Inside Ethan And Olivia Plath's Marriage
If there's one network that excels at teaching viewers about bad family and relationship dynamics, it's TLC. The network stands for "The Learning Channel," and viewers have been introduced to a variety of reality shows that focus on unconventional relationships and families, including "90 Day Fiancé" and "Welcome to Plathville." The latter has opened up viewers to the ideology of Christian fundamentalists and how children can be affected by those views growing up. Per TLC's website description, the show follows an extremely conservative family headed by Kim and Barry Plath and their nine children as they attempt to break out of their rural lifestyle on a farm in Georgia by taking control of their own lives.
"Welcome to Plathville" immediately captured viewers' attention with its drama and entertainment value when it premiered in 2019. Specifically, the divide between oldest son Ethan Plath and his wife, Olivia, and his parents was a major point of conflict during the show's first two seasons.
With Season 3 around the corner, a lot of people are wondering if their love will last amid personality and value conflicts. Find out the truth about their marriage below.
Ethan and Olivia Plath had an unusual courtship
One thing that makes "Welcome to Plathville" so interesting is the Plath family's ultra-conservative world views. During the series premiere in 2019, it was established that Kim and Barry Plath raised their kids under very restrictive circumstances, denying them of traditional forms of entertainment like the internet and television while also banning sugar and junk food around the house. These restrictions, of course, have not gone over well with the Plath kids who've grown up. However, the traditional methods of teaching may have paid off for Ethan Plath, who courted his now-wife, Olivia, through letter writing.
According to their wedding website, Ethan first met Olivia at a conservative family camp in 2014, after which they stayed in contact through pen and paper. They wrote, "Within a few weeks of returning home, Ethan couldn't get Olivia off of his mind and decided that he was completely smitten." But their relationship didn't turn official until two years later in 2016 when they decided to be together.
Ethan and Olivia got married in October 2018, but their marriage has been far from blissful.
Ethan and Olivia Platt wants to live their life more freely
After Ethan Platt married Olivia, their relationship with his parents, Kim and Barry, started to deteriorate. Kim and Barry did not approve of Ethan and Olivia's more liberal lifestyles and viewed them as a bad influence on Ethan's siblings. As Olivia revealed in a scene during Season 2 of "Welcome to Plathville," things with Ethan's parents went from bad to worse when they were denied seeing his siblings without his parents chaperoning the interaction. Kim and Barry apparently didn't trust their eldest son and his wife and were afraid they'd corrupt their other children.
Olivia also felt suffocated by her in-law's family rules and didn't agree with them, creating even more tension between Kim and Barry. "Since we got married, it's just been like a long process of, like, introducing him to all these different things," Olivia said in an episode, referencing Ethan's lack of knowledge of different types of foods and cultures. "Obviously we're a family and we're going to do things that way that we choose to do them. And we allow a lot of different things in our home that his parents wouldn't. And that's just a personal choice."
These problems lead to Olivia wanting to file for divorce, but she and Ethan decided to work on their relationship in therapy, per People. Still, viewers will have to tune into Season 3 of "Welcome to Plathville" to see whether their relationship has improved.