For better or worse. Welcome to Plathville stars Ethan Plath and Olivia Plath have faced their fair share of challenges since they exchanged vows.
The reality stars wed in October 2018 after being engaged for nearly a year. Despite the momentous occasion, the newlyweds faced tension with Ethan’s ultra conservative parents, Kim and Barry Plath, at the start of their relationship.
“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 exclusively told Us Weekly in August 2021. “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.’”
Olivia also alleged that her mother-in-law announced the couple’s engagement before she told her own family and how Kim wanted control of wedding planning.
“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.”
As Ethan and Olivia began their new lives together, their TLC show began to pick up traction. Throughout the inaugural season, viewers got an inside look at the fallout between the couple and Ethan’s Christian fundamentalist parents — and how the conflict impacted their marriage. As season 3 rolled along, the pair got candid about how their relationship nearly “hit rock bottom” and sought out couples counseling to repair their bond before it was too late.
“Our relationship almost had to hit rock bottom for us to kind of wake up, prioritize and actually deal with our own problems,” Olivia exclusively told Us in August 2021. “It really sucked hitting rock bottom. When we started the season, pretty much, like, everything [was] not going well at all and kind of came to a head within the first few weeks. It also means that as uncomfortable as the first few episodes and scenes are going to be, it gets a lot better. It gets worse before it gets better. … We’re in a much better place now.”
In that same month, the reality star shut down speculation that she and her husband were no longer together after she was seen not sporting her wedding ring.
“People comment on the fact that I don’t always wear my wedding ring and make so many assumptions,” she wrote via her Instagram Story. “Sometimes I wear my ring, sometimes I don’t for two reasons: a) forgetfulness. I take it off when I sleep, when I shower, when I cook, when I hike/adventure, etc and often forget to put it back on. And b) I often don’t wear my ring when I travel solo and am afraid of damage theft or being forgetful and leaving it at a hotel — hence, why it’s often off in travel/wedding/adventure photos.”
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Keep scrolling to see Ethan and Olivia’s ups and downs over the years: