“I think about how the show may have affected my relationship with my parents, with my siblings, and with my wife,” the TLC reality star tells PEOPLE
If he could turn back time, Welcome to Plathville’s Ethan Plath might do things differently when it comes to signing up for the TLC reality TV show.
“I would definitely recommend to anyone being offered a reality show to say no,” the 24-year-old tells PEOPLE. “If I could go back and do it—”
Ethan cuts himself off for a moment and adds, “What’s done is done, and that’s just best to do what we can with what we have and make the most of it. That’s kind of where I stand with that right now.”
Premiering in November 2019, Welcome to Plathville initially followed Ethan and his close-knit family — his new wife Olivia Plath, parents Barry and Kim Plath, and eight siblings — living in rural Cairo, Georgia. But, throughout its now four seasons, those relationships became fractured.
“I think about how the show may have affected my relationship with my parents, with my siblings and with my wife,” he says.
Credit: TLC
Ethan now lives in Tampa, Fla., with Olivia and his 19-year-old sister Moriah Plath. He and Olivia have struggled and briefly separated during season 3. Although it’s been challenging to live through, he says he’s doing his best to not have regrets to let the cameras roll.
“I feel like we are where we are,” he says.
But Olivia feels a bit differently when it comes to her decision to open up her personal life for the world to see.
Olivia and Ethan
CR: TLC
“I feel like I wouldn’t have learned a lot of the things that I’ve learned or grown in the ways I’ve grown if it hadn’t been for the show,” says the 24-year-old wedding photographer. “I don’t think I’d be who I am without it.”
Olivia continues, “There’s obviously pros and cons to everything. But I guess I see that it’s been a lot of good in my life. A lot of really, really hard things, probably a lot of really hard conversations or feelings that wouldn’t have come up, that we wouldn’t have dealt with, that we wouldn’t have gone through if it hadn’t been for the pressure of doing it publicly. There’s good and bad. And I think I hold space for both of that.”
Ethan adds, “I think [my feelings] might be partly biased just on a personality level because I am very happy to just be by myself and work on my cars. I like more of a simplistic life. So basically, if we’re talking about happiness and what you want out of life, I don’t really think that my life would be better in the long run with a show or without a show.”
Later, when asked if he would continue the show and do another season, Ethan completes his earlier thought: “If I could go back from day 1, when the opportunity was presented, I would say no. But just how many things have changed, where we are now, the relationships — I mean, no pain, no gain as they say. If the opportunity is there to keep doing what we’re doing, I’ll continue to work on that.”
Welcome to Plathville airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
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