By this time, the characters of the story reach their 30s. Stella and Ted get engaged. However, during the wedding, she leaves him at the altar to reunite with her child’s dad. Despite this, she and Ted later become friends. Barney starts to fall in love with Robin.

Barney’s company transfers him to the management team of Goliath National Bank. As a consequence, he helps Marshall get a job as an in-house counsel. Moreover, he also helps him to get a contract to design the headquarters of GNB for Ted’s firm. Marshall, after acquiring these jobs, does his best so as not to get fired. He also starts to run a baseball league, just as he did way back in college. He stops running this, however, when he was given $18,000 cash and had a hard time handling the pressure from his colleagues to work all the time.