Welcome to Plathville‘s Kim Plath and Barry Plath are officially ending their marriage. Two years after the TLC stars announced they were separating after 24 years of marriage, Kim, 51, filed for divorce from Barry, 56, on June 26.
According to documents obtained by Starcasm, Kim called her marriage to Barry “irretrievably broken,” listing their date of separation as Dec. 23, 2021. Kim is requesting primary custody of the couple’s three minor children – Amber, 15, Cassia, 13, and Mercy, 11 – and insists she is a “a fit and proper parent” to care for them where she resides now in Florida.
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Barry, she says, is “gainfully employed” and should provide child support for his minor children. The reality personality also claims she is entitled to “equitable division” of the marital assets and says that their debts should be divided between both her and Barry.
Kim and Barry are also parents to adult children Ethan, 26, Hosanna, 24, Micah, 23, Moriah, 21, Lydia, 20, and Isaac, 18. The couple also shared a son, Joshua, who died at 17 months old in a tragic accident at home.
The Plath couple announced they had separated in June 2022, saying in a statement at the time, “After considerable thought and discussion, we have decided to end our marriage. While this was not an easy decision, we know it’s the best choice for both of us.” They continued, “We have been through many highs and lows in our 24 years of marriage and as we navigate this new chapter in our lives, we will co-parent our amazing children.”
As news of their separation made headlines, the couple’s troubled marriage played out on Season 4 of Welcome to Plathville, with Kim saying on the show shortly before their split announcement that she was “not happy” in her marriage and felt like she had been “hurt too much” to repair things. Barry said on the show, “I can’t help but feel a little betrayed. One thing I thought wouldn’t ever be shaken was us. Now it’s totally shaken up. It’s just really sad. It’s a tragedy.”
In February, Barry and Kim’s eldest son Ethan and his estranged wife Olivia 26, also filed for divorce after five years of marriage. “Olivia and I have parted ways,” Ethan wrote on social media in October. “It just didn’t work between us, though Lord knows we both gave it all we had. It seemed we were constantly pulling each other in opposite directions in life with different goals. I wish Olivia the best in the future ahead. I care for her deeply and always will.”
In an October episode of Welcome to Plathville, Olivia admitted she had “regrets” about her marriage. “Ethan is the one and only relationship I’ve ever been in, so I have nothing to compare it to,” she said at the time. “The more I deconstruct all the beliefs around marriage that I was taught growing up, the more I feel kind of confused about what I [should] expect out of a relationship.”
