On the Dating and Relationships show we have a lot of special guests that tell us about how to make relationships work. But for the holiday season I invited in Mr. and Mrs. Claus to tell us how they continue to make their relationship work after a lifetime together!
I asked Mrs. Claus if she has a lot of trust in Santa. She responded in the same sort of way that most women would if they were with a man that had a job like Santa Claus! She said that she does get nervous sometimes since all of these other women are baking him cookies and she has no idea what they are wearing to bed when he visits their homes at night! But ultimately, she says of course she trusts him because that’s the only way their relationship has survived and she has stayed sane all these years! She said you can’t wake up everyday wondering where your partner is and what they’re doing you have to trust that they’re doing their job and they love you just as much as the day before.
After we shared a few laughs about the origin of Santa’s business starting locally and then growing to a global brand, how they parent the elves and some knocks towards Santa’s weight, we introduced the couple behind the costumes! Rose Marie and Giuseppe the MC were our fictional Mr. and Mrs. Claus but are a very real and admirable couple in real life. They also shared with us some tips and tricks on how they continue to make their relationship work after 13 years of marriage and being together even longer than 
that. They shared with us that after they first got married it was a funny time. They both started to get annoyed by little things they didn’t know each other did because they had never lived together before. But after they got used to all those things and they were together longer, things started to become a bit stagnant, as they do with many marriages. Rose Marie encourages keeping things new. Try different things together, go new places together, or even try something new on your own so you’ll have lots of stories to share with your partner that will maybe inspire them to join something as well. Above all things, because you have an unlimited amount of hours spent together when you are married, you have to learn to create date night. Try to use date night as a tension breaker. If you feel that tension and bickering has been becoming pretty frequent lately, suggest a date night as a clean slate to talk about your annoyances, reconnect again and have a bit of fun outside the house!
We also discussed expectations in a relationship and how Rose Marie helps couples through this. Rose Marie runs the company ‘The Busta Box’ which is a wedding planning and invitation crafting service! Before she takes on clients she feels it is very important to sit down with them to chat and get a feel for their personalities. She also walks them through an exercise that helps to introduce and manage expectations. She simply asks each person on a piece of paper to make two columns and write down what they think it means to be a husband and what it means to be a wife. Based on these answers the couple can get a better idea of the expectations the other person has of them and the relationship. If the woman writes down ‘takes out the garbage everyday, massages my feet, washes the cars’ but her partner didn’t think massaging feet and washing cars was something he was supposed to be doing, then at least they are aware of these expectations now and can talk about them before moving on and getting married. Managing expectations is very important in a relationship since if you have an inherent expectation of something that you think your partner should be doing, but have never talk about, you will be annoyed he isn’t doing it but he will have no idea you expect him to be doing that. So, Rose Marie encourages that you talk about your expectations and manage them accordingly in your relationship, as she does in hers.
Both Rose Marie and Giuseppe run independent businesses and we felt it was important to talk about pursuing personal passions with them. They admit that no, of course they don’t drive the nicest cars or have the most money to take amazing vacations but they are more independently happy doing this, which makes their relationship that much better. They both had a past of working 9-5 jobs where they were making a lot more money but they were miserable and stressed and often on edge with each other most of the time. So since switching career paths and finding a love for their work they preach very strongly that happier individually means happier as a couple which makes it worth it. They encourage everyone to chase their dreams!
Not only did they play Mr. and Mrs. Claus so well, but Rose Marie and Giuseppe also gave us a great example of what a happy, healthy couple looks like in the real world today. It was awesome to chat with them about their own relationship and how they have impacted others through their wedding services! To listen to the full show visit www.640toronto.com. Have relationship questions you want to go over? Hire me as a date coach for personalized advice!
