot of couples did not see their parents do it because the divorce rate is so high.

Steve Alessi:
Maybe friction is because people have unrealistic expectations when it comes to marriage. And maybe they should hit pump the brakes a little bit and say, wait, these expectations can be managed.

Mary Alessi:
When when we got married, did do you think you had unrealistic expectations?

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. I wanted you to be like my mom, but I didn't want you to be my mom. It's true. It's true. You know, I wanted you to, we go back to this quite a bit, but it was a big deal for me. I wanted you to clean the house a certain way. Right. I wanted the kitchen sink to be kept a certain way because that's how I was influenced.

Steve Alessi:
And, you know, that was the pressure to me. It was important, but that's what my mom did. Yeah. I wanted not that you didn't do those things, you just didn't do them like my mom. Right. You had your own expectations of how Well certain things around the house would be cleaned and kitchen would be kept.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. And and I think whether you even have all realistic expectations, that first year is hard regardless. It's going to be hard. You just gave the best picture. It's two big streams trying to come together and bring peace and calm. And you're not going to have it in the beginning. You're going to have struggle and you're going to have a lot of fear. And I know for me, my unrealistic expectations was because I was young and I had not paid any bills.

Mary Alessi:
I mean, I would bounce checks. We talk about this on our podcast, other times we talk about marriage. I was so childlike, and you thought you were marrying somebody that was a little bit more mature. You didn't realize how immature I was. I didn't realize how immature I was. And I remember getting the maddest it's funny the memories you have over the fact that you got mad at me because I said I wanted to go get ice cream and we didn't have money for ice cream. Well, the truth was we did not have money for ice cream. We really didn't.

Mary Alessi:
And we were pinching pennies. We were on a budget. But I did not understand the ways of marriage yet to really see that I needed to be team us and not team me. What I want matters, and it should trump what works for us.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
And I had to learn that. And that was really, really hard. But I think I also some of the unmet expectations was for me, I thought you would be, the same as you were when we were dating. And I did not realize that how much men change when they get married.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm. Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Men change.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
We do. They they they relax in one area, but then they get pressurized in another area. Because now they went from pursuing you to now in the marriage, they're responsible for you. At least in their minds, they feel like they are. A good man. I'm responsible. I've gotta provide. I've gotta, make sure we have what we need.

Mary Alessi:
And they can turn more to a pressured response and get mean. And not mean to be mean, but they're not they were not that way when we were dating.

Steve Alessi:
I think what happened with me is it was like, alright, now let's get to work.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Right? So it it became a matter of we the first job was getting married.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
And then after we got married, that job was complete. Now let's go to build a home. Yeah. To build a house, to to build a family. It was always the next thing to build, to work on, the next goal, all of that for me. Because as a man, they say we are very compartmentalized. Yeah. So we can walk into one room and we're in that room and we see everything, we're fully in the present in that room, but then we leave that room and then we go to another room.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
And then we leave that room literally in everything, our heart, our thoughts, our mind. We vacated it. Now we're in a new room and we're 100% present in that room. And it shows you just the way a man is. This goes back to some of the expectations. So Now that analogy helped me so much. Yeah. Because you go into a room, you see it, you go into the next room, you see it,

Mary Alessi:
you go

Steve Alessi:
into another room.

Mary Alessi:
And the room I saw before

Steve Alessi:
All the rooms

Mary Alessi:
with you. That's the room I'm in and why can't and

Steve Alessi:
But but you keep all the rooms together in your mind.

Mary Alessi:
Right. It's one big one big one.

Steve Alessi:
Whereas we are so compartmentalized as men. So yes, the first goal was to wine and dine you and romanticize you to get you, you know, to get married.

Mary Alessi:
Oh, and if I cried, you would be so sweet. Don't cry. Why are you mad at me? And you were in boyfriend mode.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. And what happened after we got married and you'd cry?

Mary Alessi:
Why are you crying? Why are you crying? Why are you crying? Don't be afraid. Stop crying. Don't you're being such a big baby. Why are you being such a baby? Well, we it

Steve Alessi:
was a new room.

