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Private Notes
Anne and Erik are basically an average couple in the second decade of their marriage who find themselves in couple therapy after many problems. The common son in puberty, the erotic crackling only a vague memory and everyday life dominated by organizational issues. The situation escalates on Anne's birthday. This is partly due to Erik's boring gift and partly due to the parents involved, who are not very compatible. In the end, Anne and Erik find themselves in couple therapy with Dr. Brighter again and find that their marriage is on the brink. Just now, Anne's father Ludwig Demenz is diagnosed. An unfavorable moment, after all, both Anne and Erik work in Ludwig's company. Will a marriage crisis and the same job go together?
The second therapy session with Ms. Heller leads to a temporary spatial separation of Anne and Erik, who temporarily moves back to his parents. While he is sitting in his former children's room again, Anne enjoys the new freedom in a house without a man. Meanwhile, pubescent Leon and his girlfriend Amina are getting closer and, at Papa Ludwig's request, the family visits a nursing home for people with dementia. Both have unforeseen consequences ...
While Papa Ludwig fully relies on his son-in-law in his company, Anne tries to get rid of her husband professionally and privately. With the help of a headhunter, she looks for a replacement for Erik, and finds the young, committed Belinay Lobenstein, who immediately encourages her to act more confidently. Erik believes that this is a completely senseless undertaking, especially since a meeting with important customers is just around the corner, and in his opinion Anne has really lost nothing. When she wants to be there anyway, there is a scandal ...
In order to win back the regular customers that Erik and Anne had cheated on, Ludwig suggests that everyone involved eat together, which means nothing other than a couple's evening. For the good of the company, Anne agrees, although she is not only cross-over with Erik professionally, but also when it comes to the upbringing of Leon, who has made it his point to want a tattoo. The evening together with the regular customers is very different than expected.
Ludwig gets the dementia diagnosis and Anne and Erik deal with it very differently. Together they try to convey the consequences to their son, but Leon is surprisingly unemotional, while Anne seeks comfort from Erik. Can the couple's marriage still be saved? However, the development in the company speaks against it.
After an argument in the company, Anne draws a preliminary line under her marriage to Erik. When she also gets to know the attractive parent speaker of Leon's class, a possible replacement even seems to be in sight. Then Erik tries his luck on the dating market and ends up with Anne's colleague Vera. In parallel, Anne's parents develop their own strategies for dealing with Ludwig's dementia diagnosis ...
The sparks fly between Erik and Vera, which also ignites a corresponding fire with Anne. For her couple therapist, it is clear that the marriage of the two has ended. Anne then flirts even more violently with Leon's parent spokesman Sascha, and Erik also tries to get closer to his colleague Vera. Even Leon is planning the next step for his Amina, but this has unforeseen side effects ...
Anne and Erik have come closer again, especially since Anne's enthusiasm for the parent speaker colleague abruptly cools down after an incident with Leon. Just like Ludwig's enthusiasm for Belinay Lobenstein, which was supposed to replace Erik in his company. Accordingly, Anne and Erik decide to make a comeback of their marriage. And of all places on the wedding day of Erik's parents. Can it work?
Almost a year after their successfully completed marriage therapy, Anne and Erik are sitting with their lawyer, Mr. Schubert. They want to set up a joint marriage contract retrospectively, so that company matters and financial histories can never again put an end to their newly flared up love. The professional and the private should be neatly separated and the common future should be full of trust - so the plan. But when the company breaks down a large customer and the Finnish competition uses this for a buy-out offer, Erik tells his wife only half the truth. While Anne wants to make a change in the marriage contract to be drawn up past him. Not a good start. Günter has Oberwasser through share gains and supports Leon generously with his efforts to enter his friend Damir's shisha bar. What makes Anne and Erik pull together in their indignation about Günter.
It looks bleak for the Reichert company. Without their biggest customer, selling to the Finnish competition seems like the last resort. Anne and Erik want to include the company patriarch Ludwig in their considerations about company rescue, but he is too busy with alternative therapy methods for his dementia. While caressing crystals for Maria's sake, he decides to withdraw from the company. Which may not be the worst idea given his “negotiating skills” with the Finns. So while his parents are again fully involved with the company, Leon turns to his grandparents Renate and Günter, who not only support him with advice and action, but also in the assessment that he does not have real life and the associated skills in school, but learns in his job in the shisha bar. Incidentally, they also enjoy smoking shisha.
