Butterfly feelings with 50plus
The apartment of Hannelore and Wilhelm Daneker you have to imagine like a lovingly run junk shop. Here is her collection of thimbles and milk churns presented as his beer bottle collection. Almost every piece of furniture is old, every object has its history. The Friesentee they serve in porcelain kitchens from the imperial era, the pastries authentic style on a cake stand. "We are both passionate collectors," Hannelore explains her 140-square-meter idyll. The bistro table in the kitchen used to be a barn door in Corsica before being shipped to Emden in a mobile home and jacked up on a truncated tree trunk. But especially striking are the clocks that hang everywhere on the walls. "But only one in 50 works," says Wilhelm Daneker, 63, "that's the beauty of our lives, that we finally have time." Hanne nods: "I enjoy every minute with him." And when you see the two of them, the big Frisian with the gray-flecked beard and his cheerful Hanne, when you observe how her hands touch each other casually, you can clearly feel: this is not a staging. That's love.
Joint adventure: Hannelore and Wilhelm Daneker drove with the cabin scooter through Italy
The very big feeling that more and more people are facing in the second half of their lives: "Until a few years ago, women of retirement age were more modest," says psychologist and author Kirsten von Sydow, who has written a book entitled "Die Lust auf Love for the elderly ". In it, the woman from Hamburg observes a change in needs, especially among women: "In the past, they completely withdrew to the old age, in contrast to their male peers." Today, of course, women also want a fulfilling love life in old age. " Why should they give it up, especially as they still look and feel the same way?
However, Hanne had not worried about a new partnership when she saw Wilhelm for the first time. "In addition, I enjoyed my life after the divorce far too much," she tells the tea. "When I drove home after work, I was just happy that I was allowed straight into my beautiful apartment." Until that day, when he called them in a seminar in the introductory round at his side: "Right of me is free, I wish the Hannelore here." From then on, they rushed towards each other. He took them to the station after the seminar, and she started to cry before the train. Ironically, the cool Hanne, whom he lovingly dubbed "peace dove", because she was engaged as the second mayor of her hometown in the peace policy, while he always chose conservative as a former army officer. Then they had their first date: He told her about his hobby, the white Messerschmitt cabin scooter. He wanted to go to Sicily. Alone, because his marriage was already deadlocked. But Hanne was so excited about his idea that she spontaneously decided to come along.
Six weeks in a confined space - that strengthens love in old age
They spent six weeks traveling in Italy, in a confined space, piling into the hot cabin for up to eight hours a day and sleeping in the tent in the evening. A risk, sure. "But we felt really good every second," he says, quickly complimenting her: "It will not be boring for a second with this woman." That's because Hanne is at least as adventurous as he is. Together they have been to Kenya, Gambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Morocco and Egypt in recent years. But they always keep a ritual, no matter if they stay in a luxury lodge or at home: "Today we sleep in the tent just like on our first night, snuggled together as a spoon."
True to style with Messerschmitt, they married two years ago. It would not have used the official confession, say both; But they wanted to make sure that everyone can stay in the Emdener apartment after the death of the other, they both call their "nest". That is why they have their four children from the first marriages sign a declaration in which they renounce the payment of the statutory compulsory portion of the inheritance. "At some point we always argue about the damned money," says Wilhelm, who does not want to live that way. " They want to argue as little as possible. They both made the mistakes in the first marriage. "Why should we waste the precious time, is not it, Hanne?" She thinks so too. "What is money?", She asked herself and then decided in good conscience against higher salaries and for partial retirement. "We have gained three years together, because it is not natural for us to be healthy and have one another - we once met a couple in Corsica, which was much older than us.They talked us out of their hearts when they said, "We are all living together, and we still want to see much of the world."
Where do they only take the exuberant harmony and joie de vivre? Trend researcher Peter Wippermann describes the behavior of older couples in his new book "Longer living, longer love" than "second puberty": It starts at about 50 years and is divided into different phases. For many, the 50th birthday brings with it the wish to start again. Especially if, after a divorce or the death of the partner, it has inevitably come to a "self-aware" phase in which one has got to know each other anew. This is followed by the phase of life dream realization: you set up a new apartment, take a sabbatical and go on trips. And then at some point the need for closeness comes again. "In women usually even stronger," Wippermann believes. "Men often do not have to be that obliging anymore." But if it is the right one, even the most cautious specimens can be convinced. , ,
Long only good colleagues: Dieter Suhr and Elfi Zillessen. She waited a long time for the first kiss, because he needed time.
Dieter Suhr and Elfi Zillessen from Haan near Dusseldorf already knew each other four years. From the staff room of the school where they both taught. He found her sympathetic from the start, "said an open, happy colleague. He never thought further, after all, he was married, "and I'm very monogamous." Only one and a half years after the separation from his wife, the sportsman and the attractive mid-forties got together. They went to museums, to the cinema, to dance. That was his idea, and Elfi thought it was wonderful: "I was already divorced for a few years - and was thinking about a new relationship - Dieter I trusted from the start." She also found him attractive. But nothing happened. They went further, visited exhibitions. After half a year - still no kiss. "I want a real relationship again," she told him directly. He answered, "I know, I know, but I'm not ready yet."
