'Welcome to Plathville': Olivia Plath Tears Up as She and Ethan Prepare to Spend Months Apart (Exclusive)

In PEOPLE's exclusive sneak peek at Tuesday's season 5 premiere, Ethan promises to call Olivia every day while he's in Cairo, Georgia, and she admits it's "really scary" for them to live apart

Ethan and Olivia Plath continue to face challenges in their marriage on Welcome to Plathville.

In PEOPLE's exclusive sneak peek at Tuesday's season 5 premiere of the TLC hit, Olivia, 25, worries as her husband, also 25, prepares to go to Cairo, Georgia — his hometown — for two-and-a-half months to work on cars while she stays behind.

"I'm feeling kind of torn," she admits in an interview. "I understand the importance of him working on his cars and getting those finished. But I'm not gonna lie and say that, like, I don't feel nervous or anxious. Living apart from your spouse for two-and-a-half months is honestly really scary. Especially when, you know, there's a lot of family stuff involved."

Tentsion between Olivia and the rest of the Plath family has been increasing ever since she and Ethan's sister — and her former best friend — Moriah, 21, had a falling out. Things were already rocky between Olivia and her in-laws as she and Ethan's mother Kim, 51, do not get along.

"Two-and-a-half months is a long time," she muses out loud to Ethan. "You gonna talk to me while you’re there?"

Ethan promises to call her "every day."

Related: 'Welcome to Plathville': Barry Plath Suggests Olivia Is 'Brainwashing' His Son Ethan (Exclusive)

In an interview, he admits that he needs to make consistent communication with his wife a big priority while he's away.

"She was like, ‘If you're dead set on doing this, you have to communicate. You can't just disappear, because that's my worst fear. When you go up to Cairo, you get to work on your cars, you’re with your family or whatever, you just cease to communicate,'" he shares.

He adds that Olivia has made it clear that she doesn't want to have to call his relatives or friends and get them to chase him down "with a telephone like, ‘Ethan! Talk to your wife!’"

Plathville fans have long speculated about the couple, who tied the knot in Oct. 2018. In addition to their lack of social media posts about each other since early this year, they've faced various relationship challenges on screen. In 2021, Olivia moved out of their shared home for a time.

“I don't know what will happen," she said on a previous episode. "I was trying so hard to, like, make the marriage work. But I just realized that as long as I stayed and kind of kept Ethan's world together, he was able to just ignore everything that was happening."

Related: 'Welcome to Plathville' 's Olivia Plath Reveals Her History with Kim — and Their First Argument

However, they managed to work things out and seemed to be going strong in season 4, which finished airing in early August 2022. “When high school sweethearts find each other there isn't much that can separate us," Ethan wrote on Instagram in September 2022 following a romantic summer in Europe together.

Olivia seemed to set the record straight about separation rumors in June 2023 when she responded head-on in the comments section of an Instagram post claiming she and Ethan were headed for divorce. "There is a lot of speculation going around, but if Ethan and I had something to share, we would," she wrote.

Related: Welcome to Plathville's Olivia Opens Up About Moving Away from Ethan's Parents, Starting a Family

Then in July, she shared an Instagram story featuring the two of them attending a dinner party together. Ethan sat to her left in the photo, which was accompanied by a heart hands emoji. A rep for Welcome to Plathville declined to comment at the time. Last month, they attended a Plath family wedding and were seen in a photo together.

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Welcome to Plathville season 5 premieres on Tuesday, Sept. 5 at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.

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