When Truth Hurts: How to Handle Family Conflicts with Healthy Communication | S7 E20

Mary Alessi:
I couldn't handle that in the beginning. And we've we both managed that, and we both have have kind of reached that sweet spot in our family because if we hadn't, we wouldn't be able to work together. Where we're not gonna overfocus on the way something's said if what is said is truthful.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the family business with the Alessis, where family is everybody's business. I'm Steve Alessi. And today, we are in the podcast booth with my precious wife, Mary Alessi, and we're sipping out of our family business with the Alessi coffee mugs.

Mary Alessi:
And the back of mine says the original Mhmm. Diapaccino. Diapaccino. That's why I like this one.

Steve Alessi:
Listen. This is a great way to start your year.

Mary Alessi:
It is.

Steve Alessi:
If you're gonna sit down, do a little meditation, little devotion, whatever it is with your cup of coffee, a little morning ritual, why don't you go ahead and use the family business with the Alessi mug? Yeah. Or at least commit to when you're listening to the episode to go ahead and put something in it like coffee.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. And you know what? Enjoy it. I have an idea. What did you do? If they will share Oh. This this particular podcast, this one, if you'll share it on your streaming platforms and let people know about it, I don't know how we're gonna do it. We'll have it figured out by the end of this podcast, but we wanna get you your own mug. Yes. So, we need to look

Steve Alessi:
at it. Rate of free.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. But somebody's gonna get it for free. Yeah. Let's do it. Share it on YouTube. Like it. Share it. How about that? Like it and share it.

Mary Alessi:
And what else, Alan? What else do they need to do? Tag somebody. If you do all three things, are we gonna give everybody that does that a free coffee?

Steve Alessi:
Let's do it.

Mary Alessi:
Nope. We're only gonna give out one. So we'll put your name in a raffle, and we'll draw your name, and you will get this lovely mug. You know, mugs aren't cheap anymore.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
They're not cheap anymore, even to have them made. Yeah. So, this is a beautiful one. Actually, the more you

Steve Alessi:
do it

Mary Alessi:
It's great to easy to hold.

Steve Alessi:
More maybe we can get others to Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Just do it and help us. Like it, tag it, share it, those three things. And we'll put your name in a wrap.

Steve Alessi:
That's right. And we're doing this because we know you're broke right about now. It's been Christmas, New Year's, all the money's gone. So you got no money to spend. So we're gonna go ahead and help you. Yes. Help yourself, which is what this episode could be about today. We're gonna be talking family since we do talk about the family being everybody's business.

Steve Alessi:
Here's something that happens that, I think is a great protection mechanism to keep your family united. You you can adopt a certain policy. In our family, we had to create a rule. Yeah. And the rule was whenever we would get around other people or other family members and maybe an argument ensued somewhere between one of our family members and somebody else that's outside of our family, we had to say, listen, whenever that happens, always defend your family member. So in this case, if Christopher was having an argument with somebody, and his sisters may agree with the somebody that he was having an agreement with. An argument with? An argument with. Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Sorry. An argument. Then we would have to say to his sisters over time, hey, don't don't side with the other person. Side with your brother publicly. Side with them. Now what if he was wrong, then we're gonna deal with it privately. Yeah. But whatever you do publicly, support your family member

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
Whenever there is a disagreement of some sort. So this happened even when we were at a restaurant one time, and I didn't care for the server. Server was rude, and the server said something to me. And when I went after the server, my members of my family got embarrassed. So they almost went to defend the server over me. And I said, no, no, no. Come back to something here. We defend family publicly.

Steve Alessi:
We support family publicly. If the family member is wrong, we will deal with it privately. Right. Now we did that because we wanted to make sure that our family didn't have any unresolved conflicts with one another that may have spilled out in in a setting like that. Right. Maybe they're mad at their brother or they're upset with me, the father, or even you. They're upset. And that's when it came out.

Steve Alessi:
Right. So we never wanted there to be this unresolved conflict in our home that would spill out in the public. Right. Plus, we always wanted to make sure that us as a family would always show a 100% support of one another. Right. We needed to. If your family can't support you, who will? So the family should be there. Come hell or high water, thick or thin.

