A mum has been slammed as "selfish" for divorcing her husband after he suffered a brain aneurysm which turned him into a "different person."
39-year-old Kim Beyer had been married to her husband Matthias, 43, for ten years when he suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm while at work in 2015. Matthias' brain was so swollen he had an operation to remove part of his skull as his brain wouldn't fit inside his head.
The electrical engineer was in a coma for 10 days, and Kim was warned by doctors he wasn't likely to survive. Miraculously, on the day his life support machine was due to be turned off, "amazing" Matthias started to show signs of consciousness.
Though the mum-of-two from Columbus, Ohio, was thrilled when her husband woke from his coma, she says the aneurysm has turned him into a different person.
Kim said communicating with him was difficult and he would become fixated on things that were insignificant. The musician, who has two children, Sam 11, and Henry, 8, with Matthias, told him she wanted a divorce last year.
Kim decided to share her story on social media but was met with "mean" commenters who branded her "self-centred" for abandoning her wedding vows. But she said they can't criticise as they don't understand the situation.
She claims the "most loving thing she could do" in the terrible situation was to "let him go" and divorce him - so they could remain friends.
Kim said: "Matthias was very bubbly, optimistic, a very warm-hearted person and everyone loved him. I fell in love with him because he was kind, honest and had a lot of integrity.
"Our relationship was great. We were both really invested and committed. We were happy.
"After the aneurysm, my attention was divided between his needs and the children's. If he was having a bad day, he would struggle with things that don't make sense like a rug being dirty but there's more important things we need to take care of.
"He would become fixated. He was never angry or cruel. It's not night and day, I know women whose husbands had an aneurysm and became really angry but that didn't happen with him.
"Years went by between us actually being able to have a conversation. He was here but not really. Physically here but staring through and not aware of his surroundings.
"Last year I realised our kids were getting the short end of the stick, not getting the attention they needed. Matthias wasn't getting the attention he needed, I was stretched thin.
"It was very hard to accept that the marriage was over. We'd been married for 18 years but I knew he wasn't the same as he was before. I'd been grieving the loss of our marriage for seven years."
Matthias returned to his native Germany in November and their divorce was finalised in May.
"He's lost the ability to express emotion so it wasn't a very emotional conversation when I told him I wanted a divorce," Kim explained.
"The reaction you would expect wasn't over the top. I told him it wasn't the end of our relationship but the relationship was changing and it was going to be a friendship from now on. It was an emotional day when he left."
Kim explained that she and Matthias' families fully supported her decision to divorce, but strangers online have criticised her for "abandoning" her husband.
One commenter wrote: "Why get married? Why make the vow of 'in sickness and health' if you don't mean it? Horrible people. You should be there until the very end. You promised."
Another said: "This is the most self-centred person ever." A third said: "What were her wedding vows?"
Kim said: "People who know us have seen the situation so they didn't criticise us. The people who don't know us have had a bad reaction. People online are pretty mean.
"People say I abandoned him, deserted him when he needed us most which is ridiculous because he needed us most when he first woke up and we got him back to a very independent state.
"People said that we should have moved to Germany with him but the kids have been through so much so I'm not going to move them to a foreign country on top of it.
"To the people who've had a negative reaction, I hope it never happens to you because it's terrible and you just do the best you can. He'd progressed to a point where we'd got him as far as we could and he'd need another level of care.
"He has family members willing to care for him and Germany is amazing at taking care of people in a medical crisis. It was a practical decision."
Matthias and Kim met when he was an exchange student in the US, and they married just a year later. After his brain aneurysm, Matthias had occupational therapy, speech therapy and physical therapy to try to gain back his independence while Kim took time off work to care for him.
"He wasn't expected to live," said Kim. "I went into shock, it felt like I was going through the motions. I still had to take care of kids and eat. It was very bizarre and surreal and I almost didn't believe I was in it.
"I was so excited when he woke up. We were thrilled. He worked really hard to gain independence. He's not fully recovered but he's pretty independent now.
"He's able to walk unassisted and has a lot of speech back in both languages. Mentally he's pretty there but he struggles with memory. He's doing very well."
