Does a relationship always have to be harmonious? Kai Wiesinger and Bettina Zimmermann know each other: GALA spoke to them about honesty, date nights and couple therapy.
This is how you recognize a happy couple: when he speaks, she listens carefully, and when it is her turn, the same applies the other way around. In the double interview, Bettina Zimmermann, 47, and Kai Wiesinger, 56, show in an impressive way how they harmonize with each other.
Bettina Zimmermann and Kai Wiesinger: This is how they deal with arguments
They have been together for nine years – and absolute patchwork experts: Kai Wiesinger brought two daughters from his first marriage into the relationship, Bettina Zimmermann a son. They have a seven-year-old child together. The two actors often stand together in front of the camera. In the new ZDF Herzkino series “Family Anders” they even play a couple who are looking for help from a couple’s therapist. GALA asked for her personal relationship tips.
GALA: What is your prescription for misunderstandings?
Bettina Zimmermann: We are now at an age where you no longer want to puzzle over what the other person has. For us, if something is wrong, we address it immediately. And we’re doing pretty well with that. As you can see we are still together.
How do you make up after a fight?
carpenter: Before you part ways after an argument, I think it’s very important to be in agreement again.
Kai Wiesinger: That never happens to us anyway.
carpenter: That’s right, we don’t have a fight at all. If so, then it’s a disagreement, and then that’s more of a discussion. After that, you don’t have to get along. We’re not little kids. We don’t yell or hit each other. (laughs) Because we’re always communicating and talking to each other, nothing builds up that could escalate to such an extent that you get into such a fight that you have to make up again.
Would you say honesty can replace couples therapy to a certain extent?
Wiesinger: So I think honesty is the basic requirement in the relationship. If you’re not honest with each other, it’s not worth going to couples therapy. I wish the couples who go to therapy that it actually brings something. But the better solution, in my opinion, is to be able to perceive the other person as an independent person from the start, to always remain interested and open-minded towards the other person and…
carpenter: … not to take him for granted. That is also very important. As a couple, you always have to work together. So that you experience yourself in new ways and don’t get into such a rut and assume that your partner is there, you are there yourself, it just works somehow – and that’s it.
“A relationship shouldn’t be work”
They have been a couple for nine years. How would you know it was time to see a couples therapist?
carpenter: I don’t know. We’ve never been in a situation like this, have we? (looks at him)
Wiesinger: There are now very, very many couples therapists and many people who take advantage of this offer. Much has developed in society in such a way that things are outsourced. If that’s the path to success for a lot of people, that’s okay. But I don’t see that for myself. I haven’t felt the need yet, and I hope I don’t get it either. Bettina just said that you have to work on a relationship. But I hope that’s not the case.
carpenter: That’s right, maybe I phrased that wrong: work sounds so negative. A relationship shouldn’t be work. It is important that the basis is there and if something is wrong, the partner is the first point of contact. It is like that with us. We communicate with each other and therefore there is nothing that is left unspoken.
What relationship role models do you have?
carpenter: Our respective parents are still together. That’s pretty rare these days. That’s why Kai and I have the same image of family. Above all is this unconditional love that holds the construct family together. Going through thick and thin together. For our parents there were certainly also situations that were difficult. But they didn’t just throw everything overboard like in today’s throwaway society, they stuck together and went through it together.
What are your date nights like these days?
carpenter: We are happy if we even get an evening off as parents. (laughs) Then we take the opportunity, knowing that the children are looked after and none of us have to work or cook – and we go out to eat. We really enjoy these evenings.
It was Valentine’s Day recently. What do you associate with this day?carpenter: We don’t celebrate this day. My husband often brings me flowers. We both find it rather absurd to only do it in one day. It’s much nicer to show what you have in each other and how you relate to each other all year round.