When Josie (Emma Fielding) marries Matthew (Frank Harper), she already has a child, eight-year-old Rufus (Jacob Engelberg), from her previous marriage to Tom (Denis Lawson).
However, it's Tom's 25-year-old daughter, Dale (Emilia Fox), who can't bear to see her father in love, and moves back in with him in order to disrupt the romance and their possible future marriage.
Meanwhile, Matthew's former wife, Nadine (Lesley Manville), very bitter after the divorce and living on very little income, has moved to the countryside, taking over a half-dilapidated old house.
Her children leave the relative comfort of their home in order to escape their father's new wife, Josie, only to find themselves in deprived circumstances.
The stories eventually play themselves out: Elizabeth breaks the relationship with Tom, Matthew's children come to accept Josie, and Nadine finally makes peace with her countryside existence, even being befriended by a local farmer, with implications of a possible future romance.