Woman divorced husband after his traumatic brain injury and married again
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@followmetothemouse
Topics: Health, TikTok, Life, Sex and Relationships
Anish Vij
An inspirational wife, and her equally as inspirational new husband, continue to look after her old spouse who sadly suffered a traumatic brain injury from a car accident.
In 2008, Kristen Armstrong received the phone call that no wife wants to hear - her husband Brandon Smith was in the neuro trauma intensive care unit due to a horror car crash.
At this point, Kristen, a 23-year-old speech pathologist, and Brandon, a 24-year-old auto mechanic, had been married for two years after having been together since high school.
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Brandon was placed in a coma for two months and needed around-the-clock care after being moved into a nursing care facility in Texas.
“They couldn’t tell me if he was alive or not,” Kristen, 38, told TODAY.com. “I remember asking my mom, ‘What will I do if Brandon is gone?’
“Even though Brandon’s doctors warned me that if he did wake up, he would be forever changed because of his severe traumatic brain injury, I held onto hope that a miracle would happen and he’d be the same Brandon.
"But he wasn’t. Every morning I woke up and I was hit by this train of sadness.
“I was grieving a living person, and that was very complicated and isolating.”
Kristen had plans to spend the rest of her life with her 'soulmate', her 'best friend' and she dreamed of having children with Brandon.
After learning that Brandon would never be the same, she made the decision to get a divorce.
However, as soon as she made the 'gut-wrenching' call to split from the love of her life, she also promised to look after him forever.
What's even more remarkable, her new husband, James Armstrong, of whom she has been married to since 2015, is doing the same.
“We bring Brandon to our house every week and we take him out to restaurants," Kristen says. “What makes it really beautiful is how much my family has accepted Brandon as a part of their family.”
In a now-viral TikTok video, viewers have been stunned by the heartwarming footage of James lovingly spot-feeding Brandon at a restaurant.
"Your husband is 1 in a million. I don’t know many men or women that would do that!" one person commented.
While another added: "If my heart could explode, it would’ve already. God bless you all and thank you for showing us that there are people out there with hearts."
This story definitely gives me some hope for humanity.