“I’ve known for months,” the 19-year-old tells PEOPLE of her parents’ marriage troubles
Welcome to Plathville’s Moriah Plath knew her parents Barry and Kim Plath were having issues in their marriage, so when viewers started to see their separation unfold on TV, she wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve known for months before anything actually happened, months before they actually decided to separate,” the 19-year-old tells PEOPLE. “I knew that they were struggling.”
Kim, 49, revealed that she and Barry were no longer living together during the June 7 episode. After nearly 25 years and 10 children, she said they had grown apart and she was “emotionally done.”
“Barry and I have decided to live separately for a while,” said Kim, who initiated the split. “The easiest way to do that right now is whenever one of our rental properties is vacant, I pack a bag and I go and I stay there.”
The couple then slowly started telling their children, but things seemed to be a lot harder on Barry, 54.
“We’ve had conversations here and there and the feedback I’m getting is she isn’t happy,” Barry shared in a confessional. “There was this whole issue of just taking her for granted, and it was a real big wake-up.”
Since Moriah has been going through her own recent break-up with ex Max Kallschmidt, she tells PEOPLE that she and her mom have been leaning on each other during these difficult times.
“My mom was taking a lot of time for herself, taking the girls and… going to the beach or going on vacation, or taking them to stay in another Airbnb house, a different house that they have and working on things just separately from my dad,” she explains.
One of those vacations included a recent trip to Tampa, Florida, where Moriah lives with brother Ethan and sister-in-law, Olivia.
After calling her mom in need of support following her split with Max, Moriah says Kim dropped everything to be by her side — and it meant the world to the aspiring singer.
“I was going through my own heartbreak and my mom was — both my parents, all of my family, have been my biggest support group ever, that I could ever ask for,” Moriah says. “Some of our relationships have been really rocky at times, but I’ve realized through all of this though, they’re going to have my back no matter what. It doesn’t matter what I choose to do in my life. I could be a stripper and bartender and they’d be like, ‘Well, we still love her,’ and it’s such a turnaround from where we were a year ago, even two years ago.”
In return, Moriah has done her best to be there for her mother.
“She would call me and talk to me about where she was at and where she was struggling, and honestly get my opinions on things,” Moriah shares. “She would just be like, ‘I know how it is.’ Just because I was going through it at the same time, she could relate to me, and so we talked about that a lot together.”
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While she understands her mom’s perspective, Moriah says she has remained neutral in the situation — and she intends to keep it that way.
“At the end of the day, I just want her and my dad to be happy,” she explains. “It’s really hard because they both want different things, so it’s hard watching. I want my dad to be happy, but this is tearing him apart, but my mom’s not going to be happy with my dad.”
“So it’s just — I don’t know, people change,” she adds. “Things fall apart sometimes. You just got to be able to be there for yourself at the end of the day.”
[via]
