Many facets of your day-to-day life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Your pastimes, your professional life, and even your love life can be impacted by hearing loss, for instance. Communication can become tense for couples who are coping with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent quarrels. If ignored, in other words, hearing loss can have a significantly negative impact on your relationship.
So how are relationships affected by hearing loss? These difficulties happen, in part, because people are usually oblivious that they even have hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is normally a slow-moving and difficult to notice 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 issue. This can result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it difficult to find practical solutions.
Frequently, a diagnosis of hearing loss coupled with helpful strategies from a hearing specialist can help couples begin communicating again, and improve their relationships.
Can relationships be impacted by hearing loss?
It’s really easy to ignore hearing loss when it first presents. This can result in significant misunderstandings between couples. The following common issues can develop as a result:
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is usually the basis of intimacy. And when that communication breaks down, all parties might feel more distant from each other. Consequently, hearing loss might introduce friction throughout the relationship, leading to more frustration and tension.
- Feeling ignored: You would probably feel like you’re being ignored 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 take place. The long-term health of your relationship can be significantly put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being ignored.
- Couples often mistake hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what occurs when somebody hears “we’re having cake for dessert” very clearly, but somehow does not hear “we need to take out the trash before we eat”. In some circumstances, selective hearing is a conscious action, in other instances, it’s quite unintended. One of the most frequent 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 mistakes this for “selective hearing”.
- Arguments: Arguments are fairly common in pretty much all relationships. But when hearing loss is present, those arguments can be even more aggravating. Arguments can become more frequent too. For others, an increase in arguments could be a result of changes in behavior (for instance, increasing the volume on the television to painful volumes).
Often, this friction starts to happen before any actual diagnosis of hearing loss. If somebody doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the problem, or if they are ignoring their symptoms, feelings of resentment could be worse.
Tips for living with someone who is dealing with hearing loss
If hearing loss can lead to so much conflict in a relationship, how do you live with someone who has hearing loss? For couples who are willing to establish new communication techniques, this usually is not an issue. Here are a few of those strategies:
- Try to talk face-to-face as frequently as you can: 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. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to preserve concentration. This provides your partner with more information to process, and that usually makes it easier to understand your intent.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can include things like taking over tasks that cause significant stress (such as going to the grocery store or making phone calls). There also might be ways you can help your partner get accustomed to their hearing aids and we can help you with that.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner manage their hearing loss. When hearing loss is under control, communication is typically more effective (and many other areas of stress may go away as well). Safety is also a concern with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. You might also fail to hear oncoming traffic. We can help your partner better manage any of these potential issues.
- Use different words when you repeat yourself: Usually, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner doesn’t hear you. But instead of using the same words again and again, try changing things up. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means some words might be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help reinforce your message.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner is dealing with hearing loss, patience is especially important. You might have to repeat yourself more often or raise the volume of your voice. You may also have to talk more slowly. This kind of patience can be a challenge, but it can also dramatically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
A hearing examination is a relatively simple, non-invasive experience. In most instances, those who are tested will do little more than wear specialized headphones and raise a hand when they hear a tone. You will be better able to regulate 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.