Steve Alessi:
Listen, that that's all what you have. You have family. You do. So we wanted to do that. But let's talk about something, Mary, that happens in families. And that is they just don't resolve conflicts.

Mary Alessi:
Yep. That is one of the, I think, the top ten issues. I'm sorry. I have something in my eye, but get it. There's just this inability. Maybe they don't have the skill. Maybe they don't have the know how. They weren't taught how to resolve, differences.

Mary Alessi:
And that might be because of gender differences. It might be because of age differences, personalities. You know, there's a lot of different personalities in in families. And when that happens naturally, there's conflict. But one of the things that we really talked about before we got in the podcast booth is there's conflict that's normal in families. We all have we go to work with people we have conflict with. Conflict's normal with human beings. It's the unresolved part.

Mary Alessi:
And there's so many people, and I I can speak from experience, that never were really taught the resolve part of conflict. You just make the best of it. You walk around on eggshells all the time. And the truth is you don't have to live that way, and you shouldn't live that way.

Steve Alessi:
You shouldn't.

Mary Alessi:
Because it leads to sickness. It leads to heart attacks. It leads to anxiety, and it really leads to separation within the family.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Well, you need to teach your kid this. You need to do it because you're teaching your kid this. You're modeling this. And what we've learned out of life is young people are not being equipped with the right relational skills

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
That are needed to help keep a happy relationship. Now I'm Italian or from an Italian heritage. You come from more of a purely American heritage. You're a little bit less loud in your

Mary Alessi:
Less loud.

Steve Alessi:
Resolution of matters. I've been raised more or less that we're gonna hit this thing and we're most likely gonna hit it hard and it we're gonna hit it loud. Right. But it's not because we're like out of control, but it's just when we speak in that realm, we have a tendency to be a little bit more aggressive.

Mary Alessi:
And going to Italy and being in that environment shows Yeah. That that's a culture.

Steve Alessi:
Having a Christmas or New Year's party at the Alessi family when they were all around you. Dear

Mary Alessi:
Lord. Yeah. And it's like thoughts.

Steve Alessi:
It's like Latinos.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Some of them more aggressive than others. So here's how it it worked out with you and I. I would always wanna hit something in the moment. You would be what? How was your approach?

Mary Alessi:
Well, I I was a lot more slow to to hit something that was either from an aggressive perspective or, with honesty because I didn't want to create more conflict.

Steve Alessi:
And I

Mary Alessi:
always felt like when you jump on it, let cooler heads prevail. Don't jump on it right now in the moment. Let's do this calmly. Can't we, you know, just all get along? If I could have worn that T shirt, I would have. Mhmm. And that was there's both that need to kind of come together. But I had more of a tendency to just let things go, but they didn't really necessarily go.

Steve Alessi:
And jumping on it in the moment sometimes only created a longer quiet time in the car or, maybe someone being a little madder, longer. And Right. So it wasn't always like the perfect moment. The the whole thing was both could happen. Yes. You know? Yes. But, you know, if if you are going to hit it right away, it is good to do so without anger. Right? Right.

Steve Alessi:
Even the scripture says be angry and sin not. So if you can if if something has upset you that needs to be resolved, you can do so without blowing up. And that's where sometimes hitting it in the moment seemed like don't do it. Don't do it.

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
The other side of it was if you didn't hit it then When are you gonna hit it? Then your issue was, hey, we will get to it. But we I would it would anger me because then I'm like, when are we gonna get to it?

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. Because I'd get over it, and I don't wanna talk about it anymore.

Steve Alessi:
Right. And the other part the kid that needed the the child that needed to be

Mary Alessi:
directed Mhmm.

Steve Alessi:
Didn't ever get that direction. And then when you leave your kid to themselves, even young adults, adults do this, when you leave a person to themselves with flawed reasoning

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Then they think that is normal. Yeah. And you can't let that flawed reasoning be normal. Somebody's gotta correct it to help them grow up and mature so they bring the right kind of healthy response or attitude or thoughts into their relationships.

Mary Alessi:
Yes. And, you know, there's for those who are a little bit more passive about that, there's all kinds of ways you can say things. You can say things aggressively. You can say things not aggressively. But the point is, say the thing. That's the point. To get to resolve, say it. And when we focus and this has always been a frustration for you, focusing too much on the way I say it.

