Introduction – how this project was born...
A relationship with a disabled partner doesn't work differently than with an able-bodied one. But many people think that there must be significant differences because of the lack information about disability.
The subject of disability and relationships is still a taboo for many people. And while some people believe that disability excludes any chance of partnership in general, others think that they could improve the understanding for the needs of disabled people by exhibiting special sexual preferences in public. Another extreme are those relationships that only come into being because the disability is considered as attractive. In contrary to all this, the project "Zweisames" tries to go another way.
At the beginning, the German journalist Annette Schwindt and her husband Thomas Reis only wanted "to see how many other 'mixed' couples there are". The response on a documentary project about couples with one disabled and one able-bodied partner was amazing. People from different generations with different disabilities and experiences contacted the two initiators of "Zweisames". The website www.2sames.de was soon visited more than 3000 times per month. Nobody had expected such a reaction. Thanks to some participants starting to help Annette and Thomas the run on the project could soon be managed.
After the first hype, they didn't have to wait long for critics either. "People often ask why we don't write down who lives with which disability", Annette and Thomas say. Some couples note the sort of disability in their story, others show it on their picture. But those who do not want to expose this, don't have to do so. The disabilities the couples deal with are listed in the couples' index anyway.
Everyone has the right to be loved
"This project is not about disability itself but about the love of two people", the initiators explain. How every single couple deals with the specific problems they have with their kind of disability is not the subject of the documentation. "We are no self-help group. We want to show that relationships like ours exist. There is no general solution for how this works." The project wants to show: Everyone has a right to be loved, no matter if they have a disability or not.
Which kind of disability - that's another question. But nevertheless some people claim that according to the kind of disability some could find a partner more easily than others. Therefore, so these people say, it was easier for a relatively mobile paraplegic to find a woman than someone who has cerebral palsy or needs care all day. On the contrary "Zweisames" documents that the decisive thing is not the degree of disability but the way the two partners handle themselves and each other. Even for the often quoted statistics that disabled women were generally in disadvantage "Zweisames" shows opposite examples.
Accepting yourself
"Someone who considers themselves as unattractive and is always in a negative mood cannot be considered as attractive by others. But this is valid for both disabled and able-bodied people", Thomas argues. Like him, many participants of "Zweisames" know the experience that others lose their fear of contact if you meet them in an open minded and self-conscious way. But self-consciousness doesn't mean awkward confrontation. In contrary, it's about accepting yourself with your very own limitations, living in an active way and also being able to laugh about yourself sometimes.
Now many disabled people have never experienced anything other than pity and worries and therefore never have had the chance to learn to deal with their limitations in a different way. "We cannot and do not want to give any life-consulting", Annette insists. " Nevertheless we often get e-mails that tell about loneliness and resignation." The more courageous ones write about their thoughts and problems. "We tell them that we can only share our personal experiences if they want it." But how to deal with their problems is everybody's own decision. The project cannot give any "manual to be happy". "All we want is to document that relationships like ours exist, so others get the possibility to confront themselves to the subject and in the best case lose their fear of contact. But how to get happy is something everybody has to find out on their own.
The stories of the documented couples aren't necessarily coming up roses all the time either. Some have separated and then of course didn't want to be on the documentation anymore. But others are still together. So the things that happen here are just like with anybody else.
Click on "Die Paare" to see the list of couples in this documentation.