Many aspects of your daily life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Neglected hearing loss, for instance, can affect your professional life, your favorite pastimes, and even your relationships. For couples who are coping with hearing loss, communication can become strained. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent quarrels. If untreated, in other words, hearing loss can have a substantially negative effect on your relationship.
So how are relationships affected by hearing loss? In part, these difficulties happen because the individuals aren’t aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually a slow-moving and difficult to recognize condition. Communication may be tense because of hearing loss and you and your partner may not even be aware it’s the root of the problem. This can result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it hard to find practical solutions.
Relationships can be improved and communication can begin to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get reliable solutions from us.
Can relationships be affected by hearing loss?
When hearing loss is in the early stages, it can be hard to identify. This can lead to significant misunderstandings between couples. The following common problems can develop as a result:
- Feeling ignored: When someone doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel dismissed. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is oblivious of it, this can frequently take place. Feeling as if your partner isn’t paying attention to you isn’t good for long-term relationship health.
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of relationships, communication is the cornerstone of intimacy. And when that communication becomes harder, all parties might feel more distant from each other. Increased tension and frustration are frequently the result.
- It’s not unusual for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what occurs when somebody hears “we’re having cake for dessert” very clearly, but somehow doesn’t hear “we need to take out the garbage before we eat”. Sometimes, selective hearing is absolutely unintentional, and in others, it can be a conscious choice. Spouses will often begin to miss particular words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound garbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can sometimes result in tension and resentment because one spouse mistakes this for “selective hearing”.
- Arguments: It’s not abnormal for arguments to take place in a relationship, at least, sometimes. But arguments will be even more aggravating when one or both partners have hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will ignite more frequently because of an increase in misunderstandings. For others, an increase in arguments could be a consequence of changes in behavior (for instance, boosting the volume on the television to painful volumes).
Often, this friction starts to occur before any actual diagnosis of hearing loss. If someone doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the problem, or if they are ignoring their symptoms, feelings of resentment could get worse.
Living with a person who is dealing with loss of hearing
How do you live with a person who is dealing with hearing loss when hearing loss can create so much conflict? This will only be a problem for couples who aren’t willing to formulate new communication strategies. Some of those strategies include the following:
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: Maybe you could do things like taking over the grocery shopping or other tasks that cause your partner anxiety. You can also ask your partner’s hearing specialist if there are ways you can help them get accustomed to their hearing aids.
- Patience: When you recognize that your partner is dealing with hearing loss, patience is especially important. You may have to change the way you talk, like raising your volume for example. You might also have to speak more slowly. This type of patience can be challenging, but it can also drastically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
- When you repeat what you said, try making use of different words: When your partner doesn’t understand what you said, you will usually try repeating yourself. But try changing the words you use instead of using the same words. Hearing loss can affect some frequencies of speech more than others, which means some words might be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Your message can be reinforced by changing the words you use.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner regulate their hearing loss. Many areas of stress will fade away and communication will be more effective when hearing loss is well controlled. Safety is also a concern with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. You could also fail to hear oncoming traffic. We can help your partner better manage any of these potential concerns.
- Try to communicate face-to-face as frequently as possible: For somebody who is dealing with hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give lots of visual cues. You will be supplying your partner with body language and facial cues. It’s also easier to maintain concentration and eye contact. This supplies your partner with more information to process, and that usually makes it easier to understand your intent.
What happens after you get diagnosed?
Hearing tests are typically non-invasive and really simple. Usually, you will simply put on a set of headphones and listen for specific tones. You will be better able to manage your symptoms and your relationships after you get a diagnosis.
Encouraging your partner to touch base with us can help guarantee that hearing loss doesn’t undermine your happiness or your partnership.