[TYPO3-mvc] update hidden / disabled records

[typo3 at litedesigns.nl]

Hi List,

I have a question about updating hidden records (based on http://forge:
http://forge.typo3.org/issues/8483) and i'm looking for an (temporary)
workaround.

I have a Company with a 1:1 relation to a FrontendUser. Visitors can
create their own account, this is a single form with both Company and
FrontendUser fields. But i want to send the visitor an activation email
with a link to activate their account.

Therefor i set the FrontendUser to 'disable=1' (fe_users table) upon
creating the Company and FrontendUser. This way they can't login yet
before they have activated their account via the activation email.

But how can i retrieve my FrontendUser in my Controller when the
FrontendUser is still disabled?

$company->getFrontendUser() does not return anything because of the
'enableFields' in the persistence layers of extbase.

Should i add an extra field in my Company model, something like
fe_user_id? This then should be an integer, opposed to company.fe_user
which is a foreign key relation to the fe_users table. Because fe_user_id
is an integer, i can retrieve the id of the fe_user with
$company->getFeUserId() and then in my repository i can set
$querySettings->setRespectEnableFields(FALSE); to retrieve my FrontendUser
object. And if i change the disable to 0 (false), will it be saved or will
Extbase not update the FrontendUser because it is disabled?

Is this the easiest solution or does anyone have another approach?

Kind regards,
Tim