When all the children have left the house, Sabine and Bert Mehne separate – purely geographically. Their two apartments show how close the two are.
find space
When Sabine Mehne talks about her living situation, she likes to use an image from the animal world: “If chickens sit too close together, they can also become aggressive, they live happier if you separate them.” When the three children all moved out of their own home in the country a few years ago, she and her husband Bert decided on a new, unusual form of living: both are still a couple, but they live in separate apartments that are connected to one another through a single door.
Your new-build apartments in Darmstadt-Kranichstein are light, airy and barrier-free – and apart from small details they are almost identical in construction. From the dominant colors and the furniture, however, you can see the different preferences the two have retained even after more than 45 years together: a golden sun shines above their sofa, warm yellow tones also characterize the picture, he loves it functional anthracite colors, with a red kitchen wall as a bright spot. “When we decided seven years ago to move out of our house into separate apartments, many of our friends thought: This is a disguised separation,” says 64-year-old Sabine. “With the move, we were only reacting to a completely new life situation.” After 27 years in the family home, the trained physiotherapist and the architect suddenly found themselves alone in a house that was far too large, with lots of space in the rooms and in everyday life. And the question: what do we want?
A fire protection door separates the two areas, and it is not only the spatial boundary between the two apartments, but also an image of the relationship between the Mehnes: If things get tricky and one is annoyed by the other, he or she can close the door and take it easy withdraw – without having to justify it, without the other person feeling offended by it.
A solution for the future
This need for time out and conscious solitude has remained with Sabine Mehne after an illness that almost killed her 27 years ago: “This cancer changed me a lot, I often longed for silence.” In addition, there was the very practical realization that her previous house wasn’t built for old age: “Back then I sometimes had to crawl up the stairs because I didn’t have the strength anymore – our house was built very open, with eight different levels.” When she was healthy again, the realization remained: If her husband, who is eight years older than her, ever needed her care, she wouldn’t be able to help him here. “I would then also need a protected space of my own to endure it. We want to grow old together, but we also need a suitable place for that.”
The couple sits together on their sofa, holding hands, and Sabine Mehne talks about what it will be like if one of them has to go before the other. Not restrained, not subdued, but crystal clear and unadorned. That sounds unusual, because you don’t usually hear people talking about it because they prefer to postpone this topic as long as it is not inevitable, says Sabine Mehne. “If one of us is left, the other can have the connecting door bricked up again and rent or sell the apartment – and can remain in his own protected space. Because of my near-death experience, I’m no longer afraid of death, which is why I can be so open about it to speak.”
“Several older women between the ages of 80 and 90 lived alone in a large house on our old street, their husbands had died years ago, but you don’t start a new life at that age,” says Bert Mehne. So he and his wife decided to prepare themselves for the last phase at an age when moving can still mean a new beginning. A conscious departure, “with little luggage”, as Sabine Mehne says: “We didn’t want to leave it to our children to have to dispose of all this junk that has accumulated over the years.”
Departure towards the future
So the Mehnes cleaned out, reduced their possessions, gave away their cats, which they could not take with them to the new apartments, which only have balconies. “Of course we cried,” says Sabine Mehne. “But if we had taken everything old with us, our thoughts would have got stuck in the past,” adds her husband. And there was also this longing that she was hungry for something new, something of her own when her youngest daughter moved out, says Sabine Mehne: “I met my husband when I was 19 and have never really lived alone in my own apartment.” Go at your own pace, have your own space, without compromise.
They grabbed it spontaneously when they read about the construction project in the newspaper. At that time everything around was still fallow land, and the building plans in such an early stage that they could bring in their own ideas. For example the separating fire protection door, which you can slam so well if you do argue. Since they have been living separately, however, this has happened much less frequently than it used to, says Sabine Mehne. “When we were still living in our house and my husband retired, we suddenly spent more time together than ever before. On some days he also got on my nerves, it was too close for me.” At that time, both of them also talked about whether they should separate: “Do we want to stay together until the end? Or do we want to release each other again?”
Now both are much more relaxed because this basic annoyance that feeds on everyday stuff is gone. They laughed a lot together, and for the first time each of them could live at their own pace. During the day the separating door is mostly open, at night it is closed. She sometimes goes to bed as early as eight and does yoga when the morning breaks. He listens to his jazz records late into the night and sleeps in. “During our family phase with the children, it was very practical because we had all shifts occupied,” says Sabine Mehne. Teething infants and pubescent people who had to be picked up at night were well cared for around the clock.
So everyone is happy
Today, each of them can have lunch when they are hungry: Sabine often already at 12, Bert usually only at half past one. Sometimes they cook together, in their two kitchens, which would form one long kitchenette if it weren’t for this dividing wall. “I have the freezer module, my husband has the oven and microwave. But everyone has their own cutlery and crockery.”
“To be able to say again in old age: What have I not lived yet? What else do I actually want? Of course that’s also a luxury,” says Sabine Mehne. Two apartments simply cost more money. It’s worth it, they both believe. And they find that their together-separate model is not only a solution for the last phase of life, but also perfect for young couples not sure if they want to move in together.