Mary Alessi:
Exactly. Okay. So this is why this is was so helpful for me. Yeah. Because that was actually an illustration that we were we learned. I don't remember where we learned it, but they actually took men through a series of rooms, and they took women through a series of rooms. And when they would ask the man when he would leave one room, tell me what was in the other room. And they were like, I don't know.

Mary Alessi:
I'm only focused on the room I'm in. Whereas a woman could say, well, there was a yellow couch in Room 1, and there was a blue lamp in Couch 2, Room 2, and there was a green Afghan in Room 3. And the guys are like, what? There was? That helped me on an emotional level. It helped me set my expectations that you might have what I thought was mean to me yesterday, but you're not thinking about that today. Today's another day. I'm not worried. We fixed that.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
But my immaturity, the way that I thought and process was, no, I I don't only wanna just fix that. I wanna hound on that again today because I still remember what happened in the room yesterday. And that could that was very harmful. But what helped was understanding how your brain worked as a man, not just as Steve, but all men work with the same brain. They really leave the past behind them, and now today's a new day. They're in a new circumstance. So you're not bringing the fight we had yesterday into today.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
I might be. But if I'm fighting that, it's a losing battle because you don't care about the fight we had yesterday.

Steve Alessi:
No. You know, it's funny because, I see this in my son and my my son-in-law. I saw the way that Chris treated Rochelle and Wayne agreed greeted treated Stephanie. And, like on Sundays, we'd be at the house, and of course, they're dating. And they would want to relax and watch football because we were all exhausted from church, so we'd come over. And Muina was like, I'm not a nap guy staff. We gotta go. We gotta go.

Mary Alessi:
And Adventure Chris?

Steve Alessi:
Yeah, Adventure Chris. And then he gets into ministry with us full time working, and he's like, Man, I'm exhausted. Let's go. They want to take a nap. And now they're married. And and wow, this Adventure Chris guy, he's changed, and now he's not too much into the adventure. And but I remember them sitting on the couch next to one another, and I'd be like, Okay, don't take a nap laying on his shoulder, Seth. I know.

Steve Alessi:
Don't do that, you know. Be be careful. Keep the boundaries. And, because they would wanna nap up next to each other. Yeah. And now it's like they come together, and one's on one couch, one's on another couch, and they're not even close to one another. And I see it happening with our our latest that, is gonna be getting married. They're all lovey dovey and hugging and rubbing each other's shoulders.

Steve Alessi:
And I wanna say, Hey, hey, be careful. Don't do that in front of me. I don't want you touching her. And I'm like, It's temporary. It'll be okay. See, no problem. No. I love that.

Steve Alessi:
Those are expectations that need to be managed. You talked about finances, Mary. Those are real struggles for us. Oh, man. And you go back to that for a minute because you, you didn't really have money, right? No. And the little bit of money you had, you could go spend your money on ice cream because when you were with your mom and dad, they would be paying for everything else. I lived at home. The money that you had was for you.

Steve Alessi:
I was older and I was like, I'm managing my money and it wasn't a lot of money. And then now the bit that you get and you were working hard for your money and every bit of it was called for. So we didn't have any extra. So with couples, that in itself, it goes from should be my having my money to having our money. Right. And the expectation there has to be just adapted to because we don't that first year marriage and such, you don't see it that way. It's my money. I'm making it.

Steve Alessi:
I've been making it. I should be able to spend it like I want. I shouldn't be thinking, Oh, if I spend this now, how's that going to hurt me and my wife later? Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
No. It's very, very true. It's it's those conversations that you should have when you're engaged or dating in that process that you don't because you're so in love and you're so fantastical about the whole experience. You're just so thrilled that you found your person and you're actually gonna get married. And even that sets the couple on a completely different track of expectations.

Steve Alessi:
So true.

Mary Alessi:
Even in the engagement period, it's tough on young men.

Steve Alessi:
How about this? How about balancing my singleness now with my our togetherness? When you're newly married, now there is that, well, I'm not gonna be home, you know, at 05:00, honey. I I I'm gonna go work out.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. They The independent

Steve Alessi:
couple. Yeah. The guy the guy who's saying, man, now I actually have to tell my wife what I'm I gotta tell somebody what I'm doing. Yeah. Because for so long, I can just do it. Yeah. That that independence that we have, that's that's a big deal because the when you do get married, you're you're no longer independent like that.