Mary Alessi:
But is it truthful? Is it the truth? Will it bring peace? Will it bring resolve? Okay. Then that's what you have to look at. Yes. You can always tame the way you say something. But sometimes when you're in the heat of passion and something is wrong and you need to say it, it can come out angry and aggressive. It doesn't mean you are angry, and this will set free all the people who are on the anger triad. But it can come out that way. But what we do is in relationships in in the family, we'll say, you you said it mad, so I'm not going to listen to it.

Mary Alessi:
Well, then you just shut down the truth because of the way the person said it. Now we can always work on that. But to me, getting older and more mature now and me being an extreme of say it right or I'm not gonna hear it, and I think in the past, because of the Italian heritage, your family was just more, just say it. Doesn't matter what decimal level. Just say it. I couldn't handle that in the beginning. And we've we both managed that, and we both have have kind of reached that sweet spot in our family because if we hadn't, we wouldn't be able to work together, where we're not gonna overfocus on the way something's said if what is said is truthful. Because that's what's even more harmful.

Mary Alessi:
You just delay the truth in the the realm of the truth needs to be stated. You know, it's that old movie, You Can't Handle the Truth. Again, the name I cannot think of the name of that movie, but somebody can write in and tell me the name of that movie with the famous actor. Mhmm. Let us know who he is. But you know that that scene in the courtroom setting where he goes, you can't handle the truth. And I think families really shy away from being honest with one another because they take too much time focusing on how to say something.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
So there's not this open, intimate environment where you get a pass for being a little angry when you said it Mhmm. Because it's true.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. And not doing it, not resolving someone

Mary Alessi:
It's worse.

Steve Alessi:
Doesn't just upset you Yeah. As the parent or the sibling. It'll upset the whole family.

Mary Alessi:
It does.

Steve Alessi:
So I remember when, one of our kids were young, and they loved to eat, and they were quite chunky. And, we we wanted to say something. I wanted to say something, but you never wanted me to say it because you considered it. You know, be careful. We don't fat shame Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
You know?

Steve Alessi:
At the time. Right? Hurt the kid. We don't wanna hurt the kid. But the the kid was not happy with themselves Right. And would complain about being big and overweight and, but loved cookies and every other sweet thing that was out there. And we always would make it up saying, oh, they just love food. And matter of fact, one day, we're gonna open up a bakery on your own because you just love food because she would eat. And then so that's a she.

Steve Alessi:
So there's 3 girls in the family. You gotta figure out who this is.

Mary Alessi:
They know who it is.

Steve Alessi:
And then, alright. So Gabby, we we had sit down at the table, and she would reach over and she'd wanna taste your food. She'd wanna taste

Mary Alessi:
Oh, she was a foodie.

Steve Alessi:
She was a foodie.

Mary Alessi:
She still is.

Steve Alessi:
But she just she just was going through a odd, change

Mary Alessi:
of life.

Steve Alessi:
Her little, you know, going into puberty, her body and everything. And she was just 12

Mary Alessi:
was tough.

Steve Alessi:
That was tough for her. So we would never say anything. But it's so bothered the sis her sisters, because her sisters weren't like that.

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
Stephanie was always eating strawberries and fruit. Right. You know, Lauren was always eating healthy. She made sure because of Terry's influence, the one lady that helped us for a while with the kids, she was always eating giving them healthy snacks. It was just Gabby wasn't eating right. So when she wasn't and she was getting overweight, she would be so upset about herself that one day the girls got so mad at you. Yeah. They took it out.

Steve Alessi:
Because you did not address it with Gabby. Right. And Gabby's upset. So even at a young age, these kids already are saying to you, mom, well, she's upset because she's fat, but you're afraid to make her upset because she's eating the wrong kind of food. Yeah. And what's the what's the whole thing there? It's like nobody wants to resolve something that's not healthy, that's not right. Nobody wants to have the hard conversation, Whether it's the eating, whether it's, you know, the way there's talking to the each other in the household, whether it's, you know, spending too much time away from the family, never wanting to be with the family and sitting down saying, hey, how come you're having more fun out there, but not in here? Right. Nobody wants to address an attitude anymore.

