Welcome to Plathville: Ethan Worries He Will ‘Never Love Someone’ Again After Divorce from Olivia (Exclusive)

Ethan Plath is opening up to his mom Kim Plath about his recent divorce.

In PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek at the Welcome to Plathville season 6 finale, Kim checks in on her eldest child. When she asks how he is doing after his divorce from Olivia Plath, to whom he was married for five years before the pair announced their split, Ethan, 26, admits he is unsure of what his future holds.

“I don’t know, some days are better than others,” he tells his mother. “I don’t really know why we couldn’t have made it work out.”

Ethan had begged Olivia to give their marriage another chance earlier in the season, but she said she had already made up her mind and moved on. Reflecting on the way things ended, Ethan acknowledges there were parts of their relationship that could not be fixed.

“Even just having a relationship with [the family] was so complicated when we were together, and I don’t think it should be that way when you’re with someone,” Ethan says.

“Yeah, well, the way I look at it, the right person will enhance your life and make it better and not make it harder and more difficult,” Kim responds.

Ethan then replies, “Yeah, I know that’s true. I just never even loved someone like I loved her. And I don’t feel like I ever can again.”

Kim and Olivia butted heads while she was part of the Plath family, with money, participation in the TV series and Olivia’s rebellious nature all posing issues between the two. With Olivia out of the picture, Kim is offering Ethan advice to help him look ahead.

“You deserve someone that that treats you really well — they should treat you like you deserve to be treated,” Kim tells her son. “I want you to meet somebody that you love just as much as her, but that also treats you right.”

In her confessional, Kim reveals that it is more difficult than she was letting on to see Ethan struggling with the divorce. Thinking about her own separation from ex-husband Barry Plath after 24 years of marriage to where she is today, Kim says she wishes the same on Ethan.

“It kind of breaks my heart to hear him say that he doesn’t think he ever could love anyone that much again,” she says. “Because I really want him to find someone that he just loves more than he can even contain. I want him bubbling over with love for somebody. I mean, I think everybody deserves that.”

“I found my Ken. Maybe he’ll find his Barbie,” she adds.

Ethan and Olivia announced their split in October 2023 and finalized their divorce in April 2024. On the Aug. 13 episode of Welcome to Plathville, Ethan signed the papers after going back and forth with Olivia trying to get back together.

“It’s been a few years worth of watching the relationship die and fighting to save it and not being able to, and then just finally accepting it and moving on,” Olivia said in a scene of her cleaning out the apartment they shared. “So I was just hoping he was going to work through things on his own and he hasn’t.”

Ethan, on the other hand, never saw this ending coming.

“I really thought that we would fight about it for like a week and then we would start working on it,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you kind of did that a lot,” she replied. “It was not a healthy relationship.”

Later in the episode, Ethan signed the papers and wrote Olivia a goodbye letter. He explained it was his way of “letting her go” and heading into the next chapter of his life,

“I definitely think that I have more happy memories with her than bad memories, but the happy memories are just as painful as what you would consider a bad memory,” he said. “I definitely do feel like me and Olivia grew up together. We stepped out in the world together on our own. We gave it a good run, but not everything works.”

The season finale of Welcome to Plathville airs Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on TLC.

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