That there may be a chance that it could all work out at one point, when Trissenaar's Hanni realizes that it is her love of fooling around on Bolweiser that makes her come to life in the bedroom with him, is what makes the degradation of their relationship all the more troubling. We never understand the motivations for these characters and we cannot understand why they allow themselves to blindside and cross each other. Fassbinder films the piece with his usual choreographed ennui. The dance these actors do within their scenes is only a mirroring of the dancing their characters are doing emotionally within the plot. Fassbinder obscures our vision into the piece, making it even more uncertain and more convoluted, when he uses cut glass and sheer curtains to block out part of what the camera sees.
Nothing is clear cut here.
We look in on the characters through half-opened windows and we see them through mirrored images of themselves. We never see anyone truly open and unencumbered here. The joy of the dance is shaded by human emotions, communal gossiping and the mores of the time. What is apparent in the film is Fassbinder's misogyny. It's obvious that Hanni is the villain here.