Steve Alessi:
Maybe bad language that's being used in the household, a lack of commitment to God. Nobody wants to address those things. Right. Because it's almost as though culture has seeped into our our home. And and thankfully, there seems to be a pushback to this woke thing. But nobody wants to pinpoint the negative obvious because they put you on this pedestal of like, okay. Who do you think you are? You're holier than thou. You're you're perfect.

Steve Alessi:
And they make it about you're judging somebody. Right. No. It's not that you're judging somebody. It's you're correcting somebody. You're not just correcting them, you're directing them to what is a healthy version of living that then if it's obvious to the whole family

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
And it's upsetting the whole family, somebody has to say, hey, let's talk about this. This behavior is not gonna be go well with you as you continue your life. It's not gonna help you with the kids. Hey, you're not gonna like this. It's gonna hurt your your family, your your relationships, your dating, your marriage. Somebody's gotta have the conversation. When do we do it?

Mary Alessi:
Right. And we do have a tendency to shut down the truth teller. We don't want the truth teller to tell the truth because if they do, they're gonna hurt the person.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
And I noticed even with Gabby, what I realized is that she, by nature, was more of a truth teller type of person. You could tell Gabby the truth because she'll certainly tell you the truth.

Steve Alessi:
Yes, she will.

Mary Alessi:
And all those things, learning about one another and just letting the truth prevail, it's so important for the truth to prevail that it does its own healing. And even though you might not like the truth, you don't you're the on the receiving end of it and you don't wanna hear it, somebody had to tell you and put themselves in a difficult position to tell you the truth. So you're gonna you're going to have issues in the family. I say don't let those issues be so deep that it creates a divide. You know, you can have normal normal issues in family. You left the refrigerator door open. You keep doing it. Please close it.

Mary Alessi:
Or you don't help me feed the dogs, or you don't put the hose away. You know, you don't take the garbage out. Those normal conflicts, everybody's going to have get used to it. But what you don't want is for the conflict to be a lack of truth in the family, where the family is not a safe place to hear the truth or to tell the truth. And that's what's happening in America. I'm sure it's around the world, but I know what's happening in America. I want to just give a shout out to a lot of our listeners because we were saying this on the way in. We have some great listeners that are they are habitual listeners.

Mary Alessi:
I don't know if that's the right word. They listen to the show every single time it comes out. They are faithful and then they post about it as soon as they get the podcast. Some of them will listen to the podcast and post about it before I even realize it went up on a Wednesday. They're just so faithful. And something that we've noticed about those faithful listeners, they actually take what we share in this podcast

Steve Alessi:
and they

Mary Alessi:
put it into practice, and we are seeing the fruit and they're seeing the fruit in their life.

Steve Alessi:
So

Mary Alessi:
we hope that that will be something that people will continue to do. And in this topic, this area right now, there's no greater way to start 2025 than with making a decision that in my family, we're going to be a place where we tell the truth and we will hear the truth. Now, that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. And yes, you're going to fight more. That's healthy. That's healthy. What's not healthy and what leads to division, what leads to separation, what leads to resentment, bitterness, a major wedge which will show up in 10 to 15 years from now and why a family member never comes to to to Christmas anymore, well, you can trace it back to the fact that maybe they were a truth teller and they couldn't tell the truth in their own home. That's what happens.

Mary Alessi:
But if you can decide, it's hard. I mean, it's been hard for me. I am not by nature that person. I've adopted that as a role model in my family, and I've become that. Thank God hormones and menopause have made that even easier. It has. It's given me a lot more boldness, dis incompetence.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
But I've been married to a truth teller. You've always been the person that calls out the truth. But what I witnessed, which is what I hope our podcast listeners, please listen. What I personally witnessed is somebody that I just don't want conflict. I just don't want conflict. And if you tell them the truth, they're gonna be hurt and that's gonna create conflict. Please don't. Just keep it wrapped up.

