Adam and Sophie Dean's good-enough marriage could easily have lasted forever but Adam succumbs to pressure from his mistress to leave Sophie and in the course of his carefully prepared farewell speech, Sophie has a revelation: unless she leaves him in the family home in the role of primary caregiver, he'll have a severely diminished role in the lives of their two sons.

So while Adam continues to live in the suburban house he despises - with his two children and his angry mistress, who'd never planned for this turn of events - Sophie sets out alone into an alluring new life nearby, close enough to see her sons every day but far removed from her former life of domestic drudgery. As she and Adam grow into their new roles, they discover what it actually means to act in their children's best interests and that the end of a marriage can be a beginning.