How to Stay Married is an Australian television comedy series screening on Network 10. It premiered on 8 November 2018. The series is a spin-off of an episode of the 2013 anthology comedy series It's a Date on the ABC. The show is a Princess Pictures and Pablo Pictures co-production.[1]
The show was renewed for a second season on 22 August 2018, before the first episode aired. All episodes of season 2 were initially released on streaming service 10 Play on March 26, 2020 for two weeks as part of Network Ten's "10 Shows in 10 Days" promotion during the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][3] It later premiered on Network Ten on Tuesday, 5 May 2020.[4] A third season premiered on May 4, 2021.[5]
Plot
After fifteen years of marriage, the lives of Greg and Em Butler and their two daughters change when Em returns to work, Greg is made redundant and his brother Brad moves in.
After fourteen years at home raising the kids, Em Butler is worried she has become boring and decides it’s time to go back to work. Her husband Greg is initially hesitant to disrupt the status quo but when redundancies are offered at his job, he starts to wonder whether a change might be good for them. Greg’s brother Brad announces that he needs to stay with them for an undisclosed amount of time, throwing yet another spanner into the works.
Greg and Em have planned an evening together at an Ed Sheeran concert, their first night out since Em got her new job and Greg lost his. Greg and Em each harbour little frustrations about the demarcation of domestic responsibilities and despite their best efforts to be romantic, there is friction during the date. Sophie is allowed to babysit for the first time (with Terry and Marlo instructed to keep an eye out from across the road), but things go from bad to worse when the power goes out.
Greg and Em are frustrated by their flagging sex life. Since starting work, Em’s sex drive has dropped and the hassle of using condoms isn’t helping. Terry recommends that Greg have a vasectomy to simplify the contraception, and Marlo recommends that Em do something dangerous (like skydiving) to kick-start her libido. But as their initial excitement fades, the seriousness of their respective tasks starts to sink in.
Greg and Em become worried about Sophie when she announces out of the blue that she wants to quit her basketball team. Greg, the coach of the team, has been so focused on winning that he has failed to notice that Sophie hasn’t scored a single point all season, and resolves that she will score in the next game no matter what. Em regrets that she hasn’t been around enough since going back to work and resolves to make it to the game to cheer Sophie on, but gets trapped in a well-known author’s impromptu adult fiction reading.
5
5
"Episode 5"
Colin Cairnes
Peter Helliar & Trent Roberts
6 December 2018 (2018-12-06)
N/A
The Butler family is running seriously low on personal space, a problem that becomes impossible to ignore when Brad brings a date over for the first time. Greg and Em decide that Brad needs to move into the backyard cubby house so that the girls can have their own rooms back. With hard rubbish collection coming up, they get to work clearing out the mountain of 'storage’ in the cubby - but while Em has no problem chucking stuff away, Greg gets increasingly sentimental over all of their old things.
Greg and Em attend Em’s 25 year high school reunion. Greg is determined to 'be cool’ with meeting Em’s significant high school ex-boyfriend while Em looks forward to flaunting her new job to her classmates. However, Greg is 'cool’ with the wrong person, accidentally encouraging the school heartthrob to flirt with Em. When a teacher undermines Em’s publishing career by suggesting that a poem she wrote at school was plagiarised, she becomes determined to clear her name.
Greg and Em implement a screen ban to give the family a much-needed break from technology. Em takes Chloe on a 'girls day’ in the great outdoors but between interruptions from Brad and the interference of a drone pilot, the bonding activities don’t go to plan. Greg drives Sophie to her friend’s 'gathering’, intending to have a conversation in the car about the boy she likes, but he struggles to navigate without GPS and they get seriously lost.
It’s Greg and Em’s fifteen year wedding anniversary and Em has planned a weekend away at a surprise destination. Greg is disappointed to find that the destination is a roadside motel that they visited when they were first dating, a gesture that Em considers extremely romantic. Em is equally let down by Greg’s gift of celebratory home brew beer. Sophie decides it’s time for Brad to get back on his feet and coaches him to make a good impression on a woman he likes - an Uber driver who ruined Terry and Marlo’s perfect rating.
Envious of not being considered "the cool house" where kids like to hang out, Greg and Em encourage Sophie to have her friends over, promising not to embarrass her.
When Brad announces his plans to propose to new flame Nadia, Greg and Em seize the opportunity to right the wrongs of their own botched proposal seventeen years earlier.
Greg hatches a 'foolproof' plan to earn funds for his promised family holiday on a cruise by selling TurboMax mixers to his neighbours and family. Em brings Chloe to work for Curriculum Day and scores a book deal from her boss Audrey, about her relationship with her "neanderthal" husband, after Chloe lets slip that her mum likes to write.
When Em's pompous father and stepmother come over for a family BBQ, Greg attempts to ask them for money for their family holiday while Em stokes the fires of familial conflict, under the guidance of her boss Audrey, for her new book.
Greg has to wait at home for the NBN technician but he is tempted from his post by his brother, who asks him to visit the supermarket for a once-in-a-lifetime Aldi special buy: a The Slumberwell: Endless Dream bed which Em wants. His absence means that all the family's problems fall in her lap.
After a sobering cyber-safety information night, Greg and Em Butler decide to install a secret surveillance app on Sophie's phone and are shocked to discover her sexting with a friend, Ravi, from school.
Em's determined to finally tell Greg about the book that she is writing about him. An unexpected dinner invitation by Carlos Garcia has Em taking drastic actions to prevent Greg from finding out about it in the wrong way.
Greg spies an older boy eating Chloe's lunch and instantly concludes his daughter is being bullied. Greg's determined to seek justice, which brings him into direct conflict with perfect parent Luna Keys.
Greg's on a mission to procure the most prizes for the school's trivia night and to outshine rival parent Luna in the process, but when he also has to deal with a sleep-deprived Chloe, his mission seems impossible. Em learns of her "lucrative" book deal from Audrey — as the ghostwriter of Adam "Gilly" Gilchrist's autobiography.
19
3
"Episode 3"
Fiona Banks
Sarah Lang
18 May 2021 (2021-05-18)
N/A
At the school's dry trivia night, Greg's rivalry with Luna heats up and Em disrupts the evening's proceedings by unwittingly orchestrating a rival event in the school's car park.
Greg has never been able to talk about death and the passing of Chloe's pet is no exception. Em challenges Greg to discuss their own inevitable funerals only to find they're on very different pages.
21
5
"Episode 5"
Mat King
Nick Musgrove
1 June 2021 (2021-06-01)
N/A
Greg is desperate to prove he's cleaner and greener than Luna, but when he posts an innocent photo on the school's social media platform, he starts an online war that could see him cancelled.
22
6
"Episode 6"
Mat King
Sarah Lang and Vidya Rajan
8 June 2021 (2021-06-08)
N/A
Em has a sex dream that inspires her to become more experimental in the bedroom, but after eighteen years of marriage, how does she tell Greg she's suddenly keen to expand their repertoire?
23
7
"Episode 7"
Mat King
Vanessa Burt
15 June 2021 (2021-06-15)
N/A
Em is adamant the controversial material she's uncovered about Gilly will result in a bestseller, but when Gilly prematurely promotes the book on television, it creates a public relations nightmare.
24
8
"Episode 8"
Mat King
Peter Helliar
22 June 2021 (2021-06-22)
N/A
Greg's ongoing battle with Luna comes to a head when he makes the bold decision to oust her as President of the Parent and Friends Committee.