Mary Alessi:
I want the fruit of the truth. I don't want the work of the truth. But what I've witnessed is the harmony in our family and the safety and security our daughters feel.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
And our son is well. Yeah. Our son is well. But for our daughters, they're going to go into families

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
With husbands. Yeah. And we're setting them up to be the wives that don't bring any dysfunction

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
Into their in law families.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Be honest. Be kind.

Steve Alessi:
Yep.

Mary Alessi:
Be loving. But be you can be honest. Honesty is its own reward, Steve.

Steve Alessi:
Well, here here's an example of something just happened. We had some work being done at the house, and we were getting ready for something. So we had my our son-in-law, Mwinya, over, and he used some of my tools, right, from the garage. So they left. I walked out and I noticed the tool box was not put back in the where he found it. So I just I could have just let this go, but I have I I've seen this happen when I go to the camp. Men come up to the camp. They use my tools.

Steve Alessi:
They don't put them back. Right. And so it's like nobody teaches young men, something as simple as how to keep the garage or the tool case, toolbox organized and so on and so forth. It's some of it's just absent father. Nobody's teaching them how to do it. So I don't little things like that, I can overlook for 1 or 2 times, but I've seen it happen a couple of times. So all I did yesterday was take my phone, and I took a picture of the tool box and the tool cabinet behind it. You know? Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Kind of blurry in the back how you do it. So I did it, and I sent him a text with the picture saying, man, I could have sworn that I put these tools in the tool cabinet on Saturday after I used them.

Mary Alessi:
And then put a

Steve Alessi:
little smiley face and he replied right away. I'm so sorry. I did take them out. And then when I went to put them back, I couldn't remember exactly where because they didn't fit, which is true. Because the way I put them in there, I needed to organize the coolant cabinets. So it

Mary Alessi:
was your

Steve Alessi:
fault. I didn't set him up to win. That's all I could say. But and then he replied, and I said, yeah. I know you were raised with a dad that would have definitely touched you. Because he said in the text, no. I'm notorious for it. I hate when people use my tools and don't put them back.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. All that was Yes. Was just simply saying before this becomes an issue with me Yes. Because you know how easy it is for a father-in-law to look at his son-in-law and think, oh, he's got issues and never address it.

Mary Alessi:
He disrespects me.

Steve Alessi:
Or or just that's him. He you know, that's him. And pick up an attitude, like, you know, he's gonna always be an issue. He's gonna have a problem. And then maybe when your daughter says something about

Steve Alessi:
her husband,

Steve Alessi:
you're quick to jump on that,

Mary Alessi:
like Because of the tools he left out 6 years ago. Oh, baby.

Steve Alessi:
I know. I saw him. He left out tools. You

Mary Alessi:
know? 6 years ago. Are you

Steve Alessi:
kidding me? Yeah. Why allow that to foster

Mary Alessi:
That's

Steve Alessi:
bad feelings towards the other family? I'll tell you when your family your business is gonna be other when your business will become other people's business, your family will become other people's business. Right?

Mary Alessi:
You got it. Say it one more time. Thank you. One more time.

Steve Alessi:
No.

Mary Alessi:
Okay.

Steve Alessi:
When you're gonna find when your family business will become other people's business, you know what happens? When you're so frustrated with your family that you start talking about your family to other people. And then those other people are gonna start talking about your family to their people and their people. And then this rumor mill goes out, and these this family are the people that you you should be protecting the most. Oh, yeah. So you gotta resolve some of these issues so that, you know, no nobody else needs to talk about it. Right. Bad attitude, you don't want a boss in the the workplace talking about your kid having a bad attitude. They will Right.

Steve Alessi:
If you don't address it. Right. If if, you know, you don't want a bunch of young men talking about your daughter's dress.

Mary Alessi:
No. It's true.

Steve Alessi:
If you don't go after and say, baby, you're showing

Mary Alessi:
a little

Steve Alessi:
bit too much of this or that. Yeah. Because if you don't, listen, you you They're gonna be talked about. They're gonna be talked about. Somebody else is going to do it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Mhmm. Because your your business will become other people's It gets out there.

Steve Alessi:
Conversation. Mhmm. You don't want that happening. Right. So you wanna address it. And I believe this is we're going into a new year where it's all gonna be about leadership. Mhmm. I I really feel like as a church organization, we're gonna be appealing to our leadership ability.

