Woman criticized for divorcing husband after aneurysm

An Ohio woman has been labeled “self-centered” after divorcing her husband because she felt his brain aneurysm turned him into a “different person.”

“People say I abandoned him, deserted him when he needed us most,” Kim Beyer, 39, told Kennedy News of breaking off her marriage of ten years. “People online are pretty mean.”

The mother of two had reportedly met her husband Matthias, 43, in 2004 while the then-German exchange student was studying abroad in the US.

They wed the following year and embarked on what Beyer described as a very “happy” relationship.

“Matthias was very bubbly, optimistic, a very warm-hearted person and everyone loved him,” recalled the Columbus resident. “I fell in love with him because he was kind, honest and had a lot of integrity.”

She added that their marriage worked well because both parties “were really invested and committed.”

All was going swimmingly until 2015 when Matthias suffered a nearly fatal brain aneurysm — a bulging blood vessel in the brain — while at his electrical engineering job.

The imperiled fellow was subsequently rushed to the hospital, where surgeons had to remove part of the patient’s skull because his brain wouldn’t fit inside his head.

Despite their best efforts, Matthias went into a coma for ten days with doctors fearing that the German would not pull through.

Then, just when they were about to shut off his life support machine, Matthias started to show signs of life.

“I was so excited when he woke up. We were thrilled,” exclaimed Beyer of the miraculous moment.

However, her joy soon fizzled after she noticed that her husband seemed to have undergone a drastic personality change following the ordeal.

“He was here but not really,” Beyer lamented. “Physically here but staring through and not aware of his surroundings.”

She added that it had been years since they last had a real conversation.

When he was present, Matthias would fixate on insignificant problems like a “dirty rug” and ignore the “more important things” the couple needed to attend to, she said.

The one silver lining was that her hubby reportedly never acted angry or lashed out — a common aneurysm symptom that Beyer had seen in her friends’ husbands who’d also experienced the condition.

Nonetheless, life was hard for the Ohioan, who took time off work to care for her husband while he underwent occupational therapy, speech therapy and physical therapy to try and regain his independence.

This proved particularly grueling as Beyer was forced to split her time between tending to Matthias and caring for their two children, Sam, 11, and Henry, 8.

Realizing that she didn’t have enough time and energy to devote to both, the “stretched thin” gal eventually decided to pull the plug on their marriage.

“He’s lost the ability to express emotion so it wasn’t a very emotional conversation when I told him I wanted a divorce,” described Beyer of untying the knot. “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.”

Matthias returned to Germany in November to live with family members while the pair finalized their divorce in May.

Needless to say, Beyer’s decision to split with her special needs husband didn’t sit well on social media with critics accusing her of betraying her wedding vows.

“Why get married?” exclaimed one critic. “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.”

“This is the most self-centered person ever,” declared another.

However, Beyer hit back at critics, claiming it was only strangers who had a “bad reaction” and that Matthias’ family members were on board with her “practical decision.”

“He has family members willing to care for him and Germany is amazing at taking care of people in a medical crisis,” she declared.

She said she found the criticism ludicrous as her husband “needed us most when he first woke up and we got him back to a very independent state.”

“He’d progressed to a point where we’d got him as far as we could and he’d need another level of care,” she claimed.

Matthias is currently “doing very well,” according to Beyer, who claims 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,” she claimed, adding that her former flame is mentally present despite struggling with memory.

The American even uploaded a recent video call with her ex to Instagram, in which Matthias updated viewers on his condition.

The aneurysm survivor demonstrated how he could walk and lift his arms — a task he was reportedly unable to do pre-therapy — and, with some difficulty, described how he’d even started lifting weights.

When Beyer asked if he thought she was a bad person, Matthias declared: “Of course not, I love you.”

Ultimately, Beyer believes that people shouldn’t criticize her decision unless they’ve been in her shoes: “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.”

This isn’t the first time someone has been accused of leaving her partner during their time of need.

Earlier this month, a New York City woman was lambasted for divorcing her dying husband on the alleged grounds that he, among other things, wallowed in self-pity during his battle with testicular cancer.