The Plaths have gone from Plathville to Splitsville.
During the most-recent episode of Welcome to Plathville, Plath parents Kim and Barry Plath parted ways, with Kim packing her bags and heading to one of the vacant Plath rental properties.
During her confessional, Kim tells viewers that despite Barry making an attempt at one point to save their marriage, the two of them “have decided to live separately for a while,” The Sun reports.
“I never thought it would be like this,” Kim says in the clip. “It’s just a time of a lot of change right now, and I’m not exactly sure what that’s going to look like.”
As viewers of ‘Welcome to Plathville’ have seen this season, Barry and Kim’s relationship has taken a turn, with the two no longer sharing a bedroom.
“There’s an emptiness, you know? A shift has occurred and her presence is absent so I feel it,” Barry previously said on the series, while revealing that Kim had moved out of their bedroom and was sleeping on the couch.
Viewers have also seen Kim throw herself into work at her dance studio this season–- a studio that Barry allegedly purchased for Kim to show that he “values her.” When talking about the studio during last week’s episode, Barry said Kim thanked him for buying the “gift,” though he said it failed to “turn her heart back to me.”
In fact, Kim has seemingly used the studio as a way to escape– likely from her marriage to Barry, who, in the Season 4 trailer, blamed his wife’s sudden interest in herself on a potential midlife crisis.
Barry has also admitted to missing a lot of opportunities over the years to show his wife how much he loves her, including taking her out on dates, which he claimed was “a concept that I couldn’t put into action.”
Still, as things have continued to go south, Barry rated his marriage to Kim a 6 out of 10.
On this week’s episode, Kim opens up more about Barry’s alleged attempts to mend their unhappy marriage, claiming, “as soon as he thought maybe it was working, he stopped trying.”
“I feel like emotionally, I was just done,” she continues. “I just feel like there’s no way it’s going to work. It’s like he wants me to stay but I don’t know that he wants to really change. I don’t see any way that that emotional intimacy can really be reconnected.”
A new episode of ‘Welcome to Plathville’ airs Tuesday on TLC.
RELATED STORY: Amazon To Produce Docuseries On Fundie Families– the Duggars, Bates & Plaths– As Well As The Fundamentalist Religious Organization IBLP
(Photos: TLC)
14 Responses
I call BS. They’re playing out a script for better ratings.
It takes 2 to tango, Kim…you are putting all the blame on Barry. You BOTH said “I do”, you BOTH chose to be married, you BOTH chose to have kids, you BOTH chose to home school…..what about, instead of blaming him, you look at YOURSELF. TRYING TO MAKE IT WORK TAKES 2.
I agree 100% but imagine being married to Barry ..He is so shut down and Ethan is exactly like him. But I love seeing him being so gentle and thoughtful with his children. I’m not an Olivia fan ..but you can see every time she tries to get deep with Ethan ..he can completely shut down ..just like the dad. I felt really bad for her when he flat out said I didn’t want to take you with me on this trip. And all because he was super sneaky and didn’t want confrontation. They all have their flaws ..obviously ..but I can definitely see him being hard to get through to him. But I think it’s unnatural how she freaked out because he was going back to his hometown. He should be able to see his parents and his siblings.. Especially giving everything the parents and siblings are going through. It’s like she never wants him to talk to his parents…in life.. and that’s just wrong. She keeps stoking the flames of his estrangement…and I don’t like that.
You are completely right about Barry shutting down, but he has probably done that throughout their marriage. Why now, after fame has hit?
These two assholes lived seemingly normal lives, got together and joined a horrible cult, forced their children to grow up in this cult, and now, maybe, whether it’s because she’s seen each one of her adult children somehow eschew their brainwashing and escape or she has the money and means from the show to break free, at least one if not both of them are on their way out of this dangerous lifestyle.
Is there a part of me that says,”Fuck you, for putting your children through this, until it no longer served your needs”? Absolutely.
But ultimately, this is one more woman and hopefully family that seems to be escaping from a sick cult, and even if she’s STILL a narcissistic asshole, I can’t see how that’s anything but a good thing!
Not buying it. She wants to play the victim because of how she has come across every season. I’ll believe it when they live separately while not filming a reality tv show.
If she has left him I wonder if the children stayed with him or left with her?? She’s a controlling narcissist and he’s a creepy looking paedophile.
Based off the narrative created by TLC, Kim across as incredibly manipulative and controlling. She has controlled her husband, children and home since the start and with kids growing up, she’s lost a lot of control. I feel like she is trying to punish Barry for the state of the relationships with her children. The fault for estrangement with the older children is placed on EVERYONE other than Kim. In that episode where Ethan and Olivia came to deliver the farewell speech, saying they we’re done dealing with Kim and Barry—Kim was arrogant, flippant and dismissive, and then started sobbing inconsolably. It was extremely manipulative and false, seemingly designed to put a nail in the coffin of the relationship with Ethan and his siblings.
I thought inviting another man into your home to cook dinner for your family, while having serious marriage issues, was disrespectful and reeked of Kate Gosselin. I think Kim has decided she really likes infamy and will do whatever she wants. Regardless of her marriage and her children.
I get the sense she hasn’t been in love with him for a long time and there’s probably not going to be a damn thing he can do to change that.
He should consider himself lucky!!
Isn’t this the same story line as the oldest son and his wife? Kim is so transparent and jealous.Thirsty much Kim!!!’
Who’s this bitch thinks she’s fooling. Kim-me wears the pants in that family, and the bald dude is along for the ride. He hasn’t made his own decisions or had one thought of his own since he met this women, and it was probably his Mommy pulling the strings before Kim-me. She has made him into her parrot, a little mirror image of her thoughts & dreams and in doing so found out she doesn’t like herself.
I don’t know if they’ll be able to rekindle what they’ve lost. I think now more than ever women are realizing they don’t have to be the sole person taking on 95% of the family weight. Women now a days have been taught all their lives that can have a job…yet in most cases they’ve not been told they don’t have to be the sole nurturer to the children and they don’t have to be the sole house cleaner while doing their job simultaneously. Kim seems to be regretting being so “biblical” all this time.
I feel like you have to know and nurture your partner’s love language in order for your relationship to work. For example my love language is touch. I want my husband to be attentive and hands on. His love language is gifts of service…he likes having dinner on the table and a clean(ish) house when he gets home from work (let me be clear I am a stay at home engineer so that seems fair to me that those things are “my job”…however if I worked out of the home I would want him to share those responsibilities with me). I don’t know if it’s right or wrong of me (and someday may end up being like Kim and Barry) but I can say when my husband doesn’t seem as attentive to me, I struggle to find the will to want to have, dinner ready or the house clean. Thankfully, for us so far we have always been able to work through that. From watching the show I feel like Barry says he wants to work through it but he has no clue that it’s going to take more than words. I don’t think he’s even considered Kim has a love language and that it needs nurturing. I think he thought he was doing what he was supposed to do by marrying her, giving her all those children and going to church. He thinks things are just that simple that those are the few things she would only ever want for. Anyway, that’s my 2 cents.
Scripted TV