Steve Alessi:
The leadership that has been put within each and every one of us. We all have that. We are called first to lead ourselves before we can lead a family. Yeah. Before we can lead an organization. Before we can lead a ministry. You got to know how to lead yourself. So we're going to be hitting that.

Steve Alessi:
And part of leadership is recognizing it's it's a self awareness.

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
Where I am weak. We're in the car coming over here today to work and you bring up, okay, I need to go see my doctor. Mhmm. Because you're aware of something that's just certain pains in your legs. And you know, okay. I need to make a tweak. I need to make a tweak. All right.

Steve Alessi:
In the past, when we were younger and such, we're not always thinking like, let me do it. We push it off. We push it off. Right. We push it off. Push it off. But wisdom, the years of experience has taught us, wisdom says, if something's off in you, fix it.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Because it's gonna make you a healthy person. And in this case, our family is better without an ailing mom having a headache, body aches, and so on. Yeah. Because she's not taking care of herself. Right. It's affecting everybody else. That thing can be played out in every area of our life.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
We have to be willing to look in the mirror and say, let me take care of me. Or at least in the sense of let me fix me, let me lead me. And as a leader of a household, once you lead yourself, you got to help your kids learn how to lead themselves. So you have to course correct. You have to bring direction. You have to address the conflicts. And it's a conflict because somebody's behavior is off. Right.

Steve Alessi:
There wouldn't be conflict, wouldn't be strife. Yeah. If somebody wasn't off. But if there's something off in the family, you need to address it. Now we encourage, of course, doing so in the best way possible that doesn't create a blow up.

Mary Alessi:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
But sometimes you need a blow up.

Mary Alessi:
Sometimes a blow up is healthy. It blows everything up And you start fresh.

Steve Alessi:
Maybe you see it finally.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah. You can always go and apologize for blowing up, but don't apologize for the truth.

Steve Alessi:
If you're the one on the side that's being talked to about some corrections and directions, don't make it about the person's presentation. Yeah. Filter through that. Don't don't don't let that become your excuse for not being better. Well, he didn't talk to me that the right way, or she should have said it better.

Mary Alessi:
Or not receiving it because you don't wanna hear it because of the way you said it, which the truth is you didn't wanna hear it, period.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
That's that's the problem. You know, I I wanna quickly tell this this story because there are families that have different degrees of conflict issues. And we're really, you know, for the family that isn't quite there yet with unresolved issues, this is such a good podcast for you because you can put these things into play now. But if you've been raised with somebody like I was, with somebody who was a walking, talking, breathing unresolved conflict, he was at conflict within himself. My father was a fun man, a happy man, a sweet man, a hilarious creative, but he was very troubled in his soul.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
And one of the ways that we were relationally with him and I didn't realize that as a kid because it didn't affect me. It affected my mom, and it's what led to the divorce and ultimately led to me not really seeing my father for 20 years after the divorce was because the truth was a no go zone in our family. You could not touch it. Quite frankly, dad was a narcissist. He would be diagnosed today by a psychiatrist as a full blown narcissist. He was. And, you know, you could go back and say why and all that. It doesn't matter.

Mary Alessi:
The truth was the truth was not listened to or heard in our home. And although and my dad married a woman who was all truth. She wasn't and that's why I think I felt for you in the beginning because you had that same quality, and my mom had that same quality.

Steve Alessi:
Along with my good looks.

Mary Alessi:
And your good looks and your muscular build. But mom, just every time she would try to get to a place of honesty, when she finally got to truth, dad left.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
And, what do we take from all that? Well, what we took from that, and I'm so proud of my mother, she let us know he was wrong. But we love him, we honor him. He was wrong. And that toxic trait will not Yep. It's not going to stay it's leaving with him.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
We are going to be truth tellers.

Steve Alessi:
We're going

Mary Alessi:
to be honest with our feelings. Dad couldn't because my father was the type of person that if you told him the truth, he wouldn't speak to you for 3 days.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. He punished you. He punished you.

Mary Alessi:
He punished you for the truth. That was nothing but manipulation. And I did not realize that was a learned trait in me until I married you.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
And then all that starts to come out.

