The marriage of Katrin and Richard Lot has become a routine. She has a career and he, as a Marine officer, comes home only once every fourteen days. The children greet him with joy, but she greets him only with anxiety because their marriage is missing its key ingredient: love. She wants a divorce, but he refuses mainly out of comfort as well as due to pressure from the party. Katrin finds a strange solution: she shoplifts and is put on probation for three months. This is enough to force Richard into a divorce because he is concerned about the "moral liability" of his wife.