Many facets of your daily life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Your pastimes, your professional life, and even your love life can be affected by hearing loss, for instance. For couples who are struggling with hearing loss, communication can become strained. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent arguments. If ignored, in other words, hearing loss can have a substantially negative impact on your relationship.
So how are relationships affected by hearing loss? In part, these hardships arise because the individuals are not aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is normally a slow-moving and difficult to detect condition. Communication might be tense because of hearing loss and you and your partner might not even be aware it’s the root of the problem. This can result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it difficult to find workable solutions.
Relationships can be helped and communication can start to be mended when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get practical solutions from us.
Can relationships be affected by hearing loss?
When hearing loss is in the early stages, it can be hard to identify. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings as a result of this. As a result, there are a few common issues that develop:
- Feeling ignored: You would most likely feel like you’re being disregarded if you addressed somebody and they didn’t respond. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is unaware of it, this can often occur. Feeling like your partner isn’t paying attention to you isn’t good for long-term relationship health.
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is usually the foundation of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. As a result, hearing loss might introduce friction throughout the relationship, ultimately causing more frustration and tension.
- Couples frequently confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what happens when someone hears “we’re having cake for dessert” very distinctly, but somehow does not hear “we need to take out the garbage before we eat”. Sometimes, selective hearing is absolutely unintended, and in others, it can be a conscious choice. One of the most common effects of hearing loss on a spouse is that they may start to miss words or certain phrases will seem garbled. This can sometimes lead to tension and resentment because one spouse confuses this for “selective hearing”.
- Arguments: It isn’t uncommon for arguments to occur in a relationship, at least, sometimes. But when hearing loss is present, those arguments can become even more aggravating. Arguments can become more frequent too. Hearing loss associated behavioral changes, such as needing volumes to be painfully loud, can also become a source of tension
In many cases, this friction starts to occur before any formal diagnosis of hearing loss. Feelings of bitterness may be worse when parties don’t know hearing loss is the root problem (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on disregarding their symptoms).
Advice for living with someone who is dealing with hearing loss
How do you live with somebody who is dealing with hearing loss when hearing loss can cause so much conflict? For couples who are willing to develop new communication strategies, this typically isn’t an issue. Here are some of those strategies:
- As much as you can, try to look directly into the face of the person you’re talking with: Communicating face-to-face can furnish a wealth of visual clues for somebody with hearing loss. You will be providing your partner with body language and facial cues. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to maintain concentration. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have a less difficult time understanding what you mean.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: Maybe you could do things like taking over trips to the grocery store or other tasks that cause your partner anxiety. There also might be ways you can help your partner get used to their hearing aids and we can help you with that.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: Your partner’s hearing loss can be managed with our help. Many areas of stress will fade away and communication will be more effective when hearing loss is well managed. In addition, treating hearing loss is a safety concern: hearing loss can impact your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. You could also fail to hear oncoming traffic. We can help your partner better manage any of these potential problems.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner is dealing with hearing loss, patience is particularly important. You might need to change the way you speak, like raising your volume for example. It might also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be significantly improved by exercising this type of patience.
- Make use of different words when you repeat yourself: Normally, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner doesn’t hear you. But try changing the words you use instead of using the same words. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means certain words may be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
Hearing tests are typically non-invasive and really simple. In most cases, individuals who undergo tests will do little more than wear specialized headphones and raise their hand when they hear a sound. You will be better able to manage your symptoms and your relationships after you get a diagnosis.
Take the hearing loss associated tension out of your relationship by encouraging your partner to come see us for a hearing assessment.