Steve Alessi:
Well, the opposite happened in our family. Yeah. Because we did have a major issue, and and it was on my dad's side. And, we had a family gathering. We had one of those sit downs, those those whole, you know, confrontation deal. Yeah. And we were all around the table. He was right there.

Steve Alessi:
And we came to the table as young adults with truth, with the backing of my mom, support of my mom. And at the end of that conversation, dad had, you know, one of 2 options. If if he was not going to, you know, get up, align with the family, then we're gonna have to make some serious decisions. Or he could go ahead and, you know, align himself with it, and we'd all do our deal. And, we were all so angry at at dad when all that was happening. And, we all actually we scheduled a vacation trip right around the holidays to go snow skiing, and we were all angry at him that we didn't buy him a ticket. We was not we weren't gonna let him come to this. He wasn't.

Steve Alessi:
And sure enough, you know, he he made, the moment was not that great. There was, you know, aggression, and there was loud discussion. But we stood strong in our resolve that that behavior is not going to be accepted, and it's not tolerated. It won't be allowed in the family. And you got a decision to make, not us because we've already made our decision. We're on the side of right here. And, he made the right decision.

Mary Alessi:
He did.

Steve Alessi:
And sure enough, that joker showed up at the airport. We were also mad at him. He was not gonna let us go on that trip. And And

Mary Alessi:
that was before Uber. You couldn't get dropped off. However he did it, there there was no Internet. There was nothing.

Steve Alessi:
We we laugh now. It was terrible then.

Mary Alessi:
It was awful.

Steve Alessi:
And, he had to sit in a different seat all by himself in the plane because we all had our receipts, And he wasn't a part of it. But but he he responded the right way. Here was the point of it. You you can't let behavior that's unhealthy continue. No. You gotta address it.

Mary Alessi:
Yes, you do.

Steve Alessi:
If you want a healthy family, keep the unhealthy behavior, mindsets, and attitude out. You have to address it. Somebody's gotta do that. You gotta be the gatekeeper here. And a parent, that's on you. Right. As a parent, figure out a way to have the conversation, we called it carefrontation. Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Because I care for you, I'm gonna confront you. This behavior needs to change. And then you give them the opportunity to change it. If they don't change it, you need to pull back some of the blessings and benefits

Mary Alessi:
That's right.

Steve Alessi:
That they get, some of the privileges. If they do change it, you're you got a better kid on your hand. You got a better family environment on your hand. Yeah. And that's all we wanna say about that. Yep. Good podcast?

Mary Alessi:
This was a great podcast. And I think I'm realizing why we are making a podcast because we both have dealt with this at a ten level.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
Young in our lives, we've learned a lot

Steve Alessi:
Yep.

Mary Alessi:
From having dysfunction on both sides of our family, at the highest level. I mean, if if you want to hear about our family stories, you can go back and watch the other podcast because we shared in-depth about my father and mother, your father and mother's situation. But I will say if you compare the 2 side by side and our we've had our moms in this podcast, Ruth. We have said it. What saves the day? Truth.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Mary Alessi:
What destroys relationships? Unresolved conflicts.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
So be a truth teller. Be a truth seeker.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Mary Alessi:
And it will bring healing and sustainability to your family.

Steve Alessi:
Excellent. Well, if this podcast has encouraged you and has, as we say in the church world, blessed you, do what we encourage you to do at the beginning so you can go ahead and get a free mug. Like it and pass it on. Share it with others and comment. Because if you'd like to hear more of this kind of content, because we can go on about this whole issue of resolving the conflicts. We've got more to say about it. Let us know. We'll be glad to share it with you.

Steve Alessi:
Well, we hope this episode of the Alessi family or the family business with the Alessis good night. You think I'd get it after

Mary Alessi:
all these years. Okay. We'll get it.

Steve Alessi:
We'll get it. We hope it has been an encouragement to you. Take care.

Steve 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. 2nd, 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. 3rd, go to alessefamilybusiness.com, and tap the ask the Alesses button. This is really cool. You can use it to record a voicemail comment or question, and we can add your voice to our conversations.

Steve 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. 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.