To his role as a single father, he had recently taken over a new role at the school, which claimed him. "And I'm a perfectionist," he says about himself. But now Elfi had almost lost heart. "I've never been in the role of the one who has to wait." Today in the semi-detached house on the outskirts of the small town Haan she can laugh about it. But then she was so discouraged, "that at some point I put him on the chest more or less". She could no longer stand it, bursting out of her with tears at the advent tea. What he again just said: "You know how it is about me." But then he put a note in the box the next day. Can I speak to you this afternoon? And then they went for a walk. At the same time, Dieter finally spoke of "feelings that I can no longer conceal and want".
Their love in old age becomes even stronger through marriage
And what is Elfi doing? She gives him an exuberant kiss, but can not really grasp it and still needs days, a letter and more walks to say yes to the new situation. Finally, they decided that they would try - New Year's Eve they already spent together. On January 1, they drove to the North Sea - "because we did not see the sea with excitement," he says. And she says, "Somehow I knew from the beginning that it was worth it to stick to this." The two have found each other, you can tell. Even if her pattern - she rushes ahead, he needs his time - repeated over and over again. For example, when she wanted to marry, he said, "Why, I'll stay with you without a marriage certificate." But this step was important to her, and she simply said, "Well, you do not have to marry me, I'm marrying you." That was six years ago. Their rings say: "Nothing else matters". Elfi took a sabbatical last year and traveled the world with Dieter. "After that, I was scared of what it would be like to go back to school every day, but I can still shine." The marriage gives both strength. And also the relationship with his children describes them as very good.
This is not always the case, as author Kirsten von Sydow states: "If children from past ties are the first partner against the new relationship for the sake of inheritance or loyalty, it can be very stressful." Ultimately, however, late love relationships simply can not be described as a whole. There are even couple stories in the "Generation Silver Sex" (Wippermann), which are almost as cheesy as a doctor's novel. In which still meet girl dreams, which were long ago buried.
Finally the right one: After two failed marriages Claudia found great security with Günter Schwarz.
For example, that of the strong man who carries you on hands for a lifetime as it is Günter Schwarz at the wedding of his Claudia in front of all guests has promised. Claudia's colleague was to blame that it had even come so far. The found that Claudia after five years as a single again would have to meet a man."With 50 you do not need to be satisfied with two failed marriages," said the smart girlfriend and registered Claudia at the online mediation Parship. Claudia was living alone, did not need a husband, actually. But the first e-mail sounded interesting. It came from Günter Schwarz, a German self-made man who had become a national celebrity in Switzerland with a blasting company. A silver-gray giant with the look of a patriarch. He had met a lot of women after his divorce, but the right person had never been there.
But this time it was different, as Günter Schwarz noticed at the first meeting in Zurich: "When I saw Claudia come down the escalator at the airport, I thought: That's it," he says from the executive chair in his office. Dozens of files with press clippings about his explosive tricks are behind him on the shelf, Claudia's photo in the silver frame in front of him on the desk. She had sent him a picture in advance and described herself as "tall, slim, attractive". Her self-confidence had made him curious, "but in Natura, the woman almost knocked me off track." So on his first weekend he acted like a gentleman. Played guides at five-star level, she quipped. "Such a beautiful woman deserves only the best," is his credo today. "And I stayed? Behave because I felt taken by surprise. It all went so fast," Claudia interjects. But soon also the mid-fifties had to admit that she had not felt so safe for a long time. She flew to him almost every weekend. But from Saturday night she felt this pull in the stomach, because she should be alone again during the week. "When she said that, I thought at first, she exaggerates a bit," laughs Günter.
The wedding was a red wedding dress by Dior
He gets up every day at five o'clock a week, the company needs him. But then he asked Claudia during a hike through the Engadin whether she wants to marry him. He would have become acquainted with the thought of handing over his company to his son in the medium term. They have married with a church ceremony on the mountain lake, "which no one can beat so easily", Günter grins with satisfaction. Claudia presents photo albums. He blew up 1000 red roses in her hand. And he also chose the red wedding dress from Dior. Of course she no longer has to work. This gives her time to visit her daughter from her first marriage in England time and again or to go on a business trip with Günter. She even did a blasting class to better understand his work. Often they meet with his three children to eat, they almost like their own grown heart. Most wedding photos show them in the midst of their extended family, framed by their own children and their partners. "We are family people," both emphasize. As Wippermann describes the last phase of love relationships later on: "Not infrequently, they end the life with a grand-love, a (great-) parental love, (...) as the head of a family."
With so much pink it almost works well when Günter affectionately calls his Claudia "my hen". He means that even a beautiful 59-year-old can still have fuss in her head, like a young girl. And only the irony of the experienced entrepreneur makes the glossy happiness of this couple so perfect, because that alone would perhaps be hard to bear - if it was not a real, great love. As the author Barbara Bronnen describes in her new epistolary novel "In the Beginning a Beginning": "To live the last love is the greatest presumption (...). The whole sky turns as if one had just started to live. "
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