Based on an autobiographic novel by Anita Lenz, the movie focuses on a apparently happy couple whose marriage turns out to be a big lie. Maja, author of architectural books, lives in Berlin, while her husband Helmut works as a professor of literature in the small town of Tübingen. Despite their long distance relationship, she thinks their marital harmony is perfect, until Helmut tells her about an affair with another woman. Maja is hurt even more by the fact that her husband's mistress isn't a young woman, but 43 years old and mother of Helmut's child...