Many facets of your daily life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Your hobbies, your professional life, and even your love life can be impacted by hearing loss, for example. Communication can become tense for couples who are dealing with hearing loss. This can cause increased tension, more quarrels, and even the development of animosity. If untreated, in other words, hearing loss can have a significantly negative effect on your relationship.
So how are relationships impacted by hearing loss? These difficulties occur, in part, because people are often not aware that they even have hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is normally a slow-moving and difficult to recognize 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. Practical solutions may be difficult to find as both partners feel more and more alienated.
Frequently, a diagnosis of hearing loss along with helpful strategies from a hearing specialist can help couples start communicating again, and better their relationships.
Can relationships be impacted by hearing loss?
It’s really easy to overlook hearing loss when it first presents. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings because of this. Consequently, there are a few common problems that develop:
- Arguments: Arguments are pretty common in pretty much all relationships. But arguments will be even more frustrating when one or both partners are dealing with hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will ignite more often because of an increase in misunderstandings. Hearing loss related behavioral changes, such as requiring volumes to be painfully loud, can also become a source of tension
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is often the foundation of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. Increased tension and frustration are often the consequence.
- Feeling ignored: When someone doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel ignored. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is unaware of it, this can frequently happen. Feeling like your partner is not paying attention to you isn’t good for long-term relationship health.
- Couples frequently mistake hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is when somebody effortlessly hears something like “let’s go get some ice cream”, but somehow misses something like “let’s do some spring cleaning”. In some cases, selective hearing is absolutely unintentional, and in others, it can be a conscious decision. Spouses will frequently start to miss particular words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound jumbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can often be mistaken for “selective hearing,” causing resentment and tension in the relationship.
In many cases, this friction starts to occur before any actual diagnosis of hearing loss. Feelings of resentment may be worse when parties don’t suspect hearing loss is the root issue (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on disregarding their symptoms).
Living with somebody who is dealing with loss of hearing
How do you live with somebody who has hearing loss when hearing loss can create so much conflict? This will only be an issue for couples who aren’t willing to develop new communication strategies. Here are a few of those strategies:
- 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 under control, communication is usually more effective (and many other areas of tension may go away also). In addition, managing hearing loss is a safety issue: hearing loss can effect your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. You could also fail to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get help managing any of these potential issues by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Utilize different words when you repeat yourself: When your partner doesn’t hear what you said, you will usually try repeating yourself. But try changing the words you use rather than using the same words. Hearing loss can affect some frequencies of speech more than others, which means certain words might be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- Try to talk face-to-face as often as possible: For somebody who is dealing with hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give an abundance of visual cues. Your partner will be able to read facial cues and body language. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to preserve concentration. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have a less difficult time understanding what you mean.
- Patience: When you recognize that your partner has hearing loss, patience is especially important. You may have to repeat yourself more frequently or raise the volume of your voice. You might also have to talk more slowly. The effectiveness of your communication can be significantly improved by practicing this type of patience.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can include things like taking over chores that cause significant anxiety (like going to the grocery store or making phone calls). You can also ask your partner’s hearing specialist if there are ways you can help them get used to their hearing aids.
What happens after you get diagnosed?
A hearing exam is a relatively simple, non-invasive experience. Usually, you will simply put on a pair 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 get in touch with us can help guarantee that hearing loss doesn’t sabotage your happiness or your partnership.