Mary Alessi:
No. And I I would definitely say that if anybody's listening that's gonna get married, they're engaged, you're processing that, or you have a daughter or a son, go to premarital counseling. Get premarital in because a lot of these things will be talked about in that premarital.

Steve Alessi:
Therapy, by the way. Premarital therapy.

Mary Alessi:
Therapy. Ask all the right questions. Ask your parents, what questions should I be asking?

Steve Alessi:
Tell them our story. Remember? Which one? We went to premarital. We did go to premarital. Because we were getting in the ministry, we knew that there were going to be some other pressure put on us that the average couple wouldn't have. Yeah. Because getting married as pastors meant you're living your life out before people.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. You're in a glass house.

Steve Alessi:
You really are. So you gotta be prepared for that. And you gotta ask yourself, is that something that I want? Right. And part of the premarital counseling for us was him looking at both of us and saying, is this really what you guys want?

Mary Alessi:
No, he did. He's

Steve Alessi:
very true. You're stepping into something that's gonna be filled with minefields, and you're gonna be stepping on a few of them. Yeah. So we did. We went to, an old professor of mine at Southeastern. So I graduated, get married to you three years after graduation. So prior to that, I went back to the we went back to doctor Richardson, and we drove up to Lakeland.

Mary Alessi:
On Saturdays, I think.

Steve Alessi:
We did. And, we had that premarital counseling for, I don't know, three to five weeks or something like that, that we were able to get from him because he was a minister, he was a pastor, who was also a professor, and he lived a great life with his wife. And he was able to help us through some of the things that we did not know about that we're gonna we were gonna have to deal with.

Mary Alessi:
Well, I

Steve Alessi:
asked the question. Saw the beautiful, rainbow.

Mary Alessi:
Oh, that's right. Remember that? And we felt it was a promise from the Lord. The Lord. We're gonna do it. It's gonna work. But I I remember not really having the capacity to understand what my yes meant. Do you understand that yes? Do you wanna And you were 18? Yeah. I was 19.

Mary Alessi:
Come on. 19? I was 19.

Steve Alessi:
That's young.

Mary Alessi:
It was nineteen's young, eighteen's young, but everybody was getting married young thirty five, thirty six years ago. And we grew up together, which I think was helpful. But I also, you know, getting married a little older isn't wrong either. I think it's wonderful as long as you're spending those years really be really developing I just made up a word reloping really developing the right expectations about marriage. What can happen, though, for people that get married a little bit later, your expectations are actually worse than when you get married young. We didn't

Steve Alessi:
grow up together. We didn't grow up together. We did.

Mary Alessi:
Meaning in our marriage, we were both so young when we got married.

Steve Alessi:
When you and I Oh, okay. That was

Mary Alessi:
So we kind of grew up

Steve Alessi:
Well, I was 26 turning 27. I turned 27 after we got married.

Mary Alessi:
But you had some areas of immature too. You were 19.

Steve Alessi:
Heck no. Are you kidding me? I knew exactly what I wanted out of life. Life. He was immature. No. But the crazy thing was when we first met, okay? Yeah. It was you going into high school, and I just graduated from college. Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
That's true.

Steve Alessi:
And our parents, my mom wanted me to take you and Martha on a, horse buggy tour. And where were we?

Mary Alessi:
We were in San Antonio.

Steve Alessi:
San Antonio. At a And I'm like, I am not gonna go spend time with teenagers, mom. The jail bait. That's they're so young. Only then three to four years later, you come back into our lives and I'm like, Woah. Yeah, we fell hard for

Mary Alessi:
one another. It was quick. It was a quick thing. And we were so in love with each other. We were fortunate to have good people around us that like, I remember my mom sitting me down and asking me hard questions. Your mom sat you down and asked you hard questions and did prepare us to the best of their ability. We did drive to get premarital counseling from a minister that understood the questions that we needed to be faced with. And, yes, in the moment, we were like, yes, yes, yes.

