Many facets of your day-to-day life can be impacted by Hearing Loss. Untreated hearing loss, for example, can impact your professional life, your favorite hobbies, and even your relationships. Communication can become strained for couples who are coping with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent arguments. If untreated, in other words, hearing loss can have a substantially negative impact on your relationship.
So how are relationships affected by hearing loss? These challenges arise, in part, because people are usually oblivious that they even have hearing loss. Hearing loss usually is, after all, a slowly developing condition. As a result, you (and your partner) may not recognize that hearing loss is the base cause of your communication problems. This can result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it difficult to find workable solutions.
Relationships can be helped 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. Couples can have significant misunderstandings as a result of this. As a result, there are a few common problems that develop:
- It isn’t uncommon for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what occurs when someone hears “we’re having brownies for dessert” very clearly, but somehow does not hear “we need to take out the garbage before we eat”. In some instances, selective hearing is a conscious action, in other cases, it’s quite unintended. Spouses will frequently start to miss certain words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound jumbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can sometimes lead to tension and resentment because one spouse confuses this for “selective hearing”.
- Arguments: Arguments are pretty common in almost all relationships. But arguments will be even more aggravating when one or both partners are dealing with hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will break out more frequently due to an increase in misunderstandings. For others, an increase in arguments could be a result of changes in behavior (for instance, boosting the volume on the television to painful levels).
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is often the foundation of intimacy. And when that communication breaks down, all parties might feel more separated from one another. Increased tension and frustration are often the consequence.
- Feeling ignored: When someone doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel disregarded. This can frequently happen when one partner is experiencing hearing loss and doesn’t know it. The long-term health of your relationship can be severely put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being ignored.
These problems will frequently begin before anyone is diagnosed with hearing loss. If someone doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the issue, or if they are disregarding their symptoms, feelings of resentment could be worse.
Living with a person who is dealing with loss of hearing
How do you live with somebody who has hearing loss when hearing loss can cause so much conflict? For couples who are willing to formulate new communication strategies, this usually isn’t an issue. Here are a few of those strategies:
- When you repeat what you said, try utilizing different words: Usually, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner fails to 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 certain words may be harder to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help reinforce your message.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: Your partner’s hearing loss can be managed with our help. When hearing loss is well-managed, communication is typically more effective (and many other areas of stress may recede too). In addition, managing hearing loss is a safety issue: hearing loss can impact your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. You might also fail to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get assistance managing any of these potential problems by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Patience: When you recognize that your partner has hearing loss, patience is especially important. You may need to change the way you talk, like raising your volume for example. You might also have to talk more slowly. The effectiveness of your communication can be substantially improved by practicing this kind of patience.
- As much as you can, try to look directly into the face of the person you’re speaking with: For somebody who has hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give lots of visual cues. You will be providing your partner with body language and facial cues. It’s also easier to maintain concentration and eye contact. 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: Maybe you could do things like taking over trips to the grocery store or other tasks that cause your partner stress. There also might be ways you can help your partner get accustomed to their hearing aids and we can assist you with that.
What happens after you get diagnosed?
A hearing examination is a fairly simple, non-invasive experience. Usually, you will simply put on a set of headphones and listen for specific tones. But a hearing loss diagnosis can be an important step to more effectively managing symptoms and relationships.
Encouraging your partner to get in touch with us can help ensure that hearing loss doesn’t sabotage your happiness or your partnership.