After the Finnish takeover of the company, Anne is still struggling with the consequences of the "personnel adjustments" of her new boss, Mr. Erkonnen. Erik also has his hands full: Renate reveals to him the dubious stock transactions that Günter has brought in so much money recently. A diamond mine in Uganda doesn't really sound like a serious investment, everyone sees it that way - except Günter. Anne seeks consolation in a pub choir and unexpectedly finds an ally. Lisa is as unmusical as Anne, but happy since her divorce. This also changes something in Anne: Would this life be an alternative to a home for her that is really never about her? Instead, homeless in-laws live here, a drug-dealing son and a technology-loving husband. So the answer is clear, isn't it?
Leon's Dealen with Shishabar products in the school playground brings him and his parents an appointment with the social worker in his school. Suddenly, the problem is no longer semi-illegal, but the question of what keeps the family together. Anne can hardly believe what is revealed in a family constellation. Erik, meanwhile, feels the increasing pressure from his new boss, and he cannot find peace at home either. Thanks to the excessiveness of his parents, who were thrown out of their apartment after the broken diamond deal and suddenly stood at his front door - and have not disappeared since. Anne's parents also do not help to relax the family situation. While it is unclear to what extent Ms. Anatol's miraculous healing affects Ludwig's dementia, no one can deny the therapist's effect on his libido. Much to Maria's sorrow, whose maintenance becomes fragile for the first time.
Anne's enough. In her own house she is treated like an unwelcome guest. Erik believes every company-owned machine is more important, and Leon assures him that he will do well without it. Anne takes time out with her new friend Lisa. Completely surprising for Erik, she leaves the house to him for a few days, which he totally overdrawn and then no longer finds so bad. Leon has now found not only a second home in the Shishabar, but also a new crush, which, together with his pathetic deal attempts, brings him a lot of trouble. Maria suffers from Ludwig's little subtle crush on Anatol. Inspired by her daughter, she also longs for an area in her life that is only about her. Günter and Renate are brutally slowed down by Erik in their idea of getting out of the financial misery at the command of Mr. Erkonnens.
Troubled by her guilty conscience towards Leon, Anne still tries to enjoy her time out with Lisa. Erik first has to learn to be without Anne and then admit that a home without his wife brings with it unusual, but also welcome, freedoms. While Günter and Renate are looking for support from Mr. Schubert to get their lost money back, Maria has also provided helping hands. Unfortunately for Ludwig, not Ms. Anatol, but the dementia-tested Ms. Özkan from the nursing service. Ludwig sees only one way out: he overrides Maria and Anne to get what he wants. With dramatic consequences.
Erik has converted the living room into a second office. Buried deep in architectural drawings and construction plans, he feels better than he has in a long time. Anne's time-out comes in handy, honestly, so he can fully plunge into his work. And finally she'll be at the door again in a few days. At least, that's his idea. Anne struggles not only with the consequences of Ludwig's attachment, but also with his stubbornness. Much to the annoyance of her parents who accuse her of wanting to incapacitate him. So she doesn't really get to think about her situation with Erik. Lisa first has to push Anne's nose to ask whether the time-out is really only temporary. In the meantime, Leon bursts his collar in the Shisha bar. Violence is also a solution, he thinks, but the police don't agree with him, just like his shocked parents. But who are at least forced to talk to each other.
Anne now knows: It is no longer possible. She has to get out of her old life. And she also wants to take more time for Leon, otherwise she has the feeling that she will lose her son completely. Erik reminisces about happier times. Ludwig suffers from the withdrawal of Mrs. Anatol, both Anne and Maria don't want to drive him to her anymore. He sees a great future for her and him! He makes a momentous decision that shakes up the whole family. In the middle of this storm, Leon also drops a bomb, his decision digs deeper trenches between Anne and Erik. Insurmountable?