Mary Alessi:
But having those questions asked in that first year of marriage, it wasn't easy. Hey, I remember coming back from my from our honeymoon, being so excited to be married, but putting my hand on the door, that little condo that we had decorated, we were so excited going, I wanna go home. Where's my mom? And I never had the guts to admit it until I found out later how many young wives felt the same way and some young husbands. It's like, what are we doing? There is a gripping fear that happens because you know that decision that you've made is final.

Steve Alessi:
Especially if you're family people.

Mary Alessi:
Exactly.

Steve Alessi:
You've been raised in a real tight family.

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
You love being able to share your experiences with your family. So we just couldn't wait to get back in town

Mary Alessi:
To tell our family.

Steve Alessi:
To tell our family about it. Remember they

Mary Alessi:
left us at the airport for over an hour away.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty wild. They couldn't wait for us to get home. Wouldn't even show up to pick us up.

Mary Alessi:
Nobody picked nobody showed ridiculous. An hour at Miami.

Steve Alessi:
And we got the video to to prove it.

Mary Alessi:
Sitting on our luggage for an hour, nobody's coming.

Steve Alessi:
But we had such a great time with that video. We got to pull that video up, man. That was really

Mary Alessi:
a cool experience. Yeah, that was funny.

Steve Alessi:
But babe, that's where I think for us, okay, just the honeymoon itself. Yeah. We believed that we kept sex for after marriage. So that was important to us. So here you want to talk about expectations? What about sexual expectations? One thing that preacher didn't talk to us about He

Mary Alessi:
didn't even bring that up.

Steve Alessi:
He didn't bring up what we would have to contend with there. And here, this in itself is so hard because you were or you were around some women that you were working with because at the time you had a job, at a switchboard in Downtown Miami. At a a law firm. And they were telling you, why are you getting married, man? Why don't you live together first?

Mary Alessi:
Yeah, you should live together first. How do you marry somebody you've never had sex with? How do you know your sex life's going to be good? I'm like, What? What are you doing? I just thought they were so worldly. Yeah. Yes. But that was their mentality.

Steve Alessi:
That was that that's but even with that mentality doesn't mean that the expectations sexually are going to be fulfilled within those first couple years of marriage.

Mary Alessi:
No. You have to learn.

Steve Alessi:
You gotta learn the rhythm. You gotta learn each other's desires. You gotta be able to communicate about those kind of things so that that it becomes more than just an act, just an experience, a pleasurable one for one partner. Because my gosh, you you want to hit that area right there. Some young men think, okay, the only way that I'm gonna really spice this thing up is to introduce porn into the Sure. Into the picture here, into the marriage, and only to find that that's not rewarding, that's not fulfilling. No. And that only comes with time.

Steve Alessi:
And listen, even sexual fulfillment, that's only one part of your existence as a couple.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
And it may last. Yeah, they all joke about oh, we're going to make love all night long, and then all of a sudden you're like oh my God, I sent you I sent you something on social media the other day with this lady doing planks, Yeah. And she's sitting there saying, Gentlemen, I just want to apologize. One minute. One minute is a long time. Realizing that she's actually really hurt her. Yeah. That's about

Mary Alessi:
fifteen minutes in your day.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. So much for all night long.

Mary Alessi:
All night, all night long. Lionel Richie lied.

Steve Alessi:
So all of those things, you have to manage the expectations, even your sexuality there in the bedroom. Not be turned off by it or not feel ashamed, about not performing all the time like you think it's gotta be a great performance. Those are just so important to be able to manage those expectations. Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
The state is true.

Steve Alessi:
Talk about conflict resolution. Oh. Man, fighting? You're gonna fight. It's gonna be aggressive. It might get a little violent throwing things across the room. And even that, you know, you learn after you have to pay for something that you broke. Yep. After you have to repair the wall that you put your fist through.

Steve Alessi:
After a while, you learn, you

Mary Alessi:
know what It's not worth it.

Steve Alessi:
That's not worth it. No.

