After a two year delay, Wife Swap Australia is set to premiere Thursday 8.30pm, February 11 on Seven. Seven’s take on the original format – which aired in 2012 on Foxtel – was scheduled to air in 2019. The first delay pushed the series back to 2020 and a second delay pushed it further back to 2021, but now Wife Swap Australia is finally making its debut.
The explosive new series sees two wives, from families who live worlds apart from each other, swap lives and families for a week, putting their opposing parenting styles to the test in front of the nation.
In each episode’s swap, the two wives will write a household manual describing their rules and how to run their home before leaving to live with the other family. They must first live by each other’s rules – no matter how difficult, uncomfortable, or how strongly opposed to them they are.
After experiencing life with their host families, the wives then take back control, laying down their own set of rules which their new husband and children must obey, no matter how different it is from the way they normally live. No matter how willing or unwilling the family is, the rules are changing and their lives are being turned upside down.
At the end of the swap, the reunited couples come face to face in an emotionally charged meeting. Discussing their experiences in the swap, the couples will go over what they learned, and what they never want to do again.
Some of the swaps include match ups such as control vs chaos, education vs unschooling, tech-obsessed vs off the grid, penny-pinching vs frivolous spending. Who’s the better parent? You be the judge.
Wife Swap Australia premieres 8.30pm Thursday, 11 February on Channel 7, and streaming on 7plus.