Their side of the story. During season 3 of Welcome to Plathville, Ethan Plath and his wife, Olivia Plath, have been having some difficulties in their marriage — and they say it’s partly because of their ongoing feud with his parents, Kim and Barry Plath.
“I would say definitely the stuff we had to sort through with my family really put a strain on our marriage,” Ethan, 23, told Us Weekly exclusively on Tuesday, August 31.
Olivia, also 23, added, “The family strain and all that drama just kind of put pressure on us. In the early stages of when we were just getting to know each other.”
The couple, who tied the knot in 2018, have had a tension-filled relationship with Ethan’s parents since their wedding. According to Olivia, the drama started when the duo first got engaged.
“When we were dating, I knew that I was being controlled in what we were allowed to do, what we’re allowed to say,” the photographer explained. “I remember the night that it clicked for me was the night we got engaged. We come in the door, [Kim] waited up for us and she, like, grabbed my hand and looked at the ring. And the first thing she said was, ‘Oh, I want to trade rings with you.’ And I was like, ‘OK, that’s really weird.'”
The Plath family matriarch, 49, also told Olivia that she wanted to start wedding planning the next morning.
“In that meeting, [she] basically told me what we were going to be doing,” Olivia continued. “And that was the moment where I was like, ‘I don’t want to be controlled like this.’ I never got to tell my mom that I was engaged before [Kim] posted it online. That’s how my mom found out.”
Ethan agreed with his wife’s assessment of the situation, claiming that Kim treated the wedding “as if it was hers.”
“It just wasn’t quite right,” he added. “Then coming back from that, after our honeymoon and all that stuff, it’s kind of, like, trying to discuss it and sort it out and then it didn’t go well.”
Once the pair were married, Olivia felt Kim was still trying to interfere in their lives. “It was just, like, a pattern that she tried to make a lot of decisions for me,” she explained. “And I was fresh out of my parents’ house and figuring out who I was, and I didn’t want decisions made for me. The wedding was where a lot of that culminated, but it was just across the board. … That created a whole bunch of tension.”
Things still aren’t great between the twosome and Ethan’s parents, but he thinks “some space and time” could help repair their relationship. Olivia, however, wants to make sure there’s compromise on both sides.
“I know without a shadow of a doubt that I did everything in my power to fix it,” she told Us. “I want to move on, and if I ever change my mind in the future and I want a relationship with them, I’ll let them know. But for right now, I’m just excited to move and go live with Ethan and figure out who I am and what I want in my life. … If they ever came to us and apologized … then I’d revisit it. But right now I think we’re both happy to move on.”
Welcome to Plathville airs on TLC Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Mandie DeCamp