Mary Alessi:
You know what else is not worth it? Telling your mother or your father about the fight you had with your spouse. Oh, boy. Explain that one. You we and we go into that on the Leave and Cleave episode, and we just did a response to that because we had to talk about it. If you I remember our mothers both telling us early on when we first got married, once you say I do, don't you tell me about a fight you had with each other.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
I don't wanna hear it. And our moms were old school, and I think we're both a little we we've adopted that. I don't wanna hear it. Yeah. You work out your problems. You will not come and talk to us about your spouse and the fights you had. We can't help you because we we can't be, unbiased.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Parents will take sides whether they want to or not. And here's what happens. They go on, they figure it out. They work it out, go on down the lines. It's not a problem. And we as parents are left with the drama And the concern was this is it something I should lean in and pay attention to? How about no?

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
How about your daughter when she told you that she's just being a big baby, she's being immature?

Steve Alessi:
Needed some support because maybe she's feeling a little guilty?

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. Or feeling angry at her spouse.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
So she needed some support. Yeah. And don't do it. You know, that's one thing that our kids know. We are going to side with our in law kids.

Steve Alessi:
We have to.

Mary Alessi:
We're siding with them. Here's why. I know Well,

Steve Alessi:
maybe we've been like that from kindergarten with kids.

Mary Alessi:
We don't

Steve Alessi:
It's the teachers that we're going to support. No. The coach

Mary Alessi:
we're going to support. Absolutely. Our kids have to prove their innocence. You are guilty until proven innocent.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Because when your child is always innocent, it sets them up for un really unrealistic expectations. It goes back to that. You don't have a support system with dad and I. Listen. If you're if it's abuse and it's something we need to pay attention to, believe you me. Mhmm. We're paying attention.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
And we're not just paying attention when you come and tell us you've had a fight.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
We're leaning in and we're watching, and we're sensitive to that. But do not come and tell us you've had an argument because it's very hard for a parent to let that go and not harbor something against their in law

Steve Alessi:
Right.

Mary Alessi:
Child. And you don't want to. That's not what you desire to do, but it's natural for you to want to protect your own. Mhmm. And it goes both ways. Yeah. Our son-in-law understands, don't go and tell your mom and dad about any issue that you've had with your daughter or with your wife. Here's the problem.

Mary Alessi:
You will always regret it.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
It will follow you. It could follow you your whole marriage that one time. And so you go on and you're not mad at your spouse anymore. You're you are not only not mad at them, you are more in love now than ever after that fight.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
But your parent doesn't get the update.

Steve Alessi:
No. And and poor guys in our family, the in laws in our family, they can't get mad at their in laws, and they can't say anything because now they're talking about their pastors.

Mary Alessi:
I know. Poor kids.

Steve Alessi:
How do they manage that? That's really hard. Oh my gosh. She

Mary Alessi:
made it past those

Steve Alessi:
not perfect.

Mary Alessi:
No. And that's why we double down and our kids know we are the not the ones.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
We are not the ones. Do not bring that to us. Now that does not mean that we won't help them through a tough situation. But petty arguments, do not go and tell your parent. Don't jump on the phone with your mom and tell her how mad you are at your husband.

Steve Alessi:
I had a conversation with a couple the other day and it kind of broke my heart because this is another challenge that new couples face and that is the life and career changes. Yeah. Life changes, career changes that just happen. Yeah. So this couple, they've been married, and, life was good for them, and they're so focused on their career. And then they had a baby, and that baby has just rocked this woman's world who she's a career woman. She's she's been, you know, schooled and everything for her career, and now she has this baby. And this baby has so changed her world that the focus is not so much now on the career as near as much as it is on her home.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. But yet she is in a career environment that has her moving pretty much every five years.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. That's tough.

Steve Alessi:
And so now, after establishing a wonderful rhythm around young couples that are at the same season of life that they are, they now have to get up and move again and start all over again all because of her career.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
That can put some real stress Yeah. It can. On couples in that new season of their life. Any kind of immediate life change, it could be the death of a loved one that hits a new couple, that that that's tough for them. Career changes, here they thought they had the perfect life and now all of a sudden they're being asked to move. That's a lot of stress and pressure that's put on young couples today that they have to navigate through in order to keep their marriage fresh.

Mary Alessi:
Well, I think the key word you just said there is pressure.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
Pressure on young couples is hidden, and it's like stealth.

Steve Alessi:
You

Mary Alessi:
know, you don't you don't always know where it's coming from, but the pressure of the atmosphere and the environment and the culture you're raising your kids in, a root supply, is so important. Digging your roots, staying planted somewhere where you can surround yourself with healthy couples, healthy families. We say it too, people that are married ten years longer than you, and you like the results of their choices. You like their kids.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
You like how they're raising their kids. You like how they're growing and that they're successful and they're they're balanced. They don't see that, you know, mom's at home and she's frustrated and dad's always gone. And, you you know, don't get around dysfunctional couples. Yeah. Get around couples that are doing it right, that have a healthy balance in their marriage and in their children, and just model that.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
Just do what they do because the pressures on couples right now, Oh my gosh. My heart goes out to so many young couples.

Steve Alessi:
Oh, man. Let me

Mary Alessi:
talk about

Steve Alessi:
pressure on a couple. What about this? What about when you're married and now you're living with someone who likes to get up super early.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
But you would rather lay around in bed and sleep in.

Mary Alessi:
Oh, that's a tough one in the beginning.

Steve Alessi:
Talk about routines, right? Having to adapt and adjust to each other's routines?

Mary Alessi:
Have you seen all

Steve Alessi:
That's tough, Mary.

Mary Alessi:
And have you seen the new, research? I don't know if it's true or not. I like it because it's about me that women need more sleep than men. And even to be sexually active, women need more sleep.

Steve Alessi:
Sleep as long as you want, sweetheart.

Mary Alessi:
See? See, see, see? But at the time when we got married because of their hormones. And I can tell you when we first got married, I wanted to sleep more and obviously I was younger. I could not understand why that would bother you when I was really tired.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
But there was a balance between, okay, I've slept enough. Let's get to work. Gotta clean the house. Yes. And understanding that maybe I do need a little bit more sleep than you do

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
At the time to help. Because here that's your that was your perspective. If it helped in the bedroom, you need to sleep two more hours, knock yourself out. Go sleep. But it was a bone of contention.

Steve Alessi:
Oh, she's lazy. What's the matter with her? She's not getting up and cleaning the house?

Mary Alessi:
If I'm up, why aren't

Steve Alessi:
you up? Yep. And that's nuts because a man, his testosterone is blowing up first thing in the morning.

Mary Alessi:
It's true.

Steve Alessi:
So most men want to get out of the bed and get busy doing something. Yeah. So for a man it, you know, it goes back to these adjustments that just need to be aware of the expectations that you need to be making for one another because a man is going to be different than a woman. Then again, there's some women that love to get up super early and get out the door and they're very active, whereas the man wants to chill a little bit and he just wants to relax. He's got more maybe on his plate that's weighing him down, so he needs the extra time. Having to adjust to a routine is also some things that couples need to be aware of.

Mary Alessi:
And not nag one another over those things. Yeah. Because that is so damaging to the relationship. Why aren't you up? See, I'm up. Just because a woman says it's sweet does not make it, not nagging. Mhmm. You can say it's sweet, it's still nagging.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Or vice versa. I think that in that the beginning stages of your marriage, you can set some communication things in concrete, just the way you talk to one another. That's very hard to change. It's so important to implement in the the very beginning stages, get knowledge, get awareness, get around couples that are easy on each other, that work out their differences, they've been married a little bit longer.

Steve Alessi:
You're you're you've hammered on that. That's a powerful one. Yeah. Get around other couples. What you're actually saying is build a support system. Yes. If you if you're going to be able to survive in these first few years of your marriage Yes. You need support from the outside.

Mary Alessi:
And we had it.

Steve Alessi:
We had it, and a lot of that came through our church community. It did. And to this day, we see the success of our own kids Right. Having that support system through the local church

Mary Alessi:
that we

Steve Alessi:
have actually we run as a family. And that's so very important if you're gonna make it through. And I guess overall, what we could say is this, for young couples, for them to survive, they're gonna have to manage themselves their expectations. I have to manage my expectations of what I think you should be doing with your life. Yes. And not form an argument against you if you're not doing it my way. So good. Let me manage that expectation.

Steve Alessi:
Second of all, now we have to be able to communicate with one another. Whereas I have to manage my expectations of you, I now need you in communication. Let me talk, let me share, let me explain, let me verbalize why I'm doing things a certain way. And if we get upset, we can't shut down and not communicate, open dialogue and communication is a must. Why I spend money this way or why I want to spend money this way. Here's why I'm doing it. And you can then explain to me why I shouldn't be doing it because I may not know that there are certain bills that need to be paid. That's right.

Steve Alessi:
I may not know what our structure is for savings in the future and wanting to go on vacations in the future. I may get upset that we can't go off to another country like I see so many others doing on Instagram and social media. I want that but then you're going to show me, oh wait, you got an investment plan that we're working on so that we can have a bigger house in the future? Oh, I'd rather sacrifice now Yeah. To have a bigger house in the future rather than spend it just to go have fun over in Europe. Yeah. Explain. Talk to me. Now I need you.

Steve Alessi:
Whereas I gotta manage my expectations in my head. Now I need you when it comes to communicating. Let's talk. That's right. And then we need to make sure we're surrounding ourselves with the right kind of voices in a support system.

Mary Alessi:
And don't try to manipulate that. Just be around other couples.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
Don't set up a couple. Hey, will you go out with us and help us so, you know, you can help us through our problem? Don't do that. Nobody wants to be around you if you do that. Just be around other couples and watch their dynamic. Watch how they joke with one another. One of the things that helped me so much was being around Manny and Laura Paula. How many times have we said this? They've been married about ten years more than us. And watching how Manny would respond the exact same way to Laura that you would talk to me brought my defenses down because I'm like, that's not a Steve thing.

Mary Alessi:
That's an every man thing. Oh my gosh. Well, then I just better love the one I'm with because they're all the same. That helped me so tremendously and vice versa. When you'd see how Laura would just respond to Mandy the same way that I'd respond to you, it made us not take ourselves so seriously. It helped a lot.

Steve Alessi:
And I and I would say this, if you're gonna get married, you can't keep hanging around with your single friends. No, you can't. It's not helpful. If you're gonna talk about a support system, then get around a culture of marriage. People that are locked in to having and being focused on marriage. We've got our future son-in-law coming on the scene. He hangs out with some young men that are all they're all single pretty much right now, but he and our daughter know that the moment they get married, those married, those single friends are gonna change to married friends because they have to be reinforced. The whole culture of marriage, making it happen, fighting, getting through it, having kids, raising kids, all of that stuff is gonna have to be modeled before them and supported by others that are doing the same thing.

Steve Alessi:
So that's what we wanted to discuss today. This is

Mary Alessi:
a good one.

Steve Alessi:
How we can manage our expectations and start strong in a marriage and then stay strong through it all and only get stronger. That's right. Because marriage can get stronger and can get better. That's why you may be in a dump right now or a slump. Yeah. But don't let that determine. Don't make any decisions while you're there. Stay focused.

Steve Alessi:
Look for the better. It will get better. And stay in the fight for marriage. It'll be a tremendous blessing in your future. Alright. That's it. Thanks for joining us with the family business with the Alessis.

Chris Alessi:
You've just enjoyed another episode of the family business podcast with the Alessis, and we can't thank you enough for being a part of our podience today. Now that you've learned more about us, here's how you can join in in the family business. First, make sure you're following our podcast right now, and download this episode so you can hear it at any time. Second, think of someone you know that might need or enjoy this episode and share it with them. You'll be helping them and helping us to spread the word about the family business. Third, go to alessefamilybusiness.com and tap the ask the alessees button. This is really cool. You could use it to record a voicemail comment or question, and we can add your voice to our conversations.

Chris Alessi:
Finally, while you're on our page, tap the reviews tab and you'll see a link to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. We love reading your reviews and we might even share them on the show. Thanks again for joining us and we'll see you next time at the Family Business with the Alessis because family is